Mom Rage Videos and the Bible: What Christian Parents Must See

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Social media has been flooded over the past several weeks with videos of moms filming themselves losing it with their kids. Alongside those are videos meant to be satire that are not funny at all, where a woman takes a fake baby she pretends is her child and drops it, or forgets it somewhere, or puts it in the washing machine or the dishwasher.

The purpose of these videos is to say that motherhood is really hard, that children are a burden, and that moms are justified in losing control and treating their kids as if those kids are a burden.

So on today's episode we are going to do things a little differently. Rather than answering a question submitted by one of you, I want to share something that has been on my heart recently and offer some encouragement for moms and some encouragement for dads in ways that I think you are uniquely positioned at this time and place in history to shine light into the darkness of our culture.

Why I Am Calling These Videos Satanic

What I am going to say next I have never before said on the Foundation Worldview podcast. I am going to use a phrase that I rarely ever use and that I do not use lightly. But this flood of videos, they are satanic. I do not say that lightly and I do not say that often, but I am positive that these videos are satanic.

And how do I know that? Because Scripture reveals that Jesus loves children. It reveals that Jesus specifically welcomed children when others turned them away. Scripture reveals that God delights in his children, which means that God wants us to delight in our children. We are told in the Gospels that God has specifically assigned angels to watch over children.

So anyone who would gleefully proclaim that children are a burden, that it is okay to yell and scream at them and to lose control, this is not of Jesus. This is of his enemy Satan.

As I have seen some of these videos online over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about the Foundation Worldview podcast listeners. I know that the majority of our listeners are moms, so I have been thinking about very specific ways in which God has positioned you moms in this cultural moment to fight back against this satanic lie and to shine light into the darkness. And I know we have some dads who listen to us as well, so I have also been thinking through ways that you dads are uniquely positioned to shine light into this dark cultural moment.

Christian Moms, You Are Uniquely Positioned

Christian moms, you have the unique opportunity to allow your love for God, your commitment to his word, and this season of parenting to shine light into the darkness.

There are young women on your block, in your community, and in your church who are being infiltrated with these videos on social media. And even if the specific young women you are surrounded by are not on social media being flooded by these videos, their peers are. A constant stream of this kind of content is convincing a whole generation of young women that marriage and motherhood are burdens to be avoided. They are constantly being preached this false idea that true joy is found in focusing on self, when we know as Christians that there is only one place true joy is found, and that is in Christ. And God's design for the world is that most people would get married and would have children.

So you have an opportunity in this dark cultural moment to speak and live out the truth before these young women who are in your sphere of influence.

When I say this, I do not mean that you should try to make motherhood and marriage look easy or pain free or perfect. That is not reality. I am also not suggesting that you try to be a tradwife influencer. For many of the women out there who are doing that influencing, what they are presenting is not even real life.

What I am suggesting is that you pray through the following three questions to help you think through how you can live intentionally in this season of motherhood and use it to shine light into the darkness of our culture.

Question 1: Who Can I Invite Into My Home and Life?

The first question is this: what young women in my sphere of influence can I invite into my home and life so that they can see the goodness of a godly marriage and godly motherhood?

Because right now, for the young women in your sphere of influence, the world is speaking so loudly at them that marriage and motherhood are not blessings, that they should instead pursue selfishness, and that this is the way to pursue joy.

These young women need to see different stages of life up close and personal. They need to see the blessings and the challenges of God's good design for marriage and family.

So again, that question is: what young women in my sphere of influence can I invite into my home and my life so that they can see the goodness of a godly marriage and godly motherhood? I encourage you to be praying through that. "Lord, which young women on my block, in my neighborhood, at my church can I open up my home and invite in so that they can see the goodness, both the joys and the challenges, of a godly marriage and godly parenting?"

Question 2: What Ordinary Ways Can I Invite Them Into?

The second question I would encourage you to pray through is this: in what ordinary ways can I invite these young women into my life?

Because right now, in busy seasons of marriage and parenting, you probably do not have time to sit down and have a cup of coffee with a young woman. But you probably do serve your family three meals a day. You make it so that your children eat at least three times a day. So invite a young woman over for a meal. Whether it is breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time, whatever it is. You need to eat. She needs to eat. Invite her over for a meal.

Or think through, could you meet up at a park? Maybe there is a time in the afternoon when you are going to take your kids to the park anyway, and you could just invite her to come along. Could you go for a walk through your neighborhood and invite her to come with you?

One of my friends, when she was in a really busy season of parenting a toddler and a preschooler, just did not have a lot of time to invest in young women the way she did before that season. So she would invite one of the young women in our church to come over one afternoon a week and help her fold laundry.

Now, she was not just asking for help. She was not trying to get this girl to fold her laundry. She was saying, I want to spend time with you. I want to invest in you. I do not have a lot of free time. But you know what? I do have a lot of laundry. So they would do the laundry, fold the laundry, and they would talk. And this young woman would get to observe my friend parenting, playing with her kids, disciplining her kids, correcting her kids, organizing life for her kids.

Ordinary tasks you are already doing are the invitation. You do not need to create margin you do not have.

Question 3: How Do I Speak About Marriage and Motherhood?

The third question I would encourage you to pray through is this: how can I begin speaking about marriage and motherhood in ways that honestly reflect the goodness of God's design?

A lot of times I do not think we realize it, but we can very easily get into the habit of complaining, or only talking about the things that are negative. Now, there are times when we do need to pour out our hearts. We pour our hearts out before the Lord. Maybe there is a good friend we pour our hearts out to. So I am not saying to shove down or stuff down or hide all of the difficulties or all of the things you are struggling with. I am saying do not make those struggles the main things that you talk about.

Are you intentional about speaking positively of your husband and your children? This is something my mom always does such a great job of. I was just thinking of this. I was with her a few weeks ago and we were talking about something and she said, "Oh, your dad is so great. He does X, Y, and Z." And I thought, my mom just does such a good job of speaking positively about my dad. So what are ways that you can speak positively of your husband and your children in front of others?

Now I want to share something personally, as a single woman. One way that I have seen married women with children almost push down motherhood, and it is not intentional, is this: a lot of times when women get together, they like to talk about their birth stories. And it almost turns into a fish tale. A fish tale is where you talk about the one that got away or how big the fish was, and it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

A lot of times women share their birth stories in a way that highlights all the things that went wrong and how awful it was. I think it is probably partly to help them process it. But also, when we tell stories about ourselves, we like to make ourselves look good. So it becomes, look at all that I went through.

But when you share those stories in front of young women, or even in front of people like me, I am not a young woman but I am a single woman, it can be very overwhelming. Because childbirth is scary enough on its own without people telling you their horror stories.

Again, I am not saying hide all of the difficulties. We do not want young women to have an unrealistic picture of childbearing and childrearing. But do not use that story like a fish tale to make yourself look like the hero, and inadvertently scare other women away from ever wanting to have children.

So that is something to think through. Speaking positively of your husband and of your children. And then not hiding the difficulties or making things appear rosy, but showing that marriage and motherhood are a blessing.

Another thing my mom did such a great job of when we were growing up is that she just showed she loved to be around us. I remember at the end of summer vacation, every summer, my mom would say, oh, I am so sad that you guys are going back to school. I just love spending time with you.

So do you say that to your children when it is just you and your kids, or when others are around? I tried to do this last week. Last week I watched my three and five year old niece and nephew for eight days. And I tried to at least once a day say, do you know how much I enjoy spending time with you? I just love getting to spend time with you. Because I wanted them to know it, and I wanted the people around us to know it too.

So think about how you can speak positively, not hiding the difficulties or making everything appear rosy, but speaking positively of marriage and motherhood.

Again, those three questions to pray through are: what young women in my sphere of influence can I invite into my home and my life so that they can see the goodness of a godly marriage and godly motherhood? In what ordinary ways can I invite these women into my life? And how can I begin speaking about marriage and motherhood in ways that honestly reflect the goodness of God's design?

Because Christian moms, you are uniquely positioned to be able to show this next generation of young women that marriage and motherhood are beautiful gifts from God.

A Word to Single Women

Now, God does not provide every woman with a husband. I am living proof of that. Nor does he provide every married woman with children. But when he does provide those things, they should be treasured.

I know that we also have some single women who listen to this podcast, women who are single like myself. You can also model something important for young women in this very dark cultural moment. You can model contentment in Christ in your singleness. And you can model using singleness for serving others, not for selfishness.

Because not every young woman is going to get married, but every young woman can choose to surrender her life to Christ and follow him and spend her life serving him and seeking him, whether she is married or whether she is single.

If You Are Overwhelmed by Toddlers Right Now

If you are listening and you are a mom of littles, of kids who are toddlers or younger, and you are thinking, yeah Elizabeth, this all sounds great, but I am just so overwhelmed raising toddlers and I feel like my life is a huge mess and I should not even be inviting anybody into it right now, I would just say this: you are right, raising toddlers is really, really hard. But even in the messiness of this season, you can have influence for Christ as well.

If you are interested, we are hosting a webinar called Raising Toddlers with Patience and Purpose. We are going to dive in and look at what God's word has to say about raising children, and specifically about young children. How can we raise them in a way that is both patient and purposeful? What practical things can we do throughout the day to set up a day that aligns with God's design for our toddlers? If you are in that season of parenting right now, or you know someone who is, be sure to sign up, because we are going to go through a lot of really helpful information.

Christian Dads, You Are Uniquely Positioned

Now I am going to switch over to Christian dads. Christian dads, I believe that similar to Christian moms, you also have the unique opportunity to allow your love for God, your commitment to his word, and this current season of life to shine light into the darkness.

You can really help the next generation of young men see the beauty in marriage and family. You can help them see how God has uniquely equipped them as young men who are, Lord willing, going to grow into men who protect and provide for their future families. And you can help them in this season of life to think through choices they can make now that will be a blessing to their future wife and children.

So I am going to walk through three questions similar to the questions for moms, questions that you as dads can be praying through to think about how you can invest in the next generation of young men.

The first question is: what young men in my sphere of influence can I invite into my home and life so that they can see the goodness of a godly marriage and godly fatherhood?

That is similar to the question about young women. Young men need to see different stages of life up close and personal. They need to see the blessings and the challenges of marriage and fatherhood and understand the goodness of God's design.

So think through, who are the young men on your block, in your neighborhood, in your church who could really benefit from seeing what it looks like to be a godly husband and what it looks like to be a godly father? Because even more helpful than going through a book on godly marriage or godly fatherhood with a young man is for him to see your life up close and personal, and what you do day in and day out.

Inviting Young Men Into Ordinary Life

Similar to the questions I had for women, the second question I have for men is: in what ordinary ways can I invite these men into my life?

Can you invite them over for dinner one night, and then they can go out in the backyard and play ball with you and your kids? Can you invite them over one afternoon when you are fixing something around your house? Can you invite them over for a time when you are going to have dinner and then family worship?

Now, I am neither young nor male. I am a middle-aged woman. But just a few nights ago a family from my church had me over for dinner. And then after dinner they included me in their family worship, where the dad took out his guitar. I know not all men play guitars. You do not have to be musical. But then they sang a song from the Scripture hymnal and went through a passage of Scripture.

It can be really helpful to have young men around your table seeing you as the dad lead your family in family worship, so that they can see that it is simple. You do not need to be a musician. You do not need to be a pastor. You just need to be a man who loves God and takes his word seriously to raise your family in the truth.

How You Talk About Marriage and Fatherhood

And then the third question is: how can I begin speaking about marriage and fatherhood in ways that honestly reflect the goodness of God's design?

How can you begin speaking positively about your wife and your children?

I think a way that men can uniquely speak into a younger man's life is this: how can you begin speaking about your job primarily as a means of providing for your family, not as a means of fulfilling your passions? I think this is something that has really been flipped on its head in our culture, viewing vocational work as something that primarily brings us fulfillment.

Now, is it a blessing when your vocation can bring you fulfillment? Absolutely. However, the primary purpose of your working for a living is to glorify God by providing for your family.

Several years ago I had a friend who was dating someone, and they were talking about marriage, and she was not sure if this young man was the right person for her to marry. One of the factors in her deciding to end the relationship was that he had chosen a career path where there was no hope of him ever being able to provide for a family. They were talking through that and he told her, I am going to need your help thinking through ways I could earn enough money. She would suggest something. He would say, yeah, that does not really interest me. And she said she got so frustrated, because she was thinking, this is not about what interests you. This is about you providing for your future wife and children.

I think this is something that young men a lot of times do not think through. They are constantly told, what interests you? What are you passionate about? When they should be thinking through, what is a career I could be gifted in that would provide for my future wife and children?

Another area where I think you dads can really speak into the lives of young men is by encouraging them to pursue dating. Many men just naturally fall into passivity. Our culture does not really actively date anymore. So there are so many single young adult Christian males who are not pursuing relationships with women. Encourage them to look around and see who are the godly women in their life they may want to ask out on a date. And talk with them about how it is okay to face rejection, because their identity is securely found in Christ, not in whether some girl wants to date them or not.

So dads, I think you are really uniquely positioned to help this next generation of young men see the goodness of marriage and fatherhood, and to think through how to wisely prepare for those things in the future.

Again, those questions I encourage you dads to pray through are: what young men in my sphere of influence can I invite into my home and life so they can see the goodness of a godly marriage and godly fatherhood? In what ordinary ways can I invite these men into my life? How can I begin speaking about marriage and fatherhood in ways that honestly reflect the goodness of God's design?

Shining Light Into the Darkness

I really want to encourage you moms and dads that in this cultural moment, you are uniquely positioned to help fight back against this satanic attack that is degrading marriage and motherhood and fatherhood, and to shine light into the darkness.

If you have a question you would like me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you can submit that question on our podcast page.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is the same as always: that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care find yourselves, you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of his Son.

Want more conversations like this one? The questions in this episode are worth returning to more than once, and we send new episodes and resources to help you disciple your children every week. You can sign up for our newsletter so you do not miss what is coming next.