Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic

I pre-ordered Loving the Little Years before Thanksgiving, got it in the mail Saturday night, and finished reading it Sunday. The subtitle for this book is Motherhood in the Trenches as Rachel currently has five children five and under. While I’m not that deep in the trenches yet, I am currently living in “the little years.”

I was excited about this book for a number of reasons. First, it has a really cute cover. And as readers of this blog may have noticed, I am a fan of Rachel’s parents, Doug and Nancy Wilson. When I read The Fruit of Her Hands by Nancy Wilson a couple years ago, I noticed a funny line in the biographical paragraph on the back of the book: “She and her husband, Douglas, have three grown children, none of whom are in the penitentiary.” I respect their parenting advice because from what I can tell as a distant observer via the Internet and their books, their parenting was successful. I also really like the relationship they seem to have with their adult children, and it is one I would like to have with my grown children. So I was really interested in what the daughter of parenting book writers would have to say about the subject.

Tedd Tripp, author of Shepherding a Child’s Heart, wrote in his endorsement of the book, “It has all the things I look for in a parenting book – the focus is nurture, not just control; the motivation and empowerment is grace and not efforts. This book will help any mom (or dad for that matter) with loving the little years.” After reading the book, I could not agree more with that last sentence. No other book has made me this excited about parenting small children. I don’t necessarily dread discipline, but I’m already really scared about doing the wrong thing. I don’t want to be the type of mother who is constantly telling her kids, “No. Stop this. Stop that. No! Don’t touch! Whap! Whap! Whap!” But obviously I don’t want to be permissive either. I feel like this book gave me a better picture what it means to discipline in the context of heart issues and truly shepherd a child’s heart.

In some Christian parenting books that I have read, I feel like the authors inadvertently suck the fun and joy out of raising (and being) children. Perhaps because I have a really good memory of my own childhood, I get done reading the Stepford-like qualities that are esteemed, and I think, “Man, I am really glad I didn’t grow up with these parents.” This book, however, is not the appearance or exaltation of a spotless, flawlessly run home or perfectly behaved children who are well on their way to complete sanctification by age six. It is an encouragement love your children and have joy in the midst of raising sinners as a sinner yourself.

I honestly want to quote the book in its entirety here because it is just that good. Here is just one example:

   God treats us with great kindness as we fail daily. He takes the long view of our sin – knowing that every time we fail and repent, we grow in our walk with Him. It is easy for us to accept this, because our sins are, well, ours.
   But our children sin against us, annoy us, and mess up our stuff. We want to hold it against them, complain about them (if only to ourselves), and feel put upon by their sin. We have a much harder time accepting that every failure from them is a wonderful opportunity for repentance and growth and not an opportunity for us to exact penance.
   It is no abstract thing – the state of your heart is the state of your home. You cannot harbor resentment secretly toward your children and expect their hearts to be submissive and tender. You cannot be greedy with your time and expect them to share their toys. And perhaps most importantly, you cannot resist your opportunities to be corrected by God and expect them to receive correction from you.

One chapter I really enjoyed was “Thanksters and Cranksters,” in which she describes how she and her husband help their children see their sin of complaining. When the children complain, the parents say things like, “I’m sorry you don’t have any brothers and sisters!” to turn their children’s hearts to thankfulness instead of grumbling. The book is full of creative ideas like this for helping small children understand their sin and deal with their hearts not just behaviors.

I seriously want to buy this book for every mother of young children that I know, but alas, it is $12 and I know a few too many mothers for our budget. I believe this book has, though, moved up to number one on my must-give shower gifts for Christian expectant moms. It is a very fun read; I laughed at certain parts, teared up at others, and became even more excited about the next few years of my life.