Lessons on Parenting from TGIF

I’m pretty sure I learned a lot about marriage, family, and parenting from the “Thank Goodness It’s Friday” (TGIF) sitcom lineups from the 1990s. Exhausted from the trials of junior high and high school, Friday night became the greatest time of the week. I would unwind on the couch with my brother and a healthy portion of junk food and tear through two hours of comedy and life lessons from the likes of Carl and Harriette Winslow on Family Matters, Frank Lambert and Carol Foster on Step By Step, Danny Tanner, Jesse Katsopolis, and Joey Gladstone trying to raise Danny’s three daughters on Full House, and Earl and Charlene Sinclair, giant dinosaur puppets living human lives on the show Dinosaurs.

Reminiscing by watching clips online (seriously, go check the archives!), I was reminded of how intentional these shows were at portraying family dinners, career advice, sibling rivalry, conflict, school life, blended families, friendships, and social and cultural issues. These life lessons, played both for laughs and moral conviction, helped to shape a generation. And although many of these principles, like seeking a loving, unified family and denouncing the temptation to make being “cool” the foundation of one’s identity, are good and still resonate with many of us, I now realize the greater void TGIF left me with. The shows didn’t answer bigger questions like Are these life principles for all people at all times, or are they just personal preferences from TV writers? Are they rooted in any greater truth or reality? Do they apply in everyday life, or is the goal simply to entertain?

These life lessons, played both for laughs and moral conviction, helped to shape a generation.

This is where the rubber meets the road for me in learning about healthy parenting. TGIF was supplemental to learning from my own imperfect family growing up, but understanding all of this from God’s perspective was mostly absent until my early 20s when I entrusted my life to Jesus. Since then, God has grown and stretched me in good but often uncomfortable ways as I’ve learned from the Scriptures and others that He is the Author of healthy families, even though our sinful, broken lives make us struggle to carry out His intentions. Here are three principles my wife and I have learned from the Good Father that have helped us be godly parents to our son.

1. Lead Our Kids with a Humble Posture

Parenting may not be thought of as leadership, but it certainly is. Paul’s exhortation to all fathers to “not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) comes in a passage giving instruction on parenting as a follower of Christ, and it is no different than the same instruction given to the men who would be overseers in the church in 1 Timothy 3:3-5, “…not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?”

To parent in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) and to “manage” a household with “dignity” (1 Tim. 3:4) conveys a certain manner in which God calls men to parent their children and love their wives, and the perfect example of this is not found on a TGIF fall schedule. It’s found in the humble, suffering, Servant-Leader – Jesus Christ, who gave His life for us and charges us to “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble'” (1 Pet. 5:5). Angry, arrogant parenting is not leading according to God’s ways; rather, fathers are called to lead like the humble Christ and create an environment for mothers and other families to parent as humble and tender protectors of their children, just like God does with us.

2. Learn the Hearts of Our Kids

During the first few years of raising our son, our primary focus was on learning to lead as a parent from the Bible and the wisdom of others. But since he entered kindergarten and now fifth grade, learning our son’s personality, joys, abilities, passions, fears, and his own self-perception has become just as essential to his healthy growth. Leading only through principles becomes difficult when our children begin to realize they have a will of their own and a master’s degree in how to push our buttons!

Just as God, “who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:27), knows us completely (Ps. 139:1-6), we are likewise called to learn the hearts of our kids to lead them well. What are their greatest hopes? What are their greatest fears? How are they like us? How are they different? What are the best ways they receive love through word and action? As they get older, the way we lead our kids will inevitably become more focused on how we have learned their one-of-a-kind hearts created in the image of a loving God.

Just as God knows us completely, we are likewise called to learn the hearts of our kids to lead them well.

One book that helps give a comprehensive look at all the aspects of our kids is Are My Kids on Track? The 12 Emotional, Social, and Spiritual Milestones Your Child Needs to Reach. As Sissy Goff states, “the ones who’ve done their own emotional work are best equipped to support their kids emotionally.” This is a challenge indeed, but hopefully encourages us to keep growing in our own walk with Christ as the first priority.

3. Love Our Kids Without Reservations

One strength I remember from TGIF was the consistent plot resolution to love and accept our kids at the end of every episode. The common struggles of parents and kids in conflict that dominated act two always moved to a heart-felt wrap-up in act three, giving me enough time to feel like everything was going to be okay while I ran to the bathroom or went to get another brownie before the next show started.

But real life is, of course, never this simple. The selfish brokenness of the Fall recounted in Genesis 3 affects parents and kids alike, and the call to love our kids without reservations is often unrealistic. And this is where the gospel comes fully into focus. The Apostle John urges us to “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1) and to remember the definition of love found in God incarnate, “By this we know love, that He laid down his life for us…” (1 John 3:16a). Christ has indeed held nothing back from us in His love—grace without reservations!

Imitating God’s Parental Grace

We are called to lead as parents; we are given the privilege to learn the hearts of our kids; and ultimately we can now love our kids without reservations through the unconditional and sacrificial power and love of the gospel of Jesus, empowered in us through the Spirit and assuring us that we are true sons and daughters of our Father God.

Jesus, let this redeeming grace overflow to our children as Paul says in Eph. 5:1-2. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”