By Rudy & Osharye Hagood
With seven children and 12 grandchildren, our parenting journey has been a lifelong partnership with God. Our youngest child is now 25, a clear testament that we have been walking this road for decades. But what has this journey taught us? Simply this: parenting is more than a responsibility. It’s a sacred trust, a divine calling, and an act of stewardship.
Parenting as Stewardship, Not Ownership
At its core, parenting is stewardship. We are entrusted with these lives for a time, but we cannot control them. Stewardship says, “These children are entrusted to me. I will guide them with wisdom and love, but ultimately, they belong to God.” Ownership, on the other hand, says, “These are my children. I control their fate.” And we all know how that usually works out.
What Proverbs 22:6 Really Means
Perhaps the most encouraging verse for those of us who have raised children into adulthood is Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (English Standard Version).
Many parents hold tightly to this verse as a promise, expecting that faithful parenting will automatically lead to faithful children. But is this a promise, or a proverb?
A proverb is a literary device—a general truth applied to a specific situation. Proverbs are not absolute guarantees. They express what is typically true, not what is always true. If your child has not followed the way, it does not mean you are a failure. It means you still have work to do.
Consider Proverbs 20:7: “The righteous who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him!”
This means walking in integrity is our post. Our role is not to control outcomes but to remain faithful. To walk in his righteousness. To keep praying, guiding, and being a steady presence. We are to be their North Star until Christ becomes their true North.
Walk in integrity, not intimidation. Walk with character, not coercion. If you want your children to be blessed, stand at your post.
Limited Liability Parenting: A Holy Partnership
That’s why we’ve come to view parenting, especially parenting adult children, like managing a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). Not in the legal sense, but in the sacred stewardship sense. Humor us for a moment. . . .
God’s Limited Liability Corporation: A Parable on Parenting
God is the CEO, Founder, and Ultimate Shareholder. We’re just here on assignment with a title and a purpose, but limited liability.
Let’s break it down:
- Limited. We have our children under our care for a season. Our influence is temporary, but the impact is lifelong. They grow and they go. But the seeds we plant? Eternal.
- Liability. We’re responsible for what we pour into them: our love, wisdom, discipline, and guidance. But we are not on the hook for every choice they make. That’s between them and their Maker. (Praise God for that clause in the covenant!).
- Corporation:.Parenting takes structure, strategy, and vision. This isn’t a freestyle gig. We are building something that will outlive us. A legacy. A generational ripple. Some days we’re the COO and some days we’re the janitor.
And now, the real twist.
Pass-through Taxation. Every joy, every trial, every tear pass through us. But the profit? The growth, the fruit, and the glory all get deposited into God’s heavenly account. We’re the managers. God holds the books.
Flexible Management Structure. Some days we lead like generals. Other days we survive on grace and snacks. The Holy Spirit is our HR department, constantly retraining us on patience, kindness, and how not to lose it during bedtime.
Fewer Formalities. No suits required. No board meetings needed. Just prayer, surrender, and the occasional whispered, “Jesus, help me before I say something that disqualifies me from this job.”
So, welcome to Parenting, LLC. Where God owns the business, we manage the day-to-day, and grace handles the HR paperwork.
Patient Persistence: A Lesson from Monica
One of the most powerful examples of patient, prayerful parenting comes from St. Augustine’s mother, Monica. A man of great theological influence, Augustine did not come to faith easily. He spent years resisting, living a life filled with lust, pride, and worldly ambition. But his mother, Monica, never stopped praying. She wept, counseled, and interceded for him.
Eventually, at age 31, Augustine surrendered to Christ. He later wrote in Confessions about his mother’s relentless prayers: “She wept for me more than mothers weep for the bodily death of their children.”
Monica’s faithfulness reminds us that the seeds we plant do not always sprout immediately. Some take years—decades even—to bear fruit. But God is at work, even when we cannot see it.
Parenting Adults: The Silent Strength
As we have stated in previous articles, no one could have prepared us for the lifelong grind of parenting. It does not end when our children turn 18, or even when they become parents themselves. As long as we are alive, we will continue to hope, pray, and guide.
Parenting stretches our faith because our children’s struggles don’t just affect us; we feel them in our bones. Like a basketball coach, we can call the plays, but we can’t take the shot. We celebrate their victories and mourn their defeats, sometimes more than they realize.
When our children are little and precious, we must love them more than we love how they make us feel. When they become adults, we have to fight for them more than they frustrate us. We fight by staying in prayer and staying at our post.
Stay in Prayer, Stay at Your Post
Perhaps the hardest lesson in parenting is learning to release our children into God’s hands. We pray for them to make wise choices, and often they don’t. We ask God to protect them, and often he allows them to walk through difficulty. Faith is not about changing God’s will. It’s about trusting it.
As parents, our job is to do our best and trust God with the rest. We have never been perfect, but God has always been perfect. Like you, we love our children and grandchildren deeply, but God loves them even more. And his love is perfect.
So let us stay in prayer and stay at our post. We walk in integrity, not intimidation. We guide with character, not coercion. In doing so, we remain their North Star, trusting that one day, Christ will be their true North.
A Parent’s Prayer
Lord, thank you for the children you’ve entrusted to us, whether they’re toddling at our feet or raising families of their own. Teach us to walk in integrity, love without strings, and lead with grace. Help us stay at our post, trusting you with what we cannot control. Amen.
Author: Christian Standard
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“I remember leaving the hospital thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies! I don’t have a license to do this. We’re just amateurs’.”
—Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons
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While traumatic childhood experiences will continue regardless, people can control their knowledge of child development science and therefor healthy parenting.
Too many people procreate regardless of not being sufficiently knowledgeable of child development science to parent in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. They seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they (potential parents) will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture their children’s naturally developing minds and needs.
In Childhood Disrupted the author writes that “[even] well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24).
As liberal democracies we cannot or will not prevent anyone from bearing children, even those who selfishly recklessly procreate with disastrous outcomes. We can, however, educate young people for this most important job ever, even those who plan to remain childless, through mandatory high-school child-development science curriculum.
And rather than being about instilling ‘values’, which many parents would understandably oppose, such curriculum should be about understanding child-development, and not just information memorization. There is a difference.
It may even end up mitigating some of the familial dysfunction seemingly increasingly prevalent in society. … If nothing else, such curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. Given what is at stake, should they not at least be equipped with such important science-based knowledge?
Also, when it comes to plain child maltreatment, mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ too-often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’
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“The way a society functions is a reflection of the childrearing practices of that society. Today we reap what we have sown. Despite the well-documented critical nature of early life experiences, we dedicate few resources to this time of life. We do not educate our children about child development, parenting, or the impact of neglect and trauma on children.”
—Dr. Bruce D. Perry, Ph.D. & Dr. John Marcellus
Being a caring, competent, loving and knowledgeable parent [about factual child-development science] should matter most when deciding to procreate. Therefore, parental failure seems to occur as soon as the solid decision is made to have a child even though the parent-in-waiting cannot be truly caring, competent, loving and knowledgeable.
Too many people will procreate regardless of not being sufficiently knowledgeable of child development science to parent in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. They seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they (potential parents) will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture their children’s naturally developing minds and needs.
A mentally as well as a physically sound future should be every child’s foremost fundamental right — along with air, water, food and shelter — especially considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter. Instead, some people still hold a misplaced yet strong sense of entitlement when it comes to misperceiving children largely as obedient property to abuse.
The wellbeing of all children needs to be of genuine importance to everyone — and not just concern over what other parents’ children might or will cost us as future criminals or costly cases of government care, etcetera — regardless of how well our own developing children are doing.
Mindlessly ‘minding our own business’ often proves humanly devastating. Yet, largely owing to the Only If It’s In My Own Back Yard mindset, however, the prevailing collective attitude (implicit or subconscious) basically follows: ‘Why should I care — my kids are alright?’ or (the even more self-serving) ‘What’s in it for me as a taxpayer?’