Is parenting a vanity too?

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I was preaching on Ecclesiastes 3 yesterday, and made what I guess is the pretty familiar point that although we experience meaning in our daily lives, we also experience the frustration, bewilderment and ‘vanity’ of life under the sun. We know that there is a bigger story—there is eternity in our hearts—and so we see the beauty or appropriateness of different things that happen (a time for this and a time for that). And yet God has also made sure that we “cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (v. 11). There is a frustrating opacity to life that is meant to humble us, and lead us to fear God (v. 14).

I applied this to our working life, where we do and achieve good things and (under God’s blessing) find satisfaction in our toil. And yet there is also a sense of pointlessness to it all, not least because like the beasts we die and return to dust (vv. 18-19), and all our achievements fade away or are passed on to someone else. (Hence the common experience of the businessman’s mid-life crisis: Now that I’ve climbed the ladder, what was it all for? What’s the point?)

But then I did something a little riskier and also applied this idea to parenting. Simply having children and raising them is much the same—it is good and right, and if God blesses us we find great joy and satisfaction in it. And yet, family life is also frustrating and bewildering, and we are prevented from seeing the larger purpose of what God is doing. Why do we have children and raise them, since both they and we will die like the beasts and return to dust? Is it so that they in turn will have children and raise them, who in turn will have children and raise them? What is the larger point? What’s it all for?

In our culture, where we tend to worship our children and our families, this a particularly challenging idea: that pouring your whole life into your family is about as meaningful in the long run as pouring your whole life into your work. It too is a vanity of vanities that is meant to humble us, and lead us to fear God.

Fair point do you think?

(And yes, comments are open for this one!)

8 thoughts on “Is parenting a vanity too?”

  1. It would depend if they are Christians or not, to some extent. The other part depends on whether we are ministering to their needs with the gospel as well as wiping their bottoms for them, metaphorically speaking (eventually).

    If we minister to our families with the gospel, then the effects last into eternity and this work is necessarily meaningful.

  3. Tony, one might also add that you don’t know how your kids are going to turn out, despite your best efforts (not that anyone really turns in their best efforts in parenting), or of course, in spite of your poor efforts and bad mistakes.

    I think we can see this from Eccl 2:18-19, with the uncertainty regarding who inherits the things you’ve toiled for and not knowing whether they will be wise or foolish. Same thing in the ESV cross references – Ps 39:6; Ps 49:10. And presumably in the Bible, your children, perhaps especially your sons or first born son were normally primse candidates for inheritance, so the comments about the unpredictability of who inherits must apply to them.

    Now I know that typically, to generalise from Proverbs, wise parenting often produces sensible children, and that God loves to bless the children of those who fear him, but we all know this is not an infallible promise, and children make their own decisions.

    And I guess this applies both to the most important issue of trusting Christ and also the more general matters of how ‘successful’ (in a Proverbs sense) they are at life.

  4. I appreciate the point about family not being the thing that brings meaning to life. Jesus would have something to say about that too! (Matthew 10:37) So yes, “pouring your whole life into your family is about as meaningful in the long run as pouring your whole life into your work”. But I wouldn’t also conclude (not that you do!) that “parenting is about as meaningful in the long run as work”.

    That’s because I’m not sure you can equate parenting with work. Rather, I would equate it with ministry. When you teach and train your children to love and serve Jesus, you are working towards eternal results, even if the outcome is unpredictable and the parent fallible. Whereas secular work – fixing broken legs, removing the garbage – is a good, God-honouring thing, but doesn’t have eternal results as its primary goal.

    *Phew* Please don’t quote me on this! I’m just thinking out loud, and I’m aware I’ve opened a can of worms on the whole secular vs ministry work thing. But as a mum, I’m aware that our “work” can feel all too insignificant, because we don’t view it as “ministry”. But “ministry” is exactly what it is.

  5. Now that you’ve opened that can of worms, Jean, I’m sure I’m quite capable of making a meal out of it! So I won’t open up the secular ministry v. work issue.

    However, to stick with parenting: if you take Christian eschatology out of the discussion — that is, the meaning and significance and eternal value that attaches to our godly deeds and gospel ministry for the sake of Christ while we wait for his coming — then I wonder whether parenting is so different from work. Both are good gifts of God in creation; both have significance, and can bring joy and satisfaction as well as frustration and heartache; both participate in the fallenness and injustice of our judged world.

    That is, in the terms of Ecclesiastes, I would just suggest that parenting is very bit as much a mix of beauty, satisfaction, frustration and difficulty as work is; and just as incapable of providing us with a truly meaningful answer to our purpose in life and what God is doing in our world.

    But it cuts a little deeper for us, because I suspect we are more prepared to tolerate the idolatry of parenting these days, than the idolatry of work — if I can put it that way.

    Thanks again for the useful comments.

    • Yes, in Ecclesiastes terms, “under the sun”, of course you’re right.

  6. Tony – why do you equate “meaninglessness” and “vanity” in this article? An activity can be meaningless (or, more accurately, transient) even if done without any hint of vanity.

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