Bookstore shelves are loaded with parenting titles, but the one I like best is a 1979 book by Anne Ortlund: CHILDREN ARE WET CEMENT. It’s a powerful statement with accurate parenting implications.

When workers poured the concrete for our patio 25 years ago, our five children each pressed their palms into the wet cement, along with a quarter from their birth year. I pressed in a penny dated that year, 1986, next to the line-up of hands, to mark the date of those childhood palms. As soft as the concrete was when we touched it, shortly thereafter it became rock-hard and has been that way ever since. Without the use of a jack-hammer, the hand impressions are permanent.

As children arrive into our families, they’re soft and impressionable, “wet” with potential. Parenting them is the most important assignment we’ll ever get, a serious responsibility given to us by the Person who created every baby and has specific plans for each life. The way we live in front of them leaves a permanent mark on their lives.

While spending time with two of my grandchildren this week, I’ve seen again how supple the mind of a child really is. Micah and Skylar, ages one and two, spend most of their waking hours imitating the rest of us. If Linnea opens a kitchen drawer, as soon as she closes it, Micah opens it again, following her example. If I’m putting curlers in my hair, Skylar wants to do the same.

Little ones don’t need a reason to imitate us. They do it instinctively. We own the power to be examples for good or evil, an enormous responsibility that should cause us to clean up our lives as we go along.

Modeling well in front of one and two year olds is easy. In front of teenagers it’s more difficult. 

But we do our best, because we want to give our children the strongest possible springboard into adulthood. Despite multiple failures and a list of if-only’s, we keep on trying. Knowing we’re being carefully watched is a strong motivator!

As a child of God, I wonder if I’m carefully watching Jesus in the same way. Do I study his life and try to emulate him? Or do I dismiss that possibility, knowing I could never match his flawless example? Jesus instructed us to watch what he did, then copy it. Do I?

Of course I’m going to fall short, just as children fail to duplicate adult behavior. But that doesn’t keep them from trying, and the same should be true for me. Although I’ll never be able to exude the fruit of the Spirit as flawlessly as Jesus did, through practice I can get better at it.

Watching my grandchildren try, fail and keep trying encourages me to do the same.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:14-15)