Parenting the Collective

If you’ve read Raising Arrows for very long, or heard me speak at conventions, or listened to interviews I’ve given you know I stress the importance of allowing your children to be unique.  I believe God blesses everyone, children included, with special talents and gifts that are to be used to further His kingdom, and it is important we honor those individual gifts.  We are made in His image – an infinitely creative and diverse image.

However, we are also a family.  One Body, many parts.

But, I haven’t always embraced this.

Let me tell you a story, one I see in a totally different light than I once did…

Years ago, I had a Trekky friend remark about how she called herself and her children by numbers, reminiscent of Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager.  They happened to have nine people in their family, and therefore, her husband was One of Nine, she was Two of Nine, and her youngest was Nine of Nine.

I was appalled.

My unique, free-spirited self balked at the thought of parenting a collective.  We weren’t Borg.  The Borg were oppressive.  They were controlling, manipulative, and dangerous.  And they certainly did not give credence to the unique spirit of the individual.

What I missed was the essence of her musing.  She went on to say she liked being a part of something.  She liked being a collective – a family – a group of people who belonged to each other and to something bigger than themselves.

Focus on the Family likened this sort of parenting to being a coach.

You can coach individuals, but you can’t do that for very long without losing the essence of the team.  (Remember back in high school when that one coach favored that one player and it grated on everyone else’s nerves?)  So, when one child has a problem, we cannot simply spend all of our time focusing on that one child’s issue to the exclusion of the other children.  We need to circle the wagons, rally the troops, and parent the collective.

We ARE a family.  God put ALL of us in THIS family.  Just as I said we are the mother our children need right now, our spouse and our children and the order in which they came into our home and all of the blessings and troubles we’ve enjoyed and endured over the years are EXACTLY what makes us a family.

WE ARE UNIQUE!

{my Seven of Nine children}

So, while I do still believe it is imperative we honor the individuality of each of our children, I no longer balk at the thought of parenting the collective.  We belong to something greater than ourselves, and it is this sense of community that keeps us going.  It is what the lonely long for.  It is a sense of belonging, of being a part of something, and I WANT to be a part of THIS something – THIS collective!

America has sadly lost much of its family identity.  There is no one to parent.  There is no one to care for.  There is no collective, no team, no common goal.  We are afraid of losing ourselves, so we spend our lives “finding ourselves.”  What we’ve missed all along is the fact that there is strength in numbers (Ecclesiastes 4:12) and identity in oneness (Galatians 3:26-28).