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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back to our newly relaunched parenting podcast. If you’re new, I welcome you. If you’re returning, thank you so much for joining me again today.
For you new people, Truth.Love.Parent. is a podcast that equips dads and moms to worship God with their parenting. So, though today’s episode title might sound a little silly, “Is being a parent like owning a puppy,” this is a really important question to consider because the Bible has a lot to say about parenting. By the way, the Bible also has things to say about dog ownership, but that will not be the focus of today’s episode. So, let’s jump right in. Topic
In case you’ve never heard it before, people have been making the claim that owning a puppy is a good introduction to having a baby. They’ve also said that parenting is like having a dog. And I’m sure we’ve all encountered someone who refers to themselves as their animal’s “mommy” or “daddy” and to their pet as their “fur baby.” Someone even posted on the socials recently about encountering an older woman at a store who was making it a point to show the employee a picture of her new “grand puppy.” She was carrying on the same way an actual grandmother would about her grandchild . . . only it was a dog. So, yeah, even if you’ve never heard it before, there are people who definitely equated dog ownership and parenting.
But is that valuable? Does it truly set up new and soon-to-be parents for success? That is the topic of today’s episode, and I hope it will be as informative as it is fun. But before we dive into the chewy center of today’s show, I want to tell you a little bit about the Truth.Love.Family. Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference. I had the privilege of presenting this conference in Howell, Michigan, and the amazing people there recorded the conference so we could share it with you. The conference includes nearly 3 hours of teaching spread over 6 sessions. I cover the purpose of parenting, the 5 types of parents, how to teach and reprove your child, how to correct and train your child, and I answer some great parenting questions in our two Q&A’s. In addition to the 6 hours of conference, you will also receive access to multiple hours of additional resources that build and expand on the conference material so that you can dig into any of the topics to a greater depth. And you can access it all for only $10. If you already have a free account on the Evermind App, all you have to do is purchase the conference in the Evermind App Overview tab under the Truth.Love.Family. Online Courses. It will be automatically added to your library, and you can start enjoying it today. If you haven’t downloaded the Evermind App and set up your free account yet, click on the link in the description to do so. I hope you’ll take advantage of this offer. Yes, purchasing the online course supports the ministry, but it supports your family that much more. Now, it’s time to get into our main show notes, but before I do, I thought I’d take a moment to make good on my claim that the Bible has stuff to say dog ownership. My favorite “pet passage” comes from Proverbs 12:10 “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal, But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” II Samuel 12 is interesting in that while Nathan the prophet is confronting David about his adultery and murder, he tells the story of a man who had a lamb. In verse 3 we read, “But the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb Which he bought and nourished; And it grew up together with him and his children. It would eat of his bread and drink of his cup and lie in his bosom, And was like a daughter to him.” I don’t think we can necessarily use that passage to justify the “dog-parent” craze, but it’s interesting to note that people have been serious about their pets for a long time. James 3:7 alludes to the fact that animals can be tamed. Proverbs 27:23 tells us to, “Know well the condition of your flocks, And pay attention to your herds.” This command is given in the context of monetary stewardship, but the consequential applications are still appropriate when we recognize the fact that God does want us to care for our animals and not abuse them. And Deuteronomy 25:4 (which is referenced in I Corinthians 9:9 and I Timothy 5:18) says that "You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” So, yes, there are passages of Scripture that speak to our animal ownership, and there are many more principles that can be applied to how we treat, train, and take care of them. But now we need to answer the age-old question: is rearing a child like owning a dog. 1. This is an impossible question to answer if you don’t know how to rear a child or care for a dog. One of the biggest faults I’ve found with people who make such statements is that they often don’t really know what it takes to do either. They’re either not good dog owners, not great parents, or both. Now, I’m not the perfect parent, and I’m not the perfect dog owner, but I do want you to know that I’m going to do my best to accurately answer this question today because I know what the Bible says about rearing children, and I’m also a dog trainer. My dog will be ten this year, and when we got her at two months old I started training her to be a service dog, therapy animal, and all-around good pet. Those who know my dog would agree that—though she’s no more perfect than I am—she’s a very well trained dog. I share all of this not to toot my own horn, but simply to make the observation that I believe I have the necessary knowledge and experience to answer today’s question with valuable clarity. Again, I’m not the perfect parent or dog trainer, but the Bible tells us everything we need to know about parenting our kids, and I do know a thing or two about training a good dog. 2. Owning a pet and raising children do have a lot in common. Let’s address the similarities first. A. Both require keeping a living thing living. That should be obvious. If that’s not our number one goal, I don’t know what we’re doing. B. They both take a lot of work. Again, there are those who have no idea the amount of work that goes into parenting and dog training, but it’s a lot. You should no more have kids and then leave them to raise themselves as you should have a dog and let it do whatever it wants. Unfortunately, a lot of people who’ve owned a dog (or—more appropriately—been owned by a dog) and then take a similar approach to their kids get all confused when they find that they’re being owned by their children in a very similar way. So, yes, it take a lot of work to train both of them well. C. They’re both very easy to mess up. I alluded to this in the last point, but I want to really hash it out here. If you can easily mess up owning a dog, you better believe you can super easily mess up rearing a child. How many people live in constant annoyance with their dog? The barking, the bolting, the breaking, the biting . . . some people never seem to get control of their animals. And . . . many people seem to have absolutely no influence over their kids as well. Now, that’s not to say that the best parenting produces perfect kids every time. There's a big difference in the two approaches on this point. A poorly trained dog is nearly always the owner’s fault. I haven’t met a dog yet that couldn’t be trained to be a good dog. Among dog trainers the maxim is that “There’s no bad dogs, just bad dog owners.” But that’s not the case with kids. A very good parent can have a very bad child. It’s also possible that—by the grace of God—a bad parent can have really good kids, but that’s another episode. With all those caveats carefully piled on each other, this point is for the people who put about as much effort into their parenting as they do their pets. And in some really sad situations, they put more effort into their pets than their kids—or at least the right effort into their pets, but the wrong effort into their kids. Keeping a living thing living and—better yet—thriving takes a lot of work and is really easy to mess up. That’s why . . . D. To do either well, you need to know what you’re doing. The best dog owners and the best parents have one huge thing in common . . . they do their research. They’ve studied and learned and changed and grown. They’ve gone to the experts to learn how to do their job well. I’m not saying that anybody is an expert to the same degree that a person may be called a dog training expert. But—as I mentioned earlier—God is the expert on rearing kids, and He has given us everything we need to know. But knowing something and living something are two very different things. That’s why . . . E. To do either well, you need to be consistent. Both children and dogs are hypocrisy detectors and inconsistency abusers. If they’re dead-set on getting their way, if they find a loophole or are able to manipulate the situation to achieve their purposes . . . they will do it every time. Dog training and child rearing both require consistency to do it well. And finally . . . F. How you handle your emotions will make or break the training. If you hadn’t noticed, dogs don’t communicate like humans. In fact, they are wired very differently, and one of their main ways of understanding someone is to get a read on what Cesar Millan calls a person’s “energy.” This “energy” is mostly put off by our emotional state. Let’s say that your dog once again makes a huge mess in your house. If you start yelling at the dog and dragging it to its crate, you’re not communicating what you think you’re communicating. You want the dog to understand the severity of your displeasure so that it will know how unacceptable such behavior is. But even though the dog will likely cower at your anger, all the dog is thinking is, “Wow. This person is unstable. They need someone to take care of them.” There is absolutely no correlation between your annoyance and the dog’s behavior. Now, as the dog starts to train you, it may change its behavior in order to avoid emotional outbursts and help you calm down, but the dog is not inherently trying to please you so much as it is trying to control you. And though the impact of our unbridled emotions may have a different effect on our kids, the consequences are similar. Our lack of control in our emotions will never . . . I repeat . . . never draw our kids to the Lord and help them become the people God wants them to be. So, yeah, dog training and child rearing have those things in common, but that’s pretty much it. I think the people who like to compare the two are probably thinking mostly about puppies and babies. They both make a lot of messes, it can feel like your relationship with them is about as deep, they’re both small, and they both make a lot of noise. But if we truly consider the differences between quality dog training and Christ-honoring parenting, we will find some very important dissimilarities. 3. The two are desperately dissimilar. A. Dogs and children think very differently. As was alluded to earlier, dogs are incapable of thinking through concepts like people do. And though one may make an argument for similar mental capabilities of infants, does it really matter since children mature out of the phase so quickly? Children are capable of thinking, desiring, and believing that is completely impossible for dogs. For this reason, the comparisons to training kids and dogs absolutely must be different. Dogs require a repetitive understanding of their position within the house, and they need to have a dog-equivalency of trust for the people higher up on the totem pole than they. But children’s actions, words, and emotions are motivated by so much more. Therefore, if we reduce our parenting to mere commands, rewards, consequences, and we don’t dive early and often into the vital importance of motivation, we’re going to fail our kids. B. The relationship with our animals is far too superficial. This shouldn’t need to be said, but I find myself compelled. You neither can—nor should you try to—have the same type of relationship with your kids and dogs. Trying to have a child/parent relationship with a dog will never work because the dog isn’t capable of that level of relationship, and having a pet-like relationship with your kids is abominable. If someone owns a dog and believes that relating to their kids will be anything like relating to their dogs, I fear for that household. C. Whether or not dogs go to heaven, children will relate to God as an enemy or child. Do I believe that dogs go to heaven? Well, I’m not dogmatic one way or another (pun intended), but I can see the arguments on both sides. Regardless of whether dogs live on in eternity or their lives end at physical death, your children will either spend eternity with God or separated from Him. That one difference is the cornerstone reality that separates the mere behavior-modification of animal training and the heart-training of parenting. We’re not parenting simply so that our kids will make their beds and be respectful and successful . . . at least we should’t be. We need to be parenting our kids to know and relate to their Creator. They need to live for Him because He deserves it. That means that how they make their bed and why they’re respectful to others and the kind of success they pursue absolutely needs to be motivated by their relationship with the Lord. Therefore . . . D. The training requirements could not be more different. With everything the Bible says about animals, God never demands that we “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). He doesn’t say that those who fail to care for or govern their animals well has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (I Timothy 5:8). Though the Lord would have us steward our animals and exercise dominion over them, only of our kids does He require that we be His Ambassadors to introduce them to Him. He didn’t give us the Bible to teach, reprove, correct, and train our dogs. He gave it to us foremost so that we can be taught, reproved, corrected, and trained, but also so that we could use the Scriptures to help others in those same areas. Once again, godly parenting is so much more than mere behavior-modification. When I’m out with my kids, and they start doing something they shouldn’t, I absolutely mustn’t simply distract them with a piece of candy like I might distract a dog with a delicious smelling treat. My relationship with my kids isn’t on a pack-leader/pack-follower basis. No, my relationship with them is ordained by God for His glory. Though I am the leader of my home and parent to my kids, we are in this together—working as a team to glorify God. Conclusion
So, is rearing a child like owning a pet? Not in any way that really matters. The similarities are some of the most superficial concerns any parent could have. I’m not saying that keeping our kids alive is superficial, but I am saying that if that’s my only concern, I don’t understand parenting from God’s perspective.
So, no, I would encourage you to not believe nor try to convince others that the two have so much in common. I would argue that telling young people that getting a puppy will prepare them for being parents is really unkind. Sure, if they ask you what having a baby is like, you could respond, “Have you ever owned a puppy? Do you remember all the messes and midnight crying and constant attention and all the new things you had to learn? Well, there’s even more of that in having a baby.” But even then, what’s the point you’re trying to make? Too many of our descriptions about parenting are all centered on the inconveniences that parenting brings into our lives. Wouldn’t it be so much better to tell those young people something like, “Having a child is a miraculous blessing because you have the express joy and purpose of helping that little person learn who their Creator is and how they can have a personal relationship with Him. Of course, it’s a lot of work, and—early on—it can seem like most of what you’re doing is just about keeping the child alive and happy, but there is so much more to parenting than just that.” And then you can open your Evermind App, and let them scan the QR code that will give them free access to the Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference and resources to get them started on the right foot. In fact, you could enjoy the conference together, answer their questions, and mentor them as they begin their parenting journey So, to that end, please share this episode with your friends and the new parents in your church and community. And don’t hesitate to send an email to [email protected] or call (828) 423-0894 if you need some individualized counsel for your unique family situation. And—Lord willing—I’ll see you next week as we examine another common comparison. Is Being a Parent Really Like Being a Gardener? We’ll find out. See you then.
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