Yesterday we took Emma to a local children’s museum. She calls the place the “museum house” and begs to go there. Basically it’s a place where the kids get to “play” with all sorts of educational installations that supposedly teach them about gravity, light, sound, wind… Mike had never been, so we braved a museum on a Saturday in winter (if it feels like winter, it’s still winter – the picture’s from last summer btw). To clarify, Mike braved the masses and interacted with Emma and I sorta waddled around and claimed whatever chair/bench I could find.
We’re museum members, so I generally take Emma there on weekdays after lunch (when it’s not crowded). There’s generally mostly moms and grandparents there with kids, and a respectable number of dads letting the kids play. I had never been on a Saturday before and from my aloof pregnancy observation post I was intrigued by the new variety of visitor present. At the risk of gender stereotyping, I will call him the “Engineer/CEO Dad.”* The take charge and achieve perfection sort of dad. This is the dad who works a traditional schedule and so would never show up mid-week with the work-at-home, stay-at-home, flexible schedule dads. From what I typically see, most other parents at the museum might explain a certain exhibit to a kid, but they then let the kid play. The Engineer/CEO Dad jumped right in. Not to play with their kid per se, but to figure out how everything worked and to show their kid the right way to do things. If the kid was building a track for a ball to cascade down, the dad would jump in to improve on the design so it worked better. If the kid was building a tower of blocks, the dad would insist on strengthening the foundation so it wouldn’t fall. The drums had to be played in rhythm and the manipulable shapes had to be made into a recognizable design. If their kid couldn’t handle it, the dad did it for them.
I was fascinated. At first I was a bit annoyed – the point is about letting the kids discover things for themselves! Then I was convicted about how much I step-in to prevent Emma from having to struggle as she learns. Then I started to wonder about how much we as the church step in to prevent fellow Christians from struggling to figure things out for themselves. We want people to have all the right answers and especially the right theology. So instead of encouraging questions and self-discovery, we spoon feed answers. Not that I’m against education, but like these dads we assume we need to take charge of other people’s spiritual journey. But will that actually help them learn or develop a deep faith? Or does it just lead them to parrot answers they don’t really believe because they know those are the “right answers”? If we think allowing kids to discover things for themselves is good pedagogy, then why don’t we allow the for the same when it comes to spiritual formation?
*(I am sure that dads who are Engineers (hi dad) and CEOs are great dads and that there are a lot of moms who act this way too… just observing what I saw)