“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
– Proverbs 22:6
As any Green Thumb knows, early spring is the time for pruning. All plants, whether for beauty or consumption, require pruning in order to grow optimally. Indeed, it seems that the more valuable a particular specimen is to us, the more timely, studied, and sometimes severe pruning we apply to it. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of harnessing the tremendous efficiency and dramatic effect of an excavator to prune the dead branches from the pine forest behind our yard. While Caterpillar may be proud, pruning the treasured apple trees nearer the house this last week with hydraulically powered steel boom and bucket wasn’t an option. For this, more careful, manual efforts were required. In each instance, the pruning effort promises to keep the tree healthy, promote better growth, and (in the case of the apple trees) produce a higher yield of fruit.
Despite how natural this grooming of nature seems, it is striking how differently our culture at large perceives our own youth. These “saplings”, like ourselves, find their being within the sin-laden soil of this middle earth. The result is a nature prone to spiritual disease and wayward growth, equal in reality to the rotting death we cut out of the apple trees over the weekend. If left unattended, these ailing limbs would have destroyed the whole plant. But modern parenting philosophy is making a high stakes gamble with the minimalistic “hand-off” approach. “Don’t squelch their self-expression,” the talking heads warn, “or you’ll harm their sense of individual self-worth.” Along these same lines, a friend of Chesterton’s once said that what mankind needed what more people who believed in themselves. Another rendition of this is the political juggernaut “Yes, We Can!” Different words, but each reflect the same intrinsic confidence in the preeminent power and goodness of man. Chesterton’s response to his friend was that there were plenty of people already who believed in themselves…and most of them were in the insane asylum.
In a world made of corruptible stuff, reasonable self-doubt is only a beginning. We should expect serious pruning – first in ourselves, then in our children. And make no mistake, pruning can hurt, especially if it’s been left undone for a while. While we don’t plan on snipping off appendages, the effect that removing misguided convictions and attitudes can have on our ego can be an insurmountable ordeal for many season old timbers. This reveals what a mercy then it is to our children to receive this faithful tending while they are still young, malleable, and resilient. Far from letting the “terrible twos” stay terrible, our well-considered and carefully applied pruning though out their young lives promises a happy harvest of bountiful, good fruit.
“He who spares the [pruning shears] hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.”
-Proverbs 13:24
