beginnings

our journey started 5 years ago when our area director with our ministry, marcia, suggested that we seek out some friends of hers, tim and cheryl, as mentors in marriage and ministry. we thought it was a good idea. we were in desperate need of such mentors. so we planned a visit to illinois for an overnight stay.

we had a great time talking about personality, ministry and marriage. they had been around the block longer than we and had lots of great insight to share. but something unexpected happened...we saw first hand a different approach to christian parenting than we had ever seen before. i thought there was just one approach to parenting in a "biblical" way. i should have known better. :)

before our first child came, linda and i set out to pick a team...choose a parenting philosophy that would reflect our values, dreams and goals in having a family. so we read two books. (yes, we both read both of them.) the first, On Becoming Babywise by Ezzo and Buckman reflected much of what we already heard of. it's the typical christian parenting philosophy(...at least "typical" here in the midwest.) this was much of what i knew. (i think linda was raised with a mixture of styles.) the other, Attachment Parenting, by a whole group of authors, made a helpful case for a different kind of parenting...one that was more in tune with intuition and instincts. one that seemed built less on western culture's individualism. one, it seemed to me, that most of the world used. obviously, that's the team that we picked.

so that's how it started. we're still on a journey. we've had lots of thoughts along the way, sometimes even wondering why in the world we went this way.....and that's why we're starting this blog.

i have a guess that the postmodern shift that we're in the middle of will result in a shift in parenting styles to the attachment parenting (AP) team. i see this happening over the next 20 years. i'd like to describe what i think those shifts are.

we'd also like to make a place to gather resources for the ever-growing number of postmodern parents who are leaning toward some of the values of AP. i'd like to flesh out what i consider a biblical foundation for some of the AP principles including discipline.

we'd love for you to leave comments of whatever sort. we don't think we've got it all down. it seems to me that parenting style is very near to our identity as parents. at the same time, we can dialogue in a helpful way and hopefully everyone will benefit from it.