Author

Kelly Crawford

Hello! I’m Kelly and I’m glad you’re here. I’m a wife and mom, just like you. I get it. I know how hard the days can be, and how you might feel like you’re spinning your wheels or that no one sees or appreciates your work.

motherhood/family/parenting

Why DIRT is The Most Important Ingredient to Raising Children

by Kelly Crawford February 2, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Raising children deliberately takes, well, deliberateness. (That must be a word because I didn’t get a red line.)

I can wring my hands over how to educate, how to prepare them for their life work, how to make sure they get socialized properly or participate in the right activities, but all of that is the extra stuff.

The only thing I’m commanded to do is to raise them to love the Savior. Do I make it a priority?

So I came up with an acronym that helps me remember the pillars of raising children to be followers of Christ.

DIRT. Ironically, dirt is where stuff grows, where we plant seeds and where life springs forth. But the thing with dirt and growing things is, I have to get my hands dirty, and I have to be at the work consistently.

DIRT is Deuteronomy 6 with flesh.

Disciple the soul.

This is relationship. Relationships are only built through time. “…when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.”

Instruct the heart.

This is communication. A constant speaking of the things we ought to do. “You shall talk of them…”

Renew the mind.

This is transformation through the power of God’s Word. This is reading Scripture, memorizing Scripture, posting Scripture, singing Scripture. “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and gates.”

Train the will.

This is forming habits. Habits will be formed by the constant practice of the three things above. The will is trained by the daily practice and reminding of what is right and good.

This is our job. It is full-time, constant, tedious, and marvelous. This is The Great Commission, making disciples of our children, equipping them to make disciples of others when they are fully trained.

–

Discipleship is DIRT. It’s messy and it’s marvelous.

February 2, 2014 7 comments

marriage

Why We Should Encourage Our Kids to Marry Young

by Kelly Crawford January 30, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Occasionally someone ventures outside the cultural marriage norms and makes the case for getting married young, but generally, it’s ingrained deep within us all that there’s an acceptable age to marry, and to do so before that is unwise.

But is it?

We admit there’s an epidemic of adults who are over-sized children though the full weight of it hasn’t fully been realized. But we’re slow to admit where blame lies. And even if we did, would we be willing to shift the paradigm?

I submit two major things are causing adults to delay marriage, negatively impacting their own adulthood and maturity, and ultimately, all of us.

The adolescent culture
The worship of education

Adolescent culture

Since around 1905, when G. Stanley Hall named the adolescent period, Americans have increasingly coddled their children, protecting their “right” to childhood, long after what has formerly been called childhood, has ended. Now we have a culture of parents who protect, shield and defend to a fault. They require little work and responsibility for fear it will hamper their fun and they elevate extra curricular opportunities over the practical preparation for life.

So we have “Generation Y”, the narcissistic generation who wants a ribbon for showing up. Their parents did something wrong.

Answer? We need to balance the natural freedoms and privileges of childhood with our responsibility to help them grow in maturity and wisdom. We need to expect things–important, life things that will help them transition into adulthood when the time comes. We need to let them experience things, while guiding them and pushing them to find truth, to view the world through the lens of God’s Word, where they will find answers for everything.

We need to change our idea of the “teen years.” We are raising children into adults. Those in between years are the most potent for developing skills, learning, training, preparing and practicing for adult life. These are not years to be frittered away. These are the years where we challenge them and they rise to the challenge of womanhood and manhood, the years of their best strength and courage, where vision is best cast. Youth is where character is grown and practiced, responsibility takes root, and self-control must reign.

Worship of Education

The first one was easy; for this one, buckle up.

We could have the talk about the unnecessary hype of college but that would take too long. If we could understand that college may be necessary for highly specialized vocations, but generally, not necessary for a good education and training in most vocations, we would begin the process of demoting the college degree from some idolized status. It is now, especially in our highly technological age, only one of many ways to a higher education, not the least of which is laborious and expensive.

Too often marriage is pushed off until after college. First, college has taken precedence over the importance of marriage. Second, it is assumed that both can’t be done simultaneously.

Sadly, too, in many cases college extends (or worsens) the adolescent stage. Parents pay for their adult children to live (and/or party) during the time they should be assuming those responsibilities.

We’ve given the pursuit of (let’s be honest) more money precedent over the pursuit of a godly spouse.

Why We Should Support Early Marriage

Marriage is good. Marriage is a gift. Marriage makes us grow up, gives us a companion to weather the stuff of life. Announce you’re getting married before the “acceptable” age, and you’ll mostly be met with pleads of “live some life first.” And while the single state has its unique opportunities, marriage certainly doesn’t detract from the joys of life, but rather doubles them.

Are You Ready?

Waiting until we’re “ready” can be a precarious thing. What is “ready”?

Financial readiness is the primary reason caution is offered to young couples. Somehow, just having an income isn’t enough in our American idealistic dream. Mark Regnerus, in “The Case for Early Marriage” said:

“Marrying young can spell poverty, at least temporarily. Yet the mentality that we need to shield young adults from the usual struggles of life by encouraging them to delay marriage until they are financially secure usually rests on an unrealistic standard of living. Good marriages grow through struggles, including economic ones. My wife and I are still fiscal conservatives because of our early days of austerity….

Nevertheless, the economic domain remains an area in which many parents are often able, but frequently unwilling, to assist their children….This cultural predilection toward punishing rather than blessing marriage must go, and congregations and churchgoers can help by dropping their own punitive positions toward family members, as well as by identifying deserving young couples who could use a little extra help once in a while. Christians are great about supporting their missionaries, but in this matter, we can be missionaries to the marriages in our midst.”

What about ready in other ways? Everything I was when I got married has changed. Everything I thought about life has changed. I’ve grown. I’ve learned. I’ve morphed.

Our growing and changing and morphing is best done with our life partner alongside us. Every step toward “establishing ourselves” as adults without our spouse, is a step toward stubborn independence.

We need the companion, accountability and responsibility marriage brings, and we need it earlier rather than later.

Sure there are exceptions, good reasons to wait. But our prevailing attitude should be to think differently, to love and embrace marriage, not just for “one day”, but as something to be desired, sought after and celebrated in youth.

January 30, 2014 602 comments

motherhood/family/parenting

Are You Pursuing Motherhood, Intentionally, Purposefully? (1 Week Left to Get the Book 1/2 price!)

by Kelly Crawford January 28, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Are you a mom? Have you pursued motherhood? Do you want to live more intentionally, more purposefully, recognizing that your calling as a mother is a chance to change the world?

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Covering every issue we could think of from diapering to discipleship, we moms wrote passionately, with a heart for answering questions, encouraging you wherever you are, and spurring you on to mother for His glory. Read more here.

The Pursuit of Motherhood

153 pages

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January 28, 2014 0 comment

motherhood/family/parenting

The Simple, Excruciatingly Hard Part of Being a Mom

by Kelly Crawford January 23, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Their naps fall right at cleaning up from lunch and wrapping up morning school stuff, and right before a full afternoon, squeezing all the life out of it I can.

“Will you tell me a story about a horse that poops butterflies?” Her sweet smile begs.

He wants one about monster trucks. Again.

I was busy. I tell lots of stories. Today I needed to hurry and do…

more important stuff.

And I knew instantly, though she didn’t complain, what I was about to miss.

It’s the thousand small things in a day–the tiny, rhythmic motions that assure a child all is well, life is sure and steady.

It’s my choice to value our short story time as much as the other things, to tell her, by my stopping, that this–she–is the more important stuff.

Don’t we like to think that parenting greatness comes in big, lofty moments? That would be easier. But everything good happens slowly, steadily, growing almost imperceptible over time, through the ignoble, and it’s no different growing people. Maybe that’s why fewer and fewer are signing up for full time parenthood.

Simple. But excruciatingly hard.

And whether it’s telling a nap time story, waiting patiently for a shoe-tying rookie, or putting the broom down because my teenager needs to talk, if I rush through it, or neglect it altogether so I can be “on to bigger things”, I’ve missed the bigger things already.

“We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do little things with great love.” -Mother Teresa

January 23, 2014 11 comments

homeschooling

Homeschooling Q & A Part 2: “Am I Qualified to Teach My Child?”

by Kelly Crawford January 19, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Another homeschooling question from the reader, Tonya:

(Read Part 1, “Will My Kids Miss Out?”)

“I’m thinking of homeschooling and have a question: How do you teach a subject that you personally struggled with? I’m not sure I have the skills it would take…” Tonya

This question ranks right up there with the socialization question in terms of fears parents have about homeschooling. This fear is absolutely unwarranted, and I’ll try to peel back the several layers to show why.

We’ve been brainwashed by the system to think that education can only happen when an “expert” or someone really good at a subject, transfers that expertise to another person. Actually, this is a very inferior way to learn.

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” -Carl Orff

Most moms homeschool their children for their first 4 or 5 years, “teaching” them more in that time than they’ll learn for the rest of their lives. The first part of my answer is: we need to trust the human capacity for learning things and figuring things out on our own, when we need to. If a child is given the environment to explore, if he’s given access to information, freedom to experiment and learn about the world around him, he will have a richer education than comes from memorizing facts. Albert Einstein said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”

Secondly, we need to carefully scrutinize what exactly is an important part of an education. When a parent says, “How will I teach Algebra–I don’t remember anything?” he is assuming algebra is a necessary part of a well-rounded education (admitting simultaneously that he doesn’t know it and is fine without it). It’s not. At least not in the terms we think. Algebra is the study of finding the missing part to an equation. Now that’s useful. It’s problem-solving. The good news is, there are thousands of ways to learn problem-solving skills without specifically mastering Algebra.

Also, unless your child plans to pursue a career that requires it, algebra is not a needed subject. If he does need it, he can learn it when the time comes. I taught my Dad Algebra when he was 45 when he went back to college. He made a B in the class and, of course, hasn’t used it since. There are too many things to learn that will most definitely be used to waste time on things that most likely will not. We would do well to question “standard” subjects, considering the advances in technology and demands of this century.

Thirdly, and if you disagree with my first two points, a homeschooling parent has far more resources for teaching any and every subject than does a school teacher with one mandated curriculum. I don’t have to understand a subject to direct my child in learning it. Whether it’s a video tutor or typical curriculum that explains a concept, the goal should be to help our children learn how to learn, to discover the myriad of ways to become better educated.

An illustration of this as well as the demonstration of the overpriced, often overrated college education is a typical lecture class. I had one such marketing class that sticks out, though I had many more like it. Big room, lots of students, one man in front almost literally reading the text book. At the end of a chapter, he instructed us to memorize the terms and chapter outline, then we were tested on it. I paid hundreds of dollars to have someone read to me. We call this “higher education.” (By the way, you MUST go read Matt Walsh’s latest post, “Thank God I Wasn’t College Material” for more on this insane idea that most people need to go to college.)

So, Mama thinking about homeschooling, you can give your child a tailored, excellent education, no matter what your own shortcomings are.

January 19, 2014 24 comments

homeschooling motherhood/family/parenting

Q & A Part 1: “I’m Interested in Homeschooling. But Won’t My Kids Miss Out?”

by Kelly Crawford January 16, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

“My kids go to public school but I’m really interested in homeschooling and I was wondering if maybe you guys could answer some questions for me?

Do you ever feel bad about your kids missing out on things like marching band, choir, clubs, high school sports, the prom, and graduation?” -Tonya

This was actually one of my initial concerns when we were considering homeschooling. And like so many other fears, I’ve come to realize it’s partly a result of our own conformity to a way of life, and associated peer pressure.

The first answer is that homeschoolers don’t miss out. Their options for extracurricular activities far exceed those of a child limited by time restraints of school. Depending on what families choose, many can even participate in school sports, put together their own proms, have bands, clubs, graduation and more.

Many parents considering homeschooling somehow think his child is the only one and will be alone in his journey. They quickly realize, though, that they are part of a huge, rapidly growing community, with more people, activities and opportunities than they will ever be able to join. (There are currently more than 2,010,198 children being homeschooled in America.)

Secondly, once a family steps out of the “school culture” they realize how empty many of the peer-dominated activities were and are thankful the pressure is off.

Youth is a fabulous time of growing, learning and experiencing life. Homeschooling affords more time and availability to pursue interests a young person would otherwise be too busy for. As parents adapt to a [homeschooling] world they never knew existed, missing the prom or the marching band becomes a trivial, can’t-believe-I-ever-worried-about-that, non-issue, replaced by more productive, meaningful opportunities.

I think about how this played out for me personally, and the contrast I can now see as a homeschooling parent of teenagers. As both a cheerleader and later a cheerleader sponsor, I experienced the inordinate amount of time we spent doing something that, well, doesn’t prepare for life. Yeah the team work thing, but that can be easily gained in a normal family setting, if we weren’t so busy with our extra curriculars.

At one point in high school, we were required–in addition to all day practices–to spend Sunday decorating lockers for Homecoming. (Because that’s important.) My Dad felt like it was inappropriate and I told my sponsor that. I’ll never forget my *Christian* cheer-leading sponsor grabbing me by the front of my shirt, pulling me right into her eyes and saying through gritted teeth, “You decide if cheer-leading or a family rule is more important.”

Now that I’m a parent, I’m so grateful for the time my older children have to pursue more meaningful activities, still maintaining close friendships and enjoying fun events, but spending the bulk of time doing more productive, real life things–learning to run businesses, honing their talents and gifts, learning to serve the community.

I would encourage all parents to carefully consider whether we are steering our children towards activities that are productive, useful and tending to growth and preparation, or if we, too, are being swayed by a peer pressure of our own, tricked into thinking they’ll “miss out” if we don’t follow main stream.

January 16, 2014 54 comments

homeschooling motherhood/family/parenting

Reading to Your Children May Be More Important Than You Think

by Kelly Crawford January 12, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

The Importance of Reading Aloud to Your Children

“If we would only consider the subtle strengthening of ties which comes from two people reading the same book together, breathing at once its breath and each giving the other unconsciously his interpretation of it, it would be seen how, in this simple habit of reading aloud, lies a power too fine to analyze, yet stronger than iron in welding souls together. To our thinking, there is no academy on earth equal to that found in so many homes, of a mother reading to her child.” Elisha Schudder, The Riverside Magazine for Young People

Reading is good, everyone knows that. It enriches your thought life, aids your reasoning, enhances your communication, and in general, educates the mind.

But what if that is only the beginning?

A Family Program for Reading Aloud provokes me to think that maybe reading aloud to my children is more beneficial to our relationship than even their education.

Here’s another excerpt from the book:

“American Christian parents began to lose control over their children when they relinquished home-reading aloud. As they turned over the education of their children to outside agencies, even to the Sunday School and to the Christian School, they lost a critical part of their intimate relationship with their children. Many wonderful teachers have gained by what parents let go–yet parents alone have opportunities which are never afforded to those outside the realm of home.”

Consider that Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good…out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45

Home was once the place where hearts could be filled with “good treasure”, and reading played a significant part in that. Good literature was an integral part of the Christian home and the formation of character depended much on parents reading and instilling the love of reading in their children.

If we relinquish our commitment to intentionally form the mind and hearts of our children toward what is good and noble, we give it to someone else–other influences and voices fighting for their allegiance.

It seems almost old fashioned to talk about rekindling the practice of reading aloud as a family, because I fear our digital age is an unintentional enemy of that fundamental habit of gathering together, all our faculties focused on the same story, our attention directed and unified toward a common theme.

Read to your children. If you do nothing else, read to them. Reading to them will grow your hearts together, enlarge their imaginations, plant something wonderful in their memories and gradually refine their characters as they turn into men and women.

January 12, 2014 19 comments

christian living pregnancy/birth control

It’s Normal to Have Babies. (That’s Why I Look at You Weird When You Ask Me If I’m “Done.”)

by Kelly Crawford January 8, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

My recent post on Facebook seemed to be a favorite, so I thought I’d share it here.

I ran into a sweet mom of 4 today. She told me that all she hears is “You’re done now, right?”

For those of you who say that to moms with more than 2, what does that mean? And why do you say it? And would it change your response if you knew that we hear that all. the. time.? And how would you feel if almost everyone you ran into asked, “Why don’t you have more children?”

And what does it imply of God’s created design?

That He forgot the cut off switch? That He just expected that we would *know* only 2 children are normal and after that if we don’t take destructive, body-altering drugs, known to have all sorts of side effects, then we deserve the comments meant to imply our apparent ignorance?

Why is natural so en vogue in almost every other area, but is virtually insane as it applies to reproduction? Do we even notice that we have let cultural expectations dictate what we call “normal”? It’s normal to have the babies God gives you. But the few who do are treated like misfits. It’s almost like making fun of people who don’t have tattoos. I’m OK with your tattoo. But I’m not a freak because I don’t have one. You made a deliberate decision to get one. It didn’t just show up one day.

In a normal marriage, and if God has opened the womb, babies will show up unless you deliberately prevent them. That’s OK if you want to. I’m not going to ask you why or imply your family is too small or that you must hate your children since you didn’t have more. But it would be so awesome if others would show the same courtesy. And even better, that other Christians would speak the language of Scripture when it comes to children.

Do you know what Rebekah’s marriage blessing was?

“May you be the mother of thousands and ten thousands, and let your children possess the gates of those who hate them.”

Is that the way we talk to young newlyweds? (Most often I think it goes something like, “Don’t get pregnant too soon.”)

God spoke of children–not just the first two–as wealth and prosperity, blessing and inheritance. The modern church ignores a lot of what the Bible says, but perhaps nothing as much as what it has to say about children. It makes me scratch my head a lot, I guess because, as a mom of 10, I’m sort of a “catch all” for the opinions of others about fertility. It makes me sad. Not me personally, not because of how much rudeness or misunderstanding I have to endure, but because of the impotence of the church as a result of our misguided beliefs about children.

God’s intentions were that we would not only love children for the sake of loving them, but that we would understand as He gives us each child, commands us to make a disciple of that child, we cooperate with Him in one of the primary and profound means of spreading the gospel. (Malachi 2:15 “He desires a godly lineage.”)

That generally, godly children would be the obvious fruit of a Christian marriage, and that would cause the enemy to quake. At the VERY least, a Christian who understands this, would rejoice when other Christians have babies, not make them feel like freaks. I’ve never seen reactions to children in the Bible like the ones we get so often. When the Hebrews were in bondage under slavery in Egypt, do you know what God gave them? More babies. (They couldn’t afford them, by the way.) I’m just challenging God’s people….where are we getting our cues about how to think?

And I may be meddling now, but I so long to see pastors return to a biblical view of children from the pulpit. It is your business, and it would revolutionize the church.

January 8, 2014 154 comments

homeschooling

Homeschooling: Help When You Fear You’re Not Doing it Right

by Kelly Crawford January 3, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

Not one homeschool mom doesn’t worry that she isn’t “doing it right” or “not doing enough.” No matter what methods we have chosen or how many homeschool conferences we attend, we all still secretly fear that we are not doing a good job.

To be fully responsible for our children’s education is daunting.

But if I have discovered anything over the past 12 years of homeschooling, it is the almost-magical way children learn, even on our worst days.

In a nutshell, we have relaxed a lot in our approach to education, and still our children are constantly learning, growing and becoming well-rounded people. What God put in them to be able to learn so much in their first five years, didn’t disappear when they turned six! That same curiosity and need to discover the world around them is a remarkable tool that ensures education is happening even when “school” is not.

But to help you relax, I want to mention a few principles that drive the Finland school system. Why should you be interested in the Finland school system? Because on the rare occasion they actually give their students tests, they rank among the top in the world’s best educated.

In my estimation, we should take notes for our own homeschools.

“We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, former math and physics teacher, currently Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

“We value play.” Maija Rintola, Finland school teacher

Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers…Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Homework is minimal. Compulsory schooling does not begin until age 7. “We have no hurry,” said Louhivuori. “Children learn better when they are ready. Why stress them out?”

Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts…It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

Find out more about relaxed homeschooling from “Think Outside the Classroom: A Practical Approach to Relaxed Homeschooling.”

Quotes from Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful? Smithsonian.com

January 3, 2014 17 comments

christian living

Being Fully Here in this New Year (When Saying “No” is Saying “Yes”)

by Kelly Crawford January 1, 2014

written by Kelly Crawford

We joke about it, comment about it and pat ourselves on the back about not being as bad as the next guy about it. But we all know the truth: technology rules us.

The devices meant to be accessories to our lives, to assist us, have become tyrants of our time and worse, of our real relationships.

We are pulled by our ringing phones, the text message alert, the Facebook comment alert and the bizarre twist of irony that somehow, if we look up for too long and gaze into our real lives, we’ll miss something important.

I say it’s time to stop talking about how much time everyone spends with their favorite brand of social media and make serious resolutions to change it.

Because the real people right in front of us–we’re missing them. Don’t get me wrong: I’m so thankful for the ability to shoot an email to a friend to check on her, or the way it’s so easy to reach someone when we need them. I’m thankful for the opportunity to meet people and be involved in a ministry where women can teach and encourage other women. And for the ability to run a (kind-of) business from home, on my own time, with far less demands than most jobs. I’m not talking about throwing it all away, simply putting it back in the place it belongs–a help to us to enhance our lives, and not an addiction.

The biggest problem our technology causes us is the false sense of being always available. I say “false” because in reality, we are NOT available to every person 24 hours a day. Each one calling or emailing or texting may think we are, but when 15 different people “out there” are expecting that we drop the people here to answer them immediately, our families quickly stand in danger of being neglected.

The answer is to hold the phone, the computer, the I-pad at a distance, make people aware of that distance and then create the needed parameters to enforce the distance.

What I mean is, people need to know that you may or may not answer your phone if they call. And it may be that you can turn the ringer off or not keep it on your person to resist the temptation. Creating boundaries and refusing to let the outside barge in at any time is crucial.

One thing that has helped me is to simply not own a device that I keep with me. My daughter who drives and I have a phone we take if we go somewhere, and then it’s put away at home.

We own two lap tops. Both are kept stationary in the living area to keep all members using it accountable. The fabulous thing about them is that we can walk away. And once we do, we are completely disconnected. I have to make a conscious decision to go and open a facebook tab and check it. I’m not aware every time someone posts or comments.

I still struggle with self-control and getting on the computer too often. It pulls me. I want to check things. But I’m resolving to create more limitations and be more deliberate about living this life in front of me.

Let’s be fully here. Eyes open, ears attentive, face available and attention undivided.

Are you with me?

January 1, 2014 22 comments

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