Grace without truth is not really grace. Truth without grace is not really truth. Grace without truth pampers. Truth without grace hammers. Grace without truth is love without correction. Truth without grace is correction without love. Grace without truth is soft and spoils people. Truth without grace is harsh and crushes people. Grace without truth is freedom without responsibility. Truth without grace is responsibility without freedom. Either extremes are neither of Christ or the gospel.
– Richard Tan

I’ve been thinking lately about this concept of “yes-moms” and “no-moms.” Yes-moms care about relationship over rules; their fear is losing the relationship. They tend towards license. No-moms care about outcomes and behaviors and are willing to set rules to get there; their fear losing control. They tend toward legalism.

Obviously, the optimal place is somewhere in the middle. Too much license, and we may have a relationship but not be fulfilling the ultimate purpose of being a parent in stewarding our children towards a purposeful goal. Without intentionally- and consistently-set guidelines, children may fall into harmful behavior or habits, or not reach what they otherwise could have. 

Too much legalism, and we lose the relationship—and any influence we had—in the end. We’ve all seen families with kids who toe the line, only to rebel later in life. When we become so behavior-oriented that we forget to listen to who our children really are and how they feel in relationship with us, we end up losing the outcomes we’re working towards in the end, sometimes in flagrant ways.

The point here is not to be pigeon-holed into one extreme, but to recognize that we all tend to lean towards one side or other other. For example, I tend to be a “no-mom.” I tend to value efficiency and performance in ways that make me good at achieving goals and speaking truth, but jeopardize my ability to offer compassion and positive encouragement. I will, particularly when fatigued, tend towards judgment and criticism in ways that can harm the relationship. I tend to feel confident in my own bias rather than listen to what my children are valuing or desiring. I need to remember that seeing truth, and knowing when and how to share it (if ever), are two different things. I need to remember that while rules and planning help us steward well what we’re given, and make space for many good things, in the end a lot of that good is found in the relationship itself.

Regardless of which side you lean towards, a few general principles come to mind:

It’s good to have a friend who leans more to the opposite side. The truth is, neither side has it completely right, and it’s good to have a friend who can challenge you and call you out. Yes-moms may need to be reminded about consistency in discipline or setting rules; no-moms may need help seeing when they’re losing the relationship.

It’s not good to operate out of fear, whichever side you are on. Fear of losing relationship can lead to people-pleasing and appeasement; fear of losing control can lead to anxiety and micro-managing. Neither are healthy, and both miss the point. We aren’t parents because we must make our children like us or feel happy; neither are we parents because we own our children or must control how they turn out. We are parents who are accountable, not to our children in whatever way we may see it, but to God. We parent our children because we love God and believe he has entrusted us with it. We move forward not out of fear but out of trust in God, that he who loves our children more than we do ourselves will grant us the wisdom we need in every situation.

It’s not good to operate out of self-centeredness. Another pitfall is to get caught up with ourselves on either side of the spectrum, whether we want our children to like us, or to do what we want. Remembering to focus on the unique personhood of each child can help lift us into a healthier perspective. We do this by becoming students of our children, learning about their unique motivators, desires, values, love languages, personality types, strengths and weaknesses. They may be very different from us. They may be very different from our other children. They may be very different from what we expected from someone their age or from our friend’s children. But the more we parent to who we see that they are, the more it’s easier to step out of our own biases. We may see more clearly that a “yes” is not what they need even if it makes them unhappy, or we may say “yes” to something new because it aligns with who they are.

This tension between legalism and license, truth and grace, being authoritarian or permissive, is one we can grapple with on many levels in many relationships. How do we know how hard to push our children versus let them do what they want? How do we know whether to offer compassion or rebuke to a friend in trouble? How do we express unconditional love yet hope for change in an area our spouse struggles in? 

It’s complicated. It involves knowing the other person in the relationship, studying the situation, and knowing ourselves, our tendencies and motivations. It involves asking for wisdom from the one who came to us “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). That, John says, is the nature of Jesus’ glory, the outworking of the essence of who he is. Not less of one or more of the other, but both together, fully. And it is from that fullness “we have all received,” that we may be the same for others.