The Holy Work of Raising Question Askers…
There are moments in parenting when I look at my kids - really look - and realize that the things that often feel like “hard” now are actually signs that something is going remarkably, beautifully right.
One of my greatest successes as a parent is that my children take nothing at face value. They will question anything and everything. And while that can sometimes be a testing experience when it’s ME they’re questioning… I know that as adults they will be critical in their examinations of all ideas or beliefs, ruthless in their pursuits of truth, unapologetic in their fights against injustice, undaunted in their own personal evolutions and growth. I’m raising shepherds… not sheep.
If you grew up in an environment where silence was mistaken for respect… where obedience was praised more highly than understanding… where compliance was framed as godliness… then watching your children push back can stir up something deep. Something uncomfortable. Something that remembers what it felt like to swallow your own voice just to keep the peace.
But that discomfort? That tension? That little sting when they challenge your reasoning or call out inconsistencies?
It’s the evidence of a generational shift.
It means your kids are learning how to be whole.
It means they believe their voices matter.
It means they trust you enough to bring their questions to the table rather than bury them.
I don’t want children who move through the world with their heads down and their hands folded. I want children who walk tall with their minds awake. Children who can spot manipulation in the wild. Children who can name their values and defend their boundaries. Children who can interrogate their own beliefs with humility and dismantle their own biases with courage. Children who refuse to hand their power to anyone - church, culture, system, person - who hasn’t earned it.
I want children who know how to think, not just how to follow.
Children who know the sound of their own convictions.
Children who believe that justice is worth the cost.
And if that means they sometimes challenge me?
Good.
Let them. Let them sharpen their skills on the safest person in the room. Let them practice truth-telling in a home where honesty isn’t punished. Let them learn that curiosity is not rebellion, and that dissent is not disrespect.
Because one day, they will take these same sharpened tools out into the world - into systems that need disrupting, conversations that need courage, and lives that will require them to show up fully awake.
And I will know:
what felt like friction was really formation.
What felt like pushback was actually strength learning how to stand.
What felt like questioning was their capacity for truth stretching its wings.
May they never outgrow it.
May it carry them farther than I ever learned to go.
May this be the generation that refuses to be quiet, polite, or easily controlled.
I am raising shepherds. Not sheep.
