Parenting is about God, an author interview
Holly Taylor Coolman talks about her new book, *Parenting: The Complex and Beautiful Vocation of Raising Children*
Gentle reader,
When I met Holly Taylor Coolman, we were both Ph.D. students at Duke. She had a toddler and, soon, an infant, and I was pregnant with our first child. In lots of ways, we’d carry each through our doctoral work, but I daresay Holly did more carrying than I did, especially as I began to learn what it is to be a mother. One memorable week, when a snowstorm had knocked out power to the Coolman’s home, Holly and her family moved in with us Joneses, and we got to enjoy some beautiful chaos and parenting in community.
So, I feel quite personal about Holly’s new book. Here’s my own endorsement of it:
“I literally learned parenting and theology on Holly's couch, and I’m so glad her wisdom is now available in this book.”
—Beth Felker Jones
Parenting: The Complex and Beautiful Vocation of Raising Children (Baker Academic, 160 pages) comes to us from deep, lived, theological wisdom. It’s a book that invites us to trust God, and I’m so grateful to have learned that from Holly when my first baby was toddling around her yard while we made snacks and talked about Barth.
Here’s the official book description:
Books on parenting abound, with many suggesting that specific strategies will produce desired results. Gifted theologian Holly Taylor Coolman offers something different: a theologically and biblically rich commentary on the theme of raising children.
As a mother of five who is known for approaching parenting in a theological way, Coolman is often asked for advice. In this book, she explores parenting as a complex and beautiful vocation in which mothers and fathers themselves are made and unmade, offered troubling sorts of gifts, and drawn deeper into connection not only with their children but also with God, others, and themselves. Coolman describes child-rearing as a vocation to which parents are called that requires them to develop the skills of apprenticeship and invitation. She also locates raising children firmly within the context of the church.
This book will appeal to Christian parents, especially adoptive and foster parents, as well as pastors, church leaders, and students.
I have some sweet photos of our kids from that time, but I don’t have any of Holly and me together during those earlier parenting days, but here we are now, during a recent visit, with Dwight my #theologycat.
The interview follows:
BFJ: Three words in your subtitle intrigue me: complex, beautiful, and vocation. I think a lot of people would be surprised to apply these things to parenting. Can you tell us why they’re there?
HTC: With a title like Parenting, you need a subtitle with a little more detail! And each of those words is important to me.
The complexity of parenting is something that became clearer and clearer to me as our children grew older, as we worked through the whole arc of parenting from birth to young adulthood. The early days, for most parents, are wonder and exhaustion. But, slowly, over time, I think we all find ourselves in moments we weren’t prepared for, facing questions to which there are no simple answers, questions we maybe didn’t even know we would be asking. Honestly, I found myself growing impatient with parenting advice that focused only on “simple,” “joyful” strategies. The truth was, I was not only often tired, I was also confused and sometimes heartbroken. I wanted to foster a conversation where all those realities were welcome.
Even with all that, I also wanted to say that parenting is beautiful. To be a parent is to be entrusted with a whole person—and that responsibility requires you to bring your whole self. The possibilities for trust and solidarity and joy, for recognizing in a clear-eyed way your own weaknesses, for trying very hard and then realizing that you’re involved in something that surpasses your trying: these are the things that make human life itself rich and worthwhile.
Finally, there’s a lot in that word “vocation.” Of course, in part, it means that parenting is a big and important undertaking. But that wasn’t my focus. Honestly, I think a lot of parents already know that what they’re doing is big and important. For me, “vocation” reminds us that this is not just a task or a set of tasks. It’s a call, an invitation. In this undertaking, parents are connected not just to their child, but to the One who’s doing the inviting. The very, very good news for parents is that as they take up this big, important job, they are already deeply loved and sustained by God. And in all the ins and outs of daily life—diapers and meltdowns, forgotten uniforms and screen-time battles—God is constantly seeking to draw both them and their children more fully into the purposes of Love.
BFJ: Why did you write Parenting?
HTC: This book came into being through friendships, in a couple of ways. First, as my children moved toward adulthood, I found that younger parents were seeking me out. In whispered tones, they would speak about challenges and worries. They were hoping for advice and insight, but it was clear to me that they also just wanted companionship along the way. I began to suspect that a certain kind of conversation—unhurried, honest, rich in communal wisdom—was far too rare. And I began to think that I had something to offer to that end.
Then, an old friend (of both yours and mine!), Jason Byassee, asked if I might want to write for a series he was editing for pastors. So, it originated as reflections for ministers who were accompanying parents. As the editing process continued, we all realized that I was really also writing a book for parents themselves, but I think you can see some of that original approach. This is not a book that just tells parents more about how they can and should “get it right.” It’s meant to offer a voice of both reassurance and invitation to something less direct than that. The chapter on discipline, for example, doesn’t simply give more strategies. It steps back and asks: what is the goal fo discipline, anyway? (Spoiler alert: I think it’s something more than “compliance,” bigger than just “get kids to conform to certain behavioral standards.”) And in addressing specific topics like discipline, I’m also encouraging parents to find one another and to foster the kinds of community where life together allows for good discernment on these matters.
BFJ: Give us the short version: what’s the book about?
HTC: The short answer is that this is a book about parenting from a theological perspective. It incorporates psychology, sociology, economics, and many other perspectives, but for me, it is first and foremost a work of theology. That is, it’s a book about God, and all of reality in light of God.
The slightly longer version is that, although the individual chapters of the book focus on various parenting situations or stages (“Beyond Birth: Other Ways of Welcoming Children” or “Moving Into Adolescence”), this book describes parenting as a form of apprenticeship, rather than primarily as management and it insists that this kind of apprenticeship makes most sense in sturdy, generous forms of community life.
BFJ: Share a detail you’re fond of from the book?
HTC: The chapter on parenting adults is close to my heart, since my husband and I find ourselves at a moment when our children are moving into adulthood. There, I describe the radical letting-go that parents must do when their children reach adulthood (not of the relationship itself, of course, but of ways of parenting they practiced for many years.) When children reach adulthood, in fact, their parents’ task is not simply to acknowledge, but to celebrate, that fact. To my mind, we do not acknowledge how significant this task of letting-go is for parents, and we generally offer them little help to do it. I suggest one specific possibility. Taking up something like the “life review” that psychologists recommend for those at end of life, or like the “examen” that Ignatian spirituality recommends at the end of each day, parents of new adults might give themselves the time and space to reflect deeply on the transition before them. Whether in conversation, in writing, or in prayer, they might give themselves a chance to recall joys, to grieve losses, and to move forward to what will come next. I offer a list of questions. “What parenting moments do you treasure most?” “What do you think you did well as a parent?” “Where were you most deeply disappointed?” and “Where were you most aware of God’s presence?” The answers, I note, might lead not only to reflection, but to action: seeking or granting forgiveness, for example, or initiating much-needed conversations. I believe that something like this would free and energize parents to move forward to a new stage.
BFJ: I find a lot of people in my kids’ generation are afraid to become parents. Why do you think this is?
HTC: I see this, too. In many ways, honestly, I’m sympathetic to them. The world we have handed to our young adults is one in which parenting can just seem overwhelming. They have seen the challenges for their own parents. Individual nuclear families are doing life on their own in a way that really doesn’t work. Parents are short on time, money, and patience. When they look around, it’s hard for young people to feel optimistic that any of that would be better for them. In several big ways, they expect it to be worse. I think some really long to have children but can’t see how they could make it work. Others do the math, and decide that it’s just not worth it.
Still, I think there are some ways forward. We can not only encourage young people to marry and have children, but we can step up to accompany and mentor them in that process. I find it really interesting that a number of single young people I know have reported that they are reading my book with interest. There may be a hunger that we are not always aware of.
BFJ: What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your book?
HTC: That it will offer more “simple,” “joyful” strategies! That it will remind parents how important it is to get it right! That it will offer a new way to get it right! I think this book is something slower, bigger, and more personal than that. It’s meant to feel like those conversations I had with younger parents, and it’s meant to point the way toward a growing habit of conversation on these questions.
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your book can help to address?
HTC: In recent years, I have become more and more convinced of the extent to which all of us are suffering without real community. It’s become so familiar that it's hard for us to recognize. Even if we are “running into” people or interacting with them, we just don’t have the kind of connections we need most: unvarnished, and unhurried, not always “intentional,” but rather woven into the normal rhythms of our lives.
At the same time, I’ve come more and more to think of the spiritual life itself as something that is shared at the root. Chiara Lubich has been an important spiritual teacher for me, and she put it simply: “We go to God together.” Note that this does not just mean more church activities! In fact, activities that aren’t rooted in a deeper mutual love are all but guaranteed to leave us exhausted. But in ways we do not even imagine, we are in this together. This book assumes that this is true and encourages readers to lean further into that reality.
BFJ: If you could gift everyone with one insight from the book, what would it be?
HTC: What kids need most from their parents is a form of companionship. Parents are, we hope, companions who come to their children with greater strength and wisdom, but above all, they are called to give their children not simply instruction or provision, but themselves. When parents themselves are supported, when they know that they themselves are deeply loved, this can be a profoundly rewarding undertaking.
BFJ: How has your spiritual life and prayer life changed as you’ve matured?
HTC: Growing up, I was taught that God’s favor can’t be earned, and that a personal relationship with God, in Christ, is the heart of the faith. Still, I also ended up feeling a very strong need to perform well, to make to-do lists and check them off tirelessly. It ended in exhaustion. And it didn’t serve me well when life delivered the inevitable forms of disappointment and grief. In one sense, my spiritual life has expanded to allow for so many other modes and realities. In another sense, it has been purified to one thing: the conviction that a Love that I could never manufacture is at the heart of everything.
Holly Taylor Coolman (PhD, Duke University) is assistant professor of theology at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. Her areas of expertise include Christology, ecclesiology, Christian theologies of Judaism, and Jewish-Christian relations. She has written about topics at the intersection of culture and moral theology and about family life, particularly adoption. She and her husband are the parents of five young adult children.
BFJ: What would your 10-year-old self say if she learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
HTC: I’m guessing she would be overjoyed and maybe awestruck. I was a bookworm, and if you had asked me what I “wanted to be,” I would have said “an author.” Like Jo, in Little Women!
And as it happens, the year that I turned ten is also the very year that Focus on the Family was founded. I remember listening to many episodes of that radio program. I’ve come to a place where I disagree with James Dobson on some important things, but I would say that Dobson, and the evangelical world I grew up in, got it right when they encouraged parents to “turn their hearts toward home.”
BFJ: Besides Parenting, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters? Why do you recommend them?
HTC: The book actually includes a list of recommended reading at the end. There are at least three books I think of as essential. Children's Education in Community, written by Christoph Arnold, comes out of the community of the Bruderhof, an Anabaptist Christian movement that shares daily life, including sharing possessions. It’s wise and gentle, and it gives parents a glimpse of a world of parenting very different from our own. In Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers, Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté offer a different kind of challenge, questioning the assumption that parents must step back at some point and allow peers to become the primary source of direction for their children. This practice, they argue, leaves children desensitized and alienated, and the authors show how parents can work in healthy ways for the connection and attachment their kids need. Alison Gopnik’s The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children reminds parents what that connection ideally looks like, offering hard data showing that parenting-as-management really makes no sense. I actually read Gopnik’s book after finishing the manuscript for my own book, but once I did, there was no question it would go into my list of recommended reading. Parents have to do some management, but we are called to so much more.
Youc can stay in touch with Holly through her Substack,
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Many thanks to Holly for sharing with us! Buy her book here.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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