Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Any advice?

As you may or may not have noticed if you've ever looked in on my blog before, I am the mother of three older sons and one baby girl. I truly believe God knew what he was doing when he gave us our three sons before he blessed us with a daughter. I do not believe I was ready to be the mother to our Girly Pie that she needed when I first became a parent.

(Now, in all honestly, I can't really say that I feel all that well prepared to be the mother of my sons, either.)

But somehow with my daughter, I just feel a new kind of pressure and responsibility.

So, this brings me to the point of my request here. I have read lots on mothering boys. I really enjoy Dr. Dobson's Bringing Up Boys (thank you MG!) in particular. I have also heard of Raising Modern Day Knights, though have not read that yet. I really want to bring our sons up to be strong, honorable, Godly gentlemen with a good work ethic and respect for others, and I want them to know how to treat a lady with care and respect. I hope that they will be blessed with wonderful wives someday whom they will love and cherish, and I pray that they will be wonderful husbands and fathers just as God calls them to be. I feel that between the books, the Bible, our friends, and our parents, my husband and I can do alright there.

But now we have a daughter. And as I read other posts on daughters and the trials that face them, I admit that even though she is a mere 5 months old, I begin to worry for her purity and the struggle to come for her to stay pure and to keep her integrity. This world does not model at all what we want for our daughter when she comes into womanhood. But I can't even say I know what it is we should be striving for in raising our little girl.

SO... the point at last... I come to you to see if anyone has some great suggestions on resources to better prepare my husband and I to raise a Godly daughter. I am not even sure what defines a Godly woman. It seems so much easier to define a Godly man. Is it just me?

So is there any advice out there? Any books? Videos? Specific Bible references that will help me?
I really want to be purposeful in how we raise our children. I feel like we've been doing pretty well so far, and I do see the beginnings of Little Gentlemen growing in our house already. But when I look ahead to what will be coming even in the next couple of years with our daughter, I feel very ill equipped to guide her down the path towards God and His plans for her.

Any advice or suggestions at all would be greatly appreciated. She is such a gift, such a sweet, pure little girl. I know she will be a woman someday. And I just want to do everything I can while she's still here, safe in our nest and willing to learn from us, to guide her down the right path to Him and His plan. I know there is only so much I can do, and that in the end that will be between Girly Pie and her Maker. But I also feel like there is a lot we can do now as her parents to make that a less painful transition for her when the time comes for her to make her own adult choices.

So. Advise and suggest away. I am all ears.

5 comments:

Missus Wookie said...

I found these two books helpful - enough that they are still on my shelf to be recommended and read occasionally. DD is 14 and I do enjoy her :)

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrating-Girls-Nurturing-Empowering-Daughters/dp/1573240532/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224680252&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Daughter-Parents-Awakening-Healthy/dp/1587611767/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1224680304&sr=1-1

Mom Of E's said...

I am looking forward to any advice that you are given. I feel painfully unprepared to get my daughter through the years ahead.

Elle (at 5 years old) is learning about modest dress and gentleness of spirit. We are trying to teach her to have genuine care and concern for everyone she has contact with. We are trying to instill a good work ethic and cheerfulness in her chores.

I think the ideas of what makes a Godly woman are widely varied and widely disputed, so I hesitate to say what I think in this area.

Thanks for bringing up such a great question.

Anne

Meghann said...

"The Kings Daughter" is a good read aloud book for girls to teach character for young ladies. We've enjoyed it a lot! I know there is a lot out there but cannot think of anything else at this moment...will let you know if I do!

Angela said...

Check out this link:
http://www.visionforum.com/beautifulgirlhood/productlist.aspx?categoryid=186

There are several resources for Biblical womanhood.

Here are a couple of blogs you may want to check out.

http://generationcedar.blogspot.com/
http://teachinggoodthings.com/blog/blog/

Hope this helps some.

EllaJac said...

My answer semi-echoes the vision forum link above. Specifically So Much More and Raising Maidens of Virtue. So Much More is written to daughters, specifically, but I got a lot out of reading it. Raising Maidens is more of a mother-daughter bible study. My oldest is 7 and I haven't done it with her yet, but reading it gave me some good ideas for generating a better environment/expectations for my girls.

Both books set a pretty high bar, which I like, and aren't part of the trendy "how to stay Christian but barely" books written for some teen girls. Some things come across as very challenging, but I enjoy that. :)