As a parent, as a father, which are you? Do you view yourself as an owner of your kids or an ambassador? Paul David Tripp in his book Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family suggests that parents are more accurately to consider themselves as ambassadors. Tripp aids a parent in discerning his bent through the following four areas.
1. Identity- Where you get the sense of who you are.
Owner- "Parents tend to look to get their identity, meaning, purpose, and inner sense of well-being from their children." I have struggled with this throughout my parenting. Parents who tend to talk about their children's successes could struggle here.
Ambassador - An ambassador parent does not need to obtain their identity from their children because they receive their identity from the Lord.
2. Work - What you have been called to do.
Owner- The job of an owner parent is to turn their kids into something. Parents "have a vision of what they want their children to be, and they think that their work as parents is to use their authority, time, money, and energy to form their children into what they have conceived that they should be." (p.18)
Ambassador-An ambassador parent understands they represent someone much larger than themselves. "They know that what they have been called to be are instruments in the hands of One who is gloriously wide and is the giver of grace that has the power to rescue and transform the children who have been entrusted to their care." (p. 18-19)
3. Success- What is defined as success
Owner- The owner parent looks for certain markers of success in their children like academic performance, athletic achievement, musical ability, and social likeability. While personal achievements are good things to look at, they do not determine parental success.
Ambassador- An ambassador parent does not determine success horizontally. Rather, he defines successful parenting "... about being a usable and faithful tool in the hands of the One who alone is able to produce good things in your children." (p. 19) Success for an ambassador parent comes from God not themselves.
4. Reputation- This is what communicates to people who and what you are all about.
Owner- Simply put, owner parents make their children trophies to be displayed to their friends.
Ambassador - An ambassador parent understands that anything positive that children become is "trophies of the Savior that they have sought to serve." (p. 20)
The question that a relational father needs to determine is where he falls. Are you an owner parent or an ambassador parent?
