A Mother’s Role in Raising Boys

00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, we've received a number of emails that have asked a very similar

00:00:07.240 | question asked by moms who are interested to hear your thoughts about

00:00:10.440 | their role in raising sons. The first thing I would say to mom is teach the

00:00:17.680 | boy, teach your son. If you're married, that is if you're not a single mom, but

00:00:23.160 | if you're married, you and he together teach the whole counsel of God to your

00:00:29.120 | son. Hear my son your father's instruction and do not forsake your

00:00:35.400 | mother's teaching. Proverbs 1 8. My son, keep your father's commandment and

00:00:41.400 | forsake not your mother's teaching. Proverbs 6 20. And there's that wonderful

00:00:46.880 | story, right, of Lois and Eunice in 2nd Timothy where Paul says to this young

00:00:56.200 | man, "Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from

00:01:03.200 | whom you learned it." 2nd Timothy 3 14. And who's that? Chapter 1 verse 5, "I am

00:01:11.080 | reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that first dwelt in your grandmother,

00:01:15.840 | Lois, and your mother, Eunice. And now I am sure dwells in you, because we know

00:01:23.680 | from Acts that his father wasn't converted. He was a Greek, and he wasn't a

00:01:30.680 | Christian. And so it appears that Paul chose as part of his missionary band a

00:01:38.000 | young, and I think we would say timid, man who had been almost entirely schooled by

00:01:46.640 | his mother and his grandmother. And that, I think, should raise the stakes of a mom,

00:01:51.640 | a single mom in particular, or a grandmother. Raise the stakes very high

00:01:57.120 | as to your mighty influence in shaping the life of a son. The next thing

00:02:05.080 | I'd say is expect obedience from your son. Children, obey your parents—not just

00:02:13.320 | your father, but your parents in the Lord. Require that this boy recognize God's

00:02:19.120 | authority in you, and punish disobedience, and require and reward

00:02:25.600 | obedience. Then I would say model strong womanhood. 1 Peter 3, "As you are her

00:02:34.840 | children, Sarah's children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is

00:02:41.800 | frightening." The godly woman is the fearless woman. That's what I mean when I

00:02:46.720 | say strong womanhood. Or Proverbs 31, "Strength and dignity are her clothing;

00:02:53.480 | she laughs at the time to come." So a son should look to a mother not as a weak

00:03:00.320 | woman who's always anxious about tomorrow, but this woman should be like a

00:03:05.000 | oak of stable righteousness who laughs at the time to come, and communicates

00:03:12.600 | that when you have God you can be strong and laugh in the face of uncertain

00:03:18.840 | futures. And then I would say honor the leadership and the protective instincts

00:03:26.480 | of your husband. As the church submits to Christ, wives submit in everything. So a

00:03:33.160 | son should see a strong woman deferring to the initiatives and leadership, the

00:03:41.120 | spiritual leadership of a strong man. Now I'm of course assuming that this man is a

00:03:45.600 | believer and is taking that, and you do what you can if that's not the case. But

00:03:49.560 | if you've got an intact spiritual marriage, what a son needs is to see that

00:03:56.320 | woman doing that. In the home I grew up in, it was stunning. It was just

00:04:00.680 | stunning. My dad was away from home two-thirds of the year. My mother did

00:04:05.400 | everything. She was omnicompetent. She taught me just about everything I know

00:04:09.240 | when he was away, and she never once gave me the impression she couldn't do

00:04:15.080 | anything. She could paint the house, she could push a wheelbarrow. I watched the

00:04:19.560 | sweat drip off the end of her long nose as she weeded the Bermuda grass out and

00:04:24.840 | showed me how to take care of the yard. She taught me how to make french fries

00:04:29.360 | in deep grease and wait until it's hot, otherwise they're gonna get soggy. She

00:04:35.360 | taught me how to flip pancakes and wait till the bubbles appear around the edge

00:04:39.120 | because if you turn it over before then they're gonna spill out over the edge of

00:04:42.760 | the spatula, and on and on and on. She was pouring out wisdom, and when my dad

00:04:47.840 | came home, my mother beamed with joy that he could now lead in prayer at the table.

00:04:56.280 | He could now say, "Let's go to church." He could now say, "Let's go out to eat." He

00:05:01.480 | could pull the chair out for her when he sat her down. He would open the door for

00:05:05.320 | her when he went through it. I watched all, I watched those, that dance, that

00:05:08.800 | choreography, and I marveled at my mother. That in his absence she could be

00:05:14.240 | everything, and in his presence she loved it when he took that kind of initiative.

00:05:19.440 | That's what we need to show our sons so that they are not belittling or

00:05:25.120 | demeaning in any way when they're taking initiative for the sake of a woman. And I

00:05:32.020 | would say, point the son to strong manhood in Scripture, in history, in

00:05:37.760 | fiction, in media, in her husband. And I don't mean necessarily physical brawn.

00:05:44.200 | Don't give the impression to the boy that he's not masculine if he's not an

00:05:47.760 | athlete. What I mean is true masculine, protective, initiative-taking, courage and

00:05:54.800 | strength. And a guy who's into art, who loves the arts, has a more

00:06:00.600 | sensitive spirit, don't let him think he's less a man. Don't give the

00:06:04.720 | impression, "Oh, you're not really a man if you don't hunt and carry a gun and

00:06:08.760 | tackle football." No, no, no, no. There is a masculinity that is strong and

00:06:15.400 | initiative-taking and courageous and protective, and she needs to show him

00:06:20.440 | that in all the ways she possibly can. And maybe one last thing. Expect, expect

00:06:30.080 | strong manhood from him. Give the boy responsibility early on. Ask for his

00:06:37.480 | manly behavior. Insist on politeness towards his sister or towards you,

00:06:42.800 | letting you go first through the door and showing him how to open a door,

00:06:48.600 | showing him how to use respectful language, training him how to treat girls

00:06:53.480 | in a respectful and protective way. So those are some ideas. I'm sure there's

00:07:00.200 | there's lots more, but I think, Tony, that a mom and a dad should see God's wisdom

00:07:08.920 | in creating homes with a mother and a father, both of them bringing something

00:07:16.360 | remarkably unique to the sexual wholeness of both sons and daughters. So

00:07:22.640 | mom and dad are both important for son, mom and dad are both important for

00:07:29.040 | daughter, and if you're in a marriage where you're a single mom or a single dad,

00:07:34.920 | God will have mercy. God will provide. God will make up the differences if you keep

00:07:41.440 | all these things in mind, I think, and make up for the losses in various ways.

00:07:47.320 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Please email

00:07:51.000 | your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. At DesiringGod.org

00:07:54.720 | you'll find thousands of other free resources from John Piper. I'm your

00:07:58.120 | host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.

00:08:01.520 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

A Mother’s Role in Raising Boys

Chapters