Bless This Mess Book Summary - Bless This Mess Book explained in key points

Bless This Mess summary

Name: Bless This Mess
Rating: 4.2 (53 reviews)
Author: Molly Baskette and Ellen O’Donnell

Molly Baskette and Ellen O’Donnell

A Modern Guide to Faith and Parenting in a Chaotic World

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4.2 (53 ratings)

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What is Bless This Mess about?

Bless This Mess (2019) is a parents’ guide to raising Christian children in a bewildering age. Combining spiritual wisdom with the latest thought in child psychology, the authors aim to show that there’s no reason to think of the terms “progressive” and “Christian” as contradictory when it comes to child-rearing.

About the Author

Rev. Molly Baskette is the senior minister at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, California, and has written books on a wide range of topics – including public confession, coping with grief, and the revitalization of churches. Her recent works include Standing Naked Before God and Real Good Church. Ellen O’Donnell has a PhD in clinical psychology and is a child psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and Shriners Hospital for Children in Boston. She also works as an instructor at Harvard Medical School and has authored a number of scholarly articles in academic journals, such as the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 9

Instead of trying to remodel your children, adapt your parenting style to better suit their personalities.

For too long, Christian parenting has relied on one all-too-familiar proverb: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Fortunately, most of us disagree with that piece of “advice” these days – and the Bible has more to say about child-rearing than just that.

We can find an alternative attitude worth imitating in another Biblical proverb: “Train children the right way, and when grown, they will not stray.” What makes this statement especially interesting is that the language of the original Hebrew version seems to recommend raising our kids “in accordance with their own character.”

This nuance is significant. Raising children with, rather than against, the grain of their characters involves discerning each child’s uniqueness – and then changing our own style of parenting accordingly. In other words, we need to tailor our parenting methods to fit our children, rather than trying to force them into complying with a one-size-fits-all method.

Taking this advice to heart entails considering a number of important questions: Who are these children God has given us? What are their individual strengths? What are their inclinations? And what can we, as parents, do to work with their God-given temperaments?

One of the problems we can run into when addressing these questions is ego-involvement. This term describes parents’ tendency to over-identify with the successes and failures of their children. And while it’s only natural that we root for our kids – wanting them to do well and meet their goals – we must be careful not to cross the line by replacing their dreams with our own. In short, we must avoid being too ego-involved.

In practice, this might mean learning the difference between wanting your daughter to receive a good education for her own benefit, and wanting her to go to Harvard to satisfy your ambitions. Alternatively, it might mean learning that your son will never be the academic type, and that working with his hands is what will make him happiest in life.

Relinquishing control over your children’s aims for the future can be difficult, but soul-searching of this kind is the first step in starting to change our methods of child-rearing. By separating our kids’ true temperaments and inclinations from our own imaginary ideals, we can begin to formulate new parenting strategies from the ground up.

Create a home environment that fosters your child’s sense of independence and self-motivation.

While reformulating our parenting methods might seem like a daunting task, there are a lot of places we can look to for guidance. One of them is a psychological school of thought known as self-determination theory.

According to this theory, everybody is born with an inner reserve of motivation – a fact that in-the-know parents can harness for the good of their children.

Replace simplistic moral assertions with the concept of moral ambiguity and the cultivation of empathy.

Jesus took nuanced moral stances in a time of clear-cut absolutes and stood up on behalf of social outcasts. To enable our children to do the same, the first step we can take is to introduce them to the concept of moral ambiguity. This is a form of ethical thinking that deals in moral gray areas, rather than in black-and-white notions of good and evil.

The problem is that children are familiar with the notion of good guys and bad guys from an early age – it’s a trope they encounter in nearly every form of storytelling. This makes it even more important that we help them to realize that goodies and baddies are exactly that: just a story, a fable.

Teach your children that their actions should be consistent with your family values, even when there’s no reward.

Our children are ours, but they’re also their own. In other words, they aren’t carbon copies of us, and they can’t – and won’t – follow our advice for every situation.

So how do we ensure that they adopt the values we cherish? Well, the first step is simple: define those values, and make them known.

When it comes to money, we should teach our children to be both generous and sensible.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly warned us that money and material possessions are unimportant and can even hinder our spiritual growth. In fact, he advised his disciples to give away everything they owned.

In today’s world, how can we can begin to live a life more aligned with this teaching?

We can follow Jesus’s example by teaching our children to care about others and urging them to pursue social justice.

Although we might be inclined to think of social justice as an entirely modern concern, the pursuit of kindness, fairness, and equality has a much longer history. In fact, Jesus repeatedly calls on us in the Bible to try to fix society’s ills.

To heed this call, our children must develop a sense of concern for the people around us – especially those in need. Unfortunately, many parents assume that their children will simply adopt a caring attitude as they mature. But if you don’t show your children that it’s important to be kind, they’re probably not going to magically start thinking that it is.

Nuance is paramount when discussing sensitive topics like sex, drugs, and alcohol.

For too long, parents have delivered advice on drugs, alcohol, and especially sex in the form of the dreaded “Talk” – a one-off conversation in which everything kids need to know about these sensitive topics is supposedly revealed. More often than not, this Talk is stilted, ineffective, and rife with unhelpful moral absolutes. So what might a progressive, Christian alternative to the Talk look like instead?

For a start, the Talk would stop existing in the singular. Replacing it with a series of casual but meaningful discussions is a far more effective strategy if we want to help our children make safe, informed decisions.

Small changes involving ritual, prayer, and the Bible can help bring God into the life of your family.

For Christians, Sunday is meant to be a day of rest – but, sadly, this aspiration is becoming increasingly unrealistic in our fast-paced modern world.

With all the demands life makes on our time, attention, and energy these days, how can we hope to bring religion into our daily lives?

We can overcome worry by trusting in prayer and encouraging our children to confront their fears.

As parents, if we let ourselves worry about everything that troubles us, we might be in a constant state of panic. We want the best for our children, but we know there’s so much in the world that could harm them.

Luckily, prayer can sometimes act as an antidote to anxiety. One reason for this is that praying involves recognizing that some things are beyond our control – that no matter how much we worry, there will always be things we can’t change. When we pray to God about something that’s troubling us, then, we’re acknowledging the limits of our own power as well as the futility of worry. After all, if only God can fix whatever’s worrying us, what use is our own troubled brooding?

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Who should read Bless This Mess

Prospective parents who want to raise their children to be both Christian and progressive
Current parents who have lost touch with their own childhood faith
Anyone interested in twenty-first century Christianity

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Bless This Mess summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is Bless This Mess about?

About the Author

Instead of trying to remodel your children, adapt your parenting style to better suit their personalities.

Create a home environment that fosters your child’s sense of independence and self-motivation.

Replace simplistic moral assertions with the concept of moral ambiguity and the cultivation of empathy.

Teach your children that their actions should be consistent with your family values, even when there’s no reward.

When it comes to money, we should teach our children to be both generous and sensible.

We can follow Jesus’s example by teaching our children to care about others and urging them to pursue social justice.

Nuance is paramount when discussing sensitive topics like sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Small changes involving ritual, prayer, and the Bible can help bring God into the life of your family.

We can overcome worry by trusting in prayer and encouraging our children to confront their fears.

Key ideas in Bless This Mess

Instead of trying to remodel your children, adapt your parenting style to better suit their personalities.

Create a home environment that fosters your child’s sense of independence and self-motivation.

Replace simplistic moral assertions with the concept of moral ambiguity and the cultivation of empathy.

Teach your children that their actions should be consistent with your family values, even when there’s no reward.

When it comes to money, we should teach our children to be both generous and sensible.

We can follow Jesus’s example by teaching our children to care about others and urging them to pursue social justice.

Nuance is paramount when discussing sensitive topics like sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Small changes involving ritual, prayer, and the Bible can help bring God into the life of your family.

We can overcome worry by trusting in prayer and encouraging our children to confront their fears.

Who should read Bless This Mess

Categories with Bless This Mess

Books like Bless This Mess

What our members say

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