Too Strict Or Not Strict Enough

On Tuesday you were too hard. You know that because of the face, and because of how quiet the next twenty minutes were.

So on Wednesday you were softer, deliberately, and by Wednesday evening you had the other feeling, which is the one that says nothing in this house has any edges and you are letting everybody down by being pleasant.

On Thursday you overcorrected again.

And the actual exhausting part is not either position. It is the swinging, and the fact that every correction is a reaction to the last one rather than to the child in front of you.

You have asked people. You have asked your sister and a woman at work and, once, a stranger on the internet, and you got four answers and one of them was very confident and it made everything worse.

I am not going to tell you which one you are, and I am not going to tell you where the right line is. That would be handing you a standard, and this site does not hand those out, and the standard is exactly what has been making the swing wider every year.

To his own master he standeth

There is a verse in Romans about judging other people's servants, and it has a clause in it that is aimed straight at this.

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4, King James Version)

To his own master he standeth or falleth.

That is a sentence about accountability having an address. A servant answers to one household and not to the street, and the opinions of everybody outside that household are ruled out of order.

You have one Master and one address, and no opinion collected outside that house has ever once had standing in it. It is written in Romans 14:4 that to his own master he standeth or falleth, and the Spirit of God is the one who dismisses every voice that was never appointed to speak.

You answer to one Master, and the four opinions you collected have never once had standing in this house. Romans 14:4 says to his own master he standeth or falleth, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that into a kitchen where somebody has been marking themselves against a stranger.

And then the promise, which is where the whole verse turns. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

Look at who is doing the standing. It is not the servant achieving stability. It is somebody being held up, which means the standing was never a performance in the first place.

You are held up by God rather than balanced by your own judgment, and the standing has never once been your own achievement. It is written in Romans 14:4 that he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand, and the Spirit of God is the one who does the holding while a person is still swinging.

The swinging is caused by the question

Now let me name the mechanism, because the swing is not a character flaw and it has a cause.

Every correction you make is a response to the previous correction rather than to the situation in front of you. Tuesday's hardness produces Wednesday's softness. Wednesday's softness produces Thursday's hardness. The child is barely in the loop at all.

And what drives that is not indecision. It is the question. As long as there is an exam called am I too strict, every single day becomes an answer to it, and every answer gets graded, and the grade produces the next swing.

You are not indecisive, and the swinging has never once been a fault in the person doing it. It is written in Romans 14:4 that the servant shall be holden up, and the Spirit of God is the one who names the engine of a thing rather than blaming the wheels.

Take the exam away and the swing loses its engine. Not immediately, and not because you tried, but because there is nothing to correct against any more.

Romans 14:4 removes the jurisdiction rather than settling the question, and the Holy Spirit is the one who dismisses a court instead of ruling in it.

You are not under the jurisdiction of that question, and it has never once had the authority to grade a Tuesday. Romans 14:4 rules out every judge except one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who ends a case rather than deciding it.

And here is the plain thing, because a year of swinging has become something about you.

That is not a verdict. It is not a score, it is not a grade, and it is not evidence about the parent standing in that kitchen.

It is a person responding to their own last move instead of to a child, which is what happens to anybody being marked, and it stops when the marking stops.

You have not been failing all year, and a swinging week has never once been a report on the person living it. The written word rules the outside opinions out of order in Romans 14:4, and the Spirit of God is the one who refuses to seat a jury that was never appointed.

Two things that are actually true

One more thing, and it is not an answer to the question because there is not one.

Children are not standardized and neither are weeks. The same firmness that is right on a Tuesday when everybody has slept is wrong on a Friday after a hard week, and the difference is not inconsistency. It is a person reading a room.

And the swinging described above is what watching a room looks like from the inside when somebody is also grading themselves for it.

That is not a technique. It is a second way of seeing what has been happening, offered because you have only had one for a long time.

Romans 14:4 has one Master watching rather than a panel scoring, and the Holy Spirit is the one who lets a person read a room without also being marked on it.

You are watching a room and answering it rather than failing at consistency, and the difference between those has never once been visible from the inside. Romans 14:4 puts the standing in God's hands rather than in a person's steadiness, and the Holy Spirit is the one who holds somebody up mid swing.