Let us bring them [our children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Great will be the reward in store for us, for if artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image (for man is the image of God)?
Apparently this metaphor of parent as artist permeates Chrysostom‘s homilies on parenting. Combining this with the Eastern Orthodox interpretation of the Fall as inheritance of mortality, not total inability, we get a fuller portrait, if you will, of the child. Sin, for the Eastern Orthodox, is something learned from an inartistic parent — a broad stroke of paint or a overly deep cut in the clay. What Vigen Guroian simply appreciates in this Orthodox orator is really setting up both parent and child for failure. It’s all about the parent and not enough about God.
So Chrysostom sees the child as a product of (in)artistic parenting. To play with that metaphor, then, the child is a parent’s creation to be owned, displayed, and preserved (rather than nurtured, taught, and protected). The work is the wholly the parents’ with God-given resources. Chrysostom’s child sounds pretty much like Ovid’s Pygmalion. Are we parents just a more common Henry Higgins?
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6 thoughts on “Pinocchio”
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Camille, this is fantastic. I must confess I have never heard anything approaching parents-as-artists before, but I lovelovelove it.
If so, then we’d better look out for Act V! Pickering saw Eliza as a person and would better her for her own good. Higgins saw her as a posession and would better her for his own recognition or reward. Eliza would rather face a life of hard work and independence than live in luxury as a trophy for his ego. (Those who don’t read the story miss out on this fantastic ending. None of that slipper-fetching business!)
Children see our motives more clearly than we often suspect. I’m not familiar with Chrysostom’s homilies on parenting (will read when I have time). Is he really suggesting that this “esteem” is our motivator, or is he mentioning it as an encouraging side benefit?
interesting how many twists on the same performance-based parenting there are. hmmmm . . . what do you mean that you love it, will? methinks (meknows) that camille isn’t singing the praises of the parent-as-artist and children-as-art thought. 🙂 just curious.
Interesting post (like your other recent ones). I admit that I know less than nothing about parenting and usually limit my comments on this subject to finding a way to defend whatever my mom did. 🙂
That said, it seems to me that any theory of parenting must square with God’s treatment of us. He calls us His “children” over and over again, and I don’t think He uses metaphors accidently. What view of parenting is most consistent with how God treats us? Migh Eph. 2:10 bear on this conversation?
But it’s one thing to be God’s creatures — which we are! — and to be our parent’s creatures/ions. While parents can find an example in God on how to be a parent, we wouldn’t replace Him.
I get the hinky feeling that the EO approach replaces God with the parent. He’s the Architect, after all, not the Great Watchmaker.
I grew up in ‘object type’ relationships,in a family where we children were all left with or basic emotional needs so ‘unmet,’ we were basically ‘love starved.’ I would walk right out of a service, if I heard ‘that’ kind of a homilie being preached. i think it’s ridiculous. The guy was talking out of his unrenewed intellect. Not his heart. The Scripture on ‘we are His workmanship…”is God saying, we are no one’s possession, but a gift from God to our parents. God is the rightful owner. But Hewould never violate our free will. Quite a provocative subject. Remember the beautiful ending in the Pinnochio movie? How ‘love’ for his master,and an unselfish sacrifice, made him into a ‘real boy’? The world, the enemy, unfortunately wrong parenting, and religious manipulation in churches, tries to make people into “puppets”.It’s much easier to ‘control people’ when ‘everybody’s all doing the very same thing.” I dont mean wonderful liturgy in worship services. I have seen fellowships practically ‘turned’ into puppet manufacturers, where everybody’s taking the same courses, doing the same things, and being conformed to the pastors’ program. It’s scary! Thanks for quoting that beautiful scipture. It really says so much about Who made us and for ‘what’ purpose.