That’s homemade chocolate peanut butter walnut pudding in the bottom and Chantilly, or “Proof of God’s Love” on top.

There was a lull between the extreme activity of the morning and more to come in the evening, and the girls and I were home alone for a bit.  “We’re having a literary pudding with Chantilly party,” I announced.

I put the beaters and bowl in the freezer as we gathered our books – mine was Jane and Prudence; Rebekah chose War and Peace with which she is currently at peace; and Hannah brought The Three Musketeers –  judging by her continual exclamations and laughter, that’s one I’ll have to read.

Mixing about a cup of heavy whipping cream with about a tablespoon of honey, a tablespoon of rice syrup, a pinch of salt, and a squirt of vanilla (well, maybe two squirts) I mixed a very short time and had stiff peaks of heavenly Chantilly.

It  really is all in a name.  Take reading to the balcony on a cool evening and call it a literary party.  Put whipped cream on pudding and call it Chantilly.  Proof of Love.

Exodus 20:12

I honor my Father and my Mother, and my days will be long in the land that the Lord my God is giving me.

Proverbs 1:8

I hear my Father’s instruction, and I do not forsake my Mother’s teaching.

Colossians 3:20

I obey my parents in everything, and I please the Lord.

Ephesians 6:1-4

I obey my parents in the Lord, for this is right. I honor my Father and Mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), and it goes well with me and I will live long in the land.

Exodus 21:17

I bless and do not curse my Father and Mother, and so I shall not be put to death.

Ephesians 6:1

I do what my parents tell me, as is only right.

Ephesians 6:4

I am not irritated and provoked to anger, I am not exasperated into resentment, but I am reared tenderly in the training and discipline and counsel and admonition of the Lord.

Proverbs 13:24

My Father and my Mother have not spared the rod because they love me dearly; they love me and are diligent to discipline me.

They will never refuse to correct me because of the love they hold for me; They love me by disciplining me.

Proverbs 22:6

I am trained up in and pointed in the way I should go, and keeping with the gifts God has given me, I will not get lost nor depart from these ways.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

I am not stubborn or rebellious, I listen to the voice of my Mother and Father, and when they discipline or chasten me I hear and act accordingly. I am not a drunkard or a glutton, I am cleansed of evil; therefore I shall never be put to shame or destroyed from the earth, my days shall be filled with peace and plenty wherever I live.

Deuteronomy 5:16

I honor and respect my Father and my Mother, as the Lord my God has commanded me, my days will be long, and it goes well with me in the land which the Lord my God has given me.

Proverbs 29:15

I am not a spoiled adolescent, I have discipline and wisdom, and I do not bring shame or embarrassment to my parents.

Deuteronomy 4:10

I stand before the Lord and hear His words, I fear (reverently stand in awe and worship) Him all the days I live on the earth and in the land which He has given me, and I will teach my children also.

Luke 14:26

I come to God and am willing to release my earthly home and family in order to be his disciple, shoulder my cross and follow in his footsteps to whatever end.

Galatians 6:7

I am not deceived by satan’s attempts to cause problems between me and my parents by any means, and I do not even attempt to delude God in anything or in any way, therefore the good seeds I sow I shall reap a hundredfold.

John 3:36

I obey, cling to, have faith in, and rely on the Son (Jesus), and I have everything, life complete and forever, lacking nothing and protected from evil.

John 8:44

I am of God my Father, and my will is to do my Father’s desires. I am full of the truth, I am not a liar, I am no murderer, and all my days are full.

1 John 2:1-29

I do not sin, my Advocate Jesus makes me righteous. I am no liar, I keep His commandments and know Him.

Proverbs 19:20

I listen to advice and accept instruction, and I gain wisdom for the future.

2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

I have grace and peace in and from God my Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, I always give thanks to God for my family, as is right. My faith is growing abundantly, and the love of God in my heart for every being in this world is increasing. I am steadfast and faithful in all persecution and affliction.

John 3:16-36

I am not condemned, I am well loved, and my loved ones will not let me go to Sheol without a fight. I am not wicked, and I am not of the darkness, but of the light and so shall ever be.

Exodus 20:16

I do not bear false witness against anyone, be they God, man, or myself.

Revelation 2:17

I have an ear and I hear all the rebukes of God and my parents.

Genesis 1:27

I am created in God’s Image to be like Him, so nothing He says to do is impossible.

James 1:1-27

I am a child of God, I count it all joy whenever I meet trials of any kind for this strengthens and stretches my faith, I am patient, I am not a servant to my feelings, but they to me. I lack nothing, least of all Wisdom.

Acts 17:11

I receive the Word with all eagerness and diligently study it daily.

A child taught to honor others will know himself also worthy of honor.

The little caterwauling (five-year-old or so) brat in the grocery store the other day was not being taught honor.  Her mother, in ignoring her whines and screams, was dishonoring her child and all the rest of us.

“Shut that kid up,” John muttered when they were still at the front of the store.  By the time they reached us I was more than slightly annoyed.  And so I did the mature thing:  I waited until the mom wasn’t looking and  made a face and stuck my tongue out at the little darling.  She paused a moment and returned to her routine, and when the mom turned away again, I again did my thing.  She frowned and shut her mouth.  Hooray, Hoorah!

I would have liked to go that that mother and say, “I’ve raised several children, and I could help you with this if you’d like,” but my experience tells me that people of dishonor are also proud.  People with the least reason to be proud of their parenting skills, are often the most proud.

Pride lives in the same house as fear and ignorance, and it’s a strong house, a fortress nearly impenetrable.  But sometimes a mother gets a smidgen of common sense, and has enough respect for herself and the world around her, and even for this child who has been mistaught all her life, to make a change.  Sometimes she has enough courage to say, “Hey, maybe I could be wrong, maybe there’s a better way than the way of insanity, which is where this child is taking me.  Maybe all those guys with those initials by their names and yet no successfully raised children of their own, maybe those guys aren’t as smart as the Maker of my child.

The Word of God (no, He’s not dead and you’re not smarter than He is) says He chastens those he loves, and we’re to follow His examples.  The Word tells us to raise our children in the nurture and the ADMONITION of the Lord.  The Word tells us Jesus left us the Holy Spirit as our Counselor.

Why then, would we choose the latest parenting fads written by people who don’t even know God and who never read the Maker’s manual, as gospel?

I see moms who want to personally raise their children, who love them desperately, and choose to stay home and to work from home, in order to be there for their children.  And yet, having been raised in totally structured, controlled, unnatural environments themselves (daycare) they want to structure every waking moment of their child’s life.

There is an upside down and backwardness to this:  On the one hand the child has no rules, no fettering chains of bedtimes, mealtimes, behavior standards.  He will decide when he’s ready to be potty trained, when he goes to bed, if he wants to eat Lucky Charms for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  And yet, when it comes to a child’s work, which is play, every moment is ordered and structured.  Beginning with feeding an infant, there is a schedule, a device from Hell guaranteed to make both mother and child crazy.  Rather than, as I was with my daughter Rebekah, wishing the baby would wake up so you could have a lovely cuddle and talk and nursing time, the mother is either waking her child up to eat, or listening to her cry and refusing to meet her needs.

“She can’t be hungry, she just wants to be held,” is actually used as a defense for scheduling.  So what if she just needs to be held?  Hold her!!!  Babies who aren’t held at all actually die.  Holding is part of the deal.

If you have a large, muscled, healthy baby, he may be an almost permanent appendage.  You may feel, as did I, that all you do is nurse.  So what?  Again,  part of the deal.  So deal with it.  Sometimes babies nurse often because they’re going through a growth spurt, sometimes it’s because the mother needs to eat more red meat and drink more milk.  Milk made of Mountain Dew and Twinkies will not sustain the incredibly rapid growth of a baby.

I had a friend once who breast fed her baby until three months, when she gave it up.  “I just couldn’t eat that much,” she said.  I can definitely relate.  It takes a lot of food, and in my totally unpopular opinion, you need to start adding big people food much earlier than the experts say.  Their allegation that early table food leads to food allergies was never true in days of old, when food allergies were almost unheard of.  I say feed them real, organically grown, non-processed foods and they’ll be fine.  And pray.  We refuse in Jesus’ Name all such inconveniences as food allergies and illnesses in this house.  It’s called calling on God’s promises and acting like you actually believe them, but that’s an entirely different subject.  Or is it?  Isn’t God’s Word the beginning and the end of it all?

Back to babies:  Rebekah used to finally wake up, grin at me, nurse a little, then stop to coo and grin while the milk ran out of her mouth.  I would laugh with her.  Guess what?  She’s grown now and we’re still laughing at and with each other, still cuddling, still nuts about each other.

The “experts” telling you to do all these nonsensical, extremely inconvenient and painful parenting practices never tell you the long term outcome based on their own personal experiences. My guess is that if they follow their own advice they don’t have good personal outcomes to report.

“Well, they say now babies need to make their own decisions,” a young mom said recently to me.  She was holding a toddler with blue feet.  It was snowing and bitterly cold, but this child didn’t want to wear shoes that day.  “What,” I wanted to ask, “do  they  say you should do when she gets frostbite?”

What I simply said was, “Well, sometimes.”

A child (as evidenced above) of one year doesn’t have the wisdom to decide if she’s going to wear shoes in a snowstorm.  That’s one of the many reasons she has a mother.  If she can’t trust her mother to have the use of her tongue for forming the word “No” this little girl is in for it.

This child makes no demur when the mom puts her in the car seat.  She knows from long experience that when she gets in the car she goes in the car seat.  Why can’t she also learn that when she goes outside in the wintertime she wears shoes?  Why can’t she also learn that when she walks across the grocery store parking lot she has to hold her mommy’s hand?  No child’s psyche was ever irreparably damaged by having her tiny hand lovingly and protectively held by one bigger and stronger, until that day she is old and wise enough to know to look both ways.  Regardless of what they say, this doesn’t happen in babyhood or during the toddler years.

A child who learns that when her parent says “no”, she actually means “no” is a fortunate child.  A child who learns that the world isn’t all about her, but that according to her mother’s loving and sacrificial example, the world is about the privilege of having other people to love and to consider.  To honor.

A wise parent will make sensible rules and expect them to be followed.  Some of ours were respect for other people’s property (stay out of your siblings’ rooms unless invited), no running or yelling in the house (honoring adult nerves and sensibilities), good table manners (honoring other diners).  I could go on, but the point is this:  Children must learn that all people are worthy of honor and respect, and that this includes them personally.  And one of the first ways they learn this is from a parent who isn’t afraid to do the hard thing:  to honor her child not only by nurturing, but also by disciplining, training, and teaching them the honor of others.

The big payoff among many smaller payoffs:  This child will be set up to honor God.