Parenting. It ain’t for sissies! Some of you might have to dig deep into the recesses of your memory to remember those early days. Whoever said a baby will sleep through the night is crazy! Those first couple of years can be rough on parents, especially if the baby is colicky. There are the middle of the night feedings, changings, and crying. IF the child manages to sleep most of the night, you don’t because your parental radar doesn’t turn off. You hear the least little stir or sound and immediately go to check on the little one.
Be glad you aren’t a penguin.
A new study of the chinstrap penguins of Antarctica has revealed an interesting fact about the parent penguins. The penguin will lay one to two eggs at a time. The parents will take turns sitting on the eggs. While there are not many natural predators, one thing to be concerned about are “large birds called brown skuas that prey on eggs and small fuzzy gray chicks.”1 In order to protect the eggs or chicks, the adult penguins have perfected the fine art of micro-napping.
Since it isn’t safe to sleep, the adults take thousands of catnaps throughout the day. Before you get excited, wishing you were a penguin so that you could catnap your way through the day, the naps only last about 4 seconds. Yes, you read that correctly. And the adults will do this for several weeks in order to protect their young.
“These penguins look like drowsy drivers, blinking their eyes open and shut, and they do it 24/7 for several weeks at a time,” said Niels Rattenborg, a sleep researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence in Germany and co-author of the new study. “What’s surprising is that they’re able to function OK and successfully raise their young,” he said.2
During the energy bursts when the adult penguin is awake, they vigilantly watch over their young, protecting the eggs, and guarding the hatchlings. Considering the fact that this all takes place in large colonies, it’s remarkable to think that they can even get in their micro-nap.
In human culture, protective parents aren’t exactly classified as “remarkable.” Instead, they are viewed as a detriment to the development of their children. Helicopter parenting, hovering, overbearing, over-controlling, and snowplowing are just a few of the derogatory terms used against these parents.
Some parents are ridiculous in their parenting and give protective parents a bad name. You can’t solve all your kids’ problems nor fight all their battles. They must be taught how to stand up for themselves. Mommy doesn’t need to have a front row parking spot in front of the principal’s office and her own personal coffee mug because she is there so much. However, there is a Biblical sense in which we do need to be protective and it’s not being over protective.
God established the parental pattern in his instructions to Israel through Moses. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: (7) And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (8) And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. (9) And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Later, in Deuteronomy 11:26-28, the Lord establishes more boundaries and the reason for those boundaries. “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; (27) A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: (28) And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.”
God’s parental pattern must be duplicated in our parenting pattern. We do this, not to protect our child from the big, bad bullies of the world or to get them a position on the team. We do this because God has a plan for their life and the parent is to act as God’s authoritative representative in the child’s life.
Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” MY only responsibility as a parent is to train and to train correctly. The rest of the verse is up to them and their responsibility. But, if I don’t do my job, then I have not adequately protected them from the things that are going to come to them in life. I haven’t protected them from God’s curse on disobedience nor shown them the blessings of obedience.
Be a penguin parent. Keep your eyes open and vigilant to the dangers lurking in the world. If Satan “is walking about, seeking whom he may devour,” see your child as a delicacy to the devil. Guard them and show them how to guard themselves.
1https://apnews.com/article/penguins-parents-sleep-antarctica-cbbcad774a1252857cd9e61977e371d1
2Ibid.
