One reason people struggle with family life at Christmas is the high expectations, which are often unrealistic, especially if parents and children are not used to spending much time together in close proximity at other times of the year.
We wrote The Parenting Book for parents with children aged 0-18, whatever their situation, whether they are parenting together, or are a single parent, whether all seems to be going well or they are struggling. We seek to give a realistic and hopeful view of family life.
There are hundreds of families struggling, in different ways, at different levels, and they are the ones who generally don’t talk about it. We run courses for families, too, and typically on any course there will be 80 people: they learn as much from listening to each other in small groups as from our input.
The time to support families who come under pressure at Christmas is throughout the rest of the year. When couples and families are doing this throughout the year, Christmas becomes manageable — and even an opportunity to build these relationships through spending more time together, having fun as a family, and developing traditions and rituals that enrich family life and give children a deep sense of belonging and security.
One couple were really struggling: their older son had stopped working and wasn’t going into school. They were desperate for him to get good grades and further his education, but each took a very different approach. The father just gave him as much money as he wanted — bribing, almost — and the mother wanted a much stricter approach. Being able to talk together on the course enabled them to find a common approach, rebuild the relationship with their son, and work out what boundaries to put in place. Then they went on to do our marriage course, to learn to listen to each other and find joint strategies.
My co-author is Sila, my wife. Our styles of writing are very different: Sila will use many more words, and I cut back what she has written, while Sila says that I use too few words and omit the core feeling.
We have four children, a daughter and three sons, now aged between 31 and 24. Our oldest two are married, and we have three grandchildren. The book came out of our experience as parents, and out of having run parenting courses for the past 20 years at our church in London, Holy Trinity, Brompton (HTB).
We held off publishing The Parenting Book until our youngest son was in his 20s. When we had finished the manuscript, we gave it to our four children to read to ensure they felt we had given an accurate representation of our family life. We then asked them to write of the times when they remembered us getting it wrong as parents, which we inserted in the introduction.
We’ve seen the benefit to parents of spending time reflecting on family life, discussing with other parents, and picking up tips and ideas that help them become more intentional about their parenting. As well as stories of our own experiences, the book contains many insights that we’ve heard from other parents or read from parenting experts over the years.
We carve out times for us as a family, and guard them fiercely, playing games together, having an extended meal together once a week, when we can set aside an evening. It’s so critical. When it comes to Christmas, it’s not something different, then: it’s doing more of the same.
I read years ago about the power of traditions and rituals for children, creating a great sense of belonging and security — daily routines, weekly routines, and Christmas as one of the annual times. Our traditions don’t have to be exotic, but, for children, they hold disproportionately valuable memories as they grow up. For couples, working out which traditions they bring from their own family is difficult, but that just goes to show how important these are.
Involving children in Christmas celebrations is helpful. We tend to think we must do it all for them. One of our children loved decorating the Christmas tree — even though 90 per cent of the decorations ended up on ten per cent of the tree (subtle rearrangement later).
I can think of a number of children of clergy families who feel they always come second. One man told me that, when he was young and they were to have time together as a family, the father would always rush out to a crisis, or else spend hours on the phone. It seemed that he cared about everyone else in the parish but his son.
I know clergymen who deal with a huge amount of pain and distress, and can’t say no to anyone — except their family. Clergy feel a calling from God, and they have a heart of compassion, and they find it very difficult to say no to other people. But sometimes they have to.
I’m the Associate Vicar of HTB, and am involved in the leadership of the church. Much of our time is taken up with running courses for couples and parents — as well as introducing these courses to churches in the UK and, increasingly, around the world. [Sila and I] also wrote The Marriage Book together.
I was born and brought up in the Hampshire countryside, and never expected to spend my working life in a city, or to bring up children there. My ambitions as a child centred much more around countryside activities, working on the land with my father, learning from him how to build and make things, enjoying using my hands, particularly through carpentry.
I have many regrets, mainly to do with opportunities missed to spend time with a member of the family. I would defy any parent not to have regrets.
I’d like to be remembered for helping to turn the tide on the breakdown of family life in the UK, and in other countries where our books are published and our courses run.
A number of Anglican clergymen have influenced me profoundly over the years, and became close friends. Jonathan Fletcher was a Curate at the Round Church in Cambridge when I came to faith; John Collins, who was still the Vicar at HTB when I was ordained — he was (and remains) a master in training and encouraging curates in all aspects of church life; Sandy Millar was a mentor, friend, and the Vicar at HTB for most of the years I have been on the staff; Nicky Gumbel has been a great friend since I was a teenager. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to each of them.
I read English at university. My favourite was T. S. Eliot, whose poetry I came to love, without by any means understanding it all. I realised later that reading, re-reading, and ana-lysing his poetry helped me in reading and studying the Bible. I discovered that not understanding everything on first reading was a source of excitement rather than frustration, and that the more I pondered on a text, the richer the yield.
At Cambridge in the 1970s, on the night I gave my life to Christ, I heard David Macinnes preaching a sermon about the cross. For the first time, I realised that, rather than viewing the cross as an unattainable example of heroic suffering, Jesus had died out of his love for me, and that my first response should be gratitude.
My favourite place is a holiday cottage in south-west Ireland, where I first met Sila 40 years ago, and where we have gone on holiday every year ever since.
Perhaps the book of James is my favourite: I find it intriguing because it is so different to the other letters in the New Testament. The least liked part of the Bible? Probably the rape of Tamar by Amnon in 2 Samuel 13. The story is told in shocking detail, like a lurid tabloid report. It is one of the most graphic and shocking accounts of the abuse of a woman.
Favourite sound? When sailing off the coast of Ireland, the sound of the lapping of waves on the hull of a sailing dinghy, and of the wind filling the sails.
I’m happiest when I am with Sila, our children and grandchildren for a day together, wherever we are and whatever the weather.
I pray for my family, and for a change in the state of family life in the country — for God to inspire couples to invest in their relationship and to inspire parents in their task of bringing up children.
Were he still alive, I’d choose to be locked in a church with Pope John Paul II. I have gained enormously from his writings of how God’s ways of love are so relevant for our time to build and sustain relationships.
Nicky Lee was talking to Terence Handley MacMath. The Parenting Book is available at £7.99 (CT Bookshop £7.19); 978-1-9058-8736-1.