Parenting is ever an ambivalent exercise:

• Few joys compare to holding a newborn, delight of first steps or words, attending a graduation.
• Few agonies compare to feeling alienated from this child. "I hate you, Mother!"
• As a parent, you give it your best, but if often feels to be not enough.
• There is no training manual; you learn on the job.
• Hence, my definition: mistake maker.

Being a kid is also an ambivalent matter:

• Families are intense: Love competes with hated.
• Children suffer the mistakes of our parents.
• Who has not wished for a different mom or dad at some point?
• As acorns fall next to oak trees, the sins and blessings of parents fall upon the children, generation to generation.
• An angry parent screams: "I hope you have kids like you as your own one day."
• We grow up, and low and behold, out of our mouths, we hear our own parents' voice as we repeat their words and too often similar mistakes.

Will humankind ever improve?

• Truth is: most families work, most parents do an ok, even good job, and most kids grow into independent, self-directing adults.
• Human existence is just a great muddle.
• Antoine de Saint-Exupery Generation To Generation:
• In a house which becomes a home, one hands down and another takes up the heritage of mind and heart, laughter and tears, musings and deeds. Love, like a carefully loaded ship, crosses the gulf between the generations. It is needful to transmit the passwords from generation to generation.
• So what are we passing on to our children?

• I know I have done two things right in my life:
• My sons, Nathan, now 29, & Shane, 25.
• I'm far too young a man to have children that old!
• They are my pride and delight.

How has my Unitarian Universalist faith guided that effort?

• Recently, we dedicated a child here.
• I used the very same words and promises when I dedicated them years ago.
• Here is what I charged myself, and all Unitarian Universalist parents:
• To speak the truth in all ways and in all times.
• To give my best judgments and guidance.
• To challenge my boys to worthy aspirations,
• To respect their freedom to find their own pathways in life.
• To lead them with my own example.
• And to tell over and again, that I loved them.
• I had three core values:
• respect for their personhood;
• honoring their freedom;
• they sometimes grow weary of my saying it, but they know, above all else, they are loved.

Otherwise, I had very few rules:

• I do expect them to think, make and be responsible for their decisions.
• I taught them to respect others:
• Often invoked slogan: People are not for hitting.
• No name-calling, either.
• I taught respect for self:
• Another slogan: "You never lift self up by putting another down."
• And: "No one can put you down unless you let them."
• After that, my way of being a parent was pretty simple, even predictable:
• Be honest, no lying tolerated.
• Be responsible.
• Be compassionate.
• They turned out ok, more than ok.

Mostly, I believe being an effective Unitarian Universalist parent means living our ideals, as expressed so well in our 7 principles. (See below)

• Unitarian Universalist author Robert Fulghum replied to an anxious parent, who complained her children did not listen to her:
• Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
• As a Dad, I tried to walk my talk, to unite my words and my actions.
• I tried to be the kind of person I wanted them to grow into.

There are many parenting models:

• Two most cited:
• See child as small adults: let us reason together. That doesn't work.
• See child as clay: to be molded into shape. Neither does that.
• To rear a child, you need something in between:

First, kids do need to be socialized into a decent human being.

• They need guidance, a parent willing to show the way.
• Moms and dads need to balance permission and prohibition.
• It can be a delicate balancing act.
• Too often, many parents give up trying to find the proper balance.
• Here's how to ruin your kids:
• Offer not permission: never say "yes;" or always say "no."
• Require not restrictions: never say "no." or: always say "yes."
• A formula guaranteed to create timorous wimps or selfish tyrants.
• Kids need to learn: can't always have your way, but lots of time you can.

Secondly, each kid is autonomous from the gitgo.

• They are not empty buckets into which you can just pour your values.
• Kahlil Gibran's oft quoted admonition: 'Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself."
• Each kid has her own soul that seeks expression.
• The goal of parenting is not to create a mirror image of you.
• Parenting is not about cloning yourself.
• It is about creating independent adults.
• The proper goal of parenting is to lead kids into becoming decent human beings.

I warn you, however, there are no salvation by technologies.

• Remember: human existence is a muddle.
• You and I are often saved by grace, good luck, and love.
• Even good parents have difficulty. Even good kids get into trouble.

That said, I strongly recommend Haim Ginott:

• Who said: Tell a child what you want, not what you don't want.
• Use positive instruction, not "don't messages."
• "Stay on the sidewalk." rather than "Don't run in the street.
• I also recommend Thomas Gordon's Parent Effectiveness Training.
• Learn how to do active Listening;
• Learn how to use "I" messages, with your kids, and everyone else!
• Learn the meaning and practice of "Win/win" conflict resolution.

This sermon applies even to those who do not have children, or whose children are already grown.

• I see being a parent as essentially the same as being a Leader.
• whether of a family or a business, or a church committee.
• the skills and practice is much the same.

The job of being a parent is to show a kid how to be a human, just that simple; just that hard.

• It requires, especially knowing thyself.
• Who is the grown-up here?
• Children cannot mature beyond level of parent's maturity.
• Far too many parents injure their kids by acting out their own unresolved immaturity.
• Sins of mothers and fathers passed on generation to generation.
• Repeat: Children cannot mature beyond level of parent's maturity.
• So, you, as parent, or leader, have the responsibility of being the grown-up in the relationship.
• Know who you are!
• Blessings are also passed on to your kids.
• Know your values.
• if you walk your talk and values work, kids will notice.
• Kids need: Clarity, coherence, consistency.
• demonstrate the ability to take a stand; to say "yes," to say "no."
• be secure enough to admit mistakes or ask for help;
• be reliable, not wishy-washy.
• Know your boundaries.
• Your reality not the same as your kid's.
• Many parents confuse their needs or experience with their kids. Two favorites:
• Honey, put a sweater on; I'm cold.
• What do you mean the soup's too salty? It's just right.
• Know where you begin and end;
• respect where your child begins and ends.
• respect experience and values:

Another warning: Be very careful with "you" messages.

• How you use "you" can make or break a kid's dignity.
• Affirmations are ok.
• "You can do this!" "You're really good at art." and so on.
• Praise your kid's dignity and competence.
• Haim Ginott's good counsel: "If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others."
• However, be wary of put downs.
• Again, Ginott observes: "Each of us carries within himself a collection of instant insults."
• They erupt if we're not careful.
• Take great care to avoid name calling and blaming. No: "You're a dummy." No: "You're lazy." and so on.
• Discounts, insults, manipulations can and do damage the soul.

Summary of Unitarian Universalist Parenting:

• Be a Human Growing; none of us is perfect yet:
• Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in Peanuts: "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'"
• Every parent is still learning. Kenn's definition: parent = mistake maker.
• Thus, practice forgiveness (of self! and others) and be humble about your mistakes.
• Cultivate the ability to say: "I messed up. Sorry."
• Demonstrate an Attitude of Gratitude.
• Philosopher Sam Keen writes, "Gratitude ... acts as an elixir that ... dissolves . . . your need to possess and control and transform you into a generous being."
• My favorite prayer: "thank you."
• Become a grateful person.
• Cultivate Curiosity in your kids by being a curious person yourself.
• G.Manley Hopkins "the dearest freshness deep down things."
• No one has a lock on truth; there is always more to learn.
• Remember the biggest word in the English language: "Look!"
• Then look, and listen!
• Know the experience of Awe and Reverence.
• "Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look at the stars." Henry Van Dyke
• Love the mystery that is our life.
• Point it out to your kids.
• Show Kindness to all living things.
• Something I borrow from the Buddhist tradition.
• Compassion and understanding are first values.
• Everyone's working to be the self they can yet be.
• Never lift yourself up by putting another down.
• Non-Violence. People are not for hitting.
• Embody Hope.
• Here is life's goal.
• Horace Mann, Unitarian and founder of the American public school system: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Preciousness of life."
• No one gets out alive; we're not here forever.
• Every moment we have a choice to create good or ill.
• Gifts: bless or curse world.

One last thought: Who is the parent in a faith community?

• Teacher Geoffrey Canada, in his book, Fist Stick Knife Gun, argues that parents in America have abandoned the role of shared parenting.
• Too often, the kids rule the streets.
• Too often, the kids rule the parents.
• In a healthy family, the parents are the value and rule makers.
• In a healthy faith community: All adults care for everyone of the kids.
• Can we here see each of our children as part of our extended family?
• Can we here show the way to becoming a decent human being?
• Will we here, love one another as sisters and brothers, and see all the kids as our own sons and daughters ... of life's longing to express itself?

May it be so. Blessings. Amen.

The 7 Principles of Unitarian Universalism. Together, we affirm and promote -

• The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
• Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
• Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
• A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
• The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
• The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
• Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.