From a Quaker parent in the thick of it

Hello dear readers,

I started and stopped this letter a few times. I wanted to share from a place of vulnerability and to share wisdom I’ve gathered from my own experience as a Quaker parent, but the wisdom part is getting stuck. I also had to stop to nurse my baby and get my five-year-old a snack.

And that’s exactly the problem; I might be too immersed in parenthood to have room to reflect much on the spirituality of it right now. Recently I went to a talk at my meeting where several parents spoke about their experiences of parenting faithfully. Like me, they had a difficult time articulating what is uniquely Quaker about their parenting. One thing they agreed on is that parenting is continuing revelation.

I hope some of the messages from Friends this month on the topic of Children and Quakerism spoke to you as a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, neighbor, or community member in fellowship with young people. I chose this topic because I felt like I needed some guidance from Quakerism on motherhood, my most important ministry. Some of the messages I most needed to hear were that loving children is a form of prayer, making your love for your children visible is a way to help the world, and even Elizabeth Fry couldn’t do everything all at once, and she considered motherhood her most important ministry too.

This photo of me was in my grandfather’s wallet when he died (I was 23 at the time). He had written on the back, “Maeve, helping out.” Now I carry it in my wallet to remind me how profoundly I have been loved and how I should aspire to love. I hope you love someone this way too.

The Daily Quaker Message is taking a break next week but will be back with messages about Quakers and Technology on June 1st. We’ll ask how Friends season what technology to use, how technology can further our witness, and whether there is “that of God” in the algorithm. 

With love for you and the children in your lives,

Maeve Sutherland
Editor of the Daily Quaker Message

Reader Responses

When has your spirituality helped you in your relationship with a child?

My son was adopted at birth. When he was 39 we reconnected. Surprisingly and immediately, our souls met in filial love.

Quaker practice and a decade of Twelve Step work had laid my heart open to the experience and growth we have both experienced in the past 18 years or so.

Patricia S., Bon Air, VA, USA
Being an adult in the room means I don’t need to lose control of my emotions, even in those moments when you have little or no control over whatever else is occurring in the room, especially when that room contains a child, or children.

Being a pattern, an example, at least seems to somehow give me more opportunities to answer that of God in any rascal (or rascals) when they allow that of God in them to show! 

David T., Western Australia, Australia 
I think of my time teaching at The Meeting School. Living as family with teens, many who struggled to find themselves. It was some of the hardest but most rewarding work I ever did. I certainly learned as much as I taught. And we lived our lives in constant recognition of spirituality. We worshipped together every day and we came to know each other profoundly. I am so grateful for those friends, many of whom I still am connected with, though 15 years have passed since the school closed.

Sheila G., Putney, VT, USA

This Week’s Messages

Mon May 18

The kingdom of heaven belongs to children

“Some people brought children to Jesus so that he would place his hands on them and pray. But the disciples scolded them. ‘Allow the children to come to me,’ Jesus said. ‘Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.’ Then he blessed the children and went away from there.” …
Tue May 19

Nurture them in Gospel Love

“To watch the spirit of children, to nurture them in Gospel Love, and labour to help them against that which would mar the beauty of their minds, is a debt we owe them; and a faithful performance of our duty not only tends to their lasting benefit and our own peace, but also to render their company agreeable to us.” …
Wed May 20

Parenting is continuing revelation

“Waiting on the Lord rests on the realization that our understanding is a continuing process of learning more about Truth, of gaining new glimpses of the Light, of coming closer to God. We believe in continuing revelation. Parenting is certainly an ongoing experience of continuing revelation! Our children show us new facets of themselves continually. As they grow, they present new challenges that compel us to rethink our beliefs and how we understand them, beliefs about the world and about ourselves. That questioning can be about our very relationship to God.” …
Thu May 21

I feel warm when I talk with God

“Every year my family and I go to Tofino, a beach fishing town on Vancouver Island. As a day trip we always go for the hike to Schooner Cove, a huge beach where having fun is involuntary. Because it is relatively empty, the walk through the woods is nearly silent. As I walk along the path and observe the unearthly beauty I start to fall behind my family, who continue on ahead. This is when I usually have a chat with God.” …
Fri May 22

A family is a learning community

“Our children are given to us for a time to cherish, to protect, to nurture, and then to salute as they go their separate ways. They too have the light of God within, and a family should be a learning community in which children not only learn skills and values from parents, but in which adults learn new ways of experiencing things and seeing things through young eyes. From their birth on, let us cultivate the habit of dialogue and receptive listening. We should respect their right to grow into their own wholeness, not just the wholeness we may wish for them.” …
Sat May 23

When children leave our care

“We cannot hope to transfer more than a little of our wisdom to our young people – if wisdom it is. We have increasingly to stand back as they grow older, knowing that the problem is passing out of our hands. They go off to college – or to live in a flat of their own, that aim and delight of so many young people. At last they have privacy, freedom from supervision and criticism, independence – but they are now fully exposed to all that we fear….” …

Banner art by Rebecca Price

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Author

  • Maeve Sutherland

    Maeve Sutherland is a communications professional who never recovered from her wonderful childhood at a Quaker elementary school. She has spent her career helping nonprofits share their stories, from schools and universities, to museums, to radio stations. As a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Maeve spent a year living in “Peaceable Kingdoms,” pacifist intentional communities around the world, where she learned that everyone has a role to play in shaping a better world. She worked as a freelance social media manager before joining Thee Quaker Project.

    After returning to Quakerism as a young adult, Maeve now attends Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting in Philadelphia.

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