Sometimes you learn the most important lessons not in church but at the campground. That’s exactly where Marc Bareth was. A family vacation, a storm, and suddenly a lesson for life.
We went camping. For the first time with our own camping gear. Our tent was brand new and had enough room for the whole family to play board games in the dry on rainy days. And of course, those stormy days were in the forecast for the very start of our vacation. But we were in good spirits. To be safe, I hammered the tent stakes deep into the ground until they disappeared completely. I also pulled all the guy lines extra tight.
When we went on an outing the next day, the campground called. The friendly woman on the phone asked whether we were already on our way back, because our tent wasn’t standing anymore.
Had our tent blown away? Or had the storm torn it up so badly that we couldn’t sleep in it anymore? On the drive back to the campground, we imagined all kinds of wild scenarios. Fortunately, reality was less spectacular: one tent pole had buckled, that was all. Luckily we had lots of nice neighbors who helped us out with ropes, so we could carry on with our vacation without any trouble.
Strangely enough, our new tent was the only one on the whole campground that was damaged that day. My analysis was quick: obviously a material defect. But secretly I feared it might also have something to do with how I had pitched it. So I pulled the guy lines even tighter. Better safe than sorry.
The nice thing about life at a campground is that you have a lot of time. Time to think about things like guy lines. As a total beginner, I did some research online to learn from my mistakes. That’s when I realized that you can pull the lines not only too loose but also too tight. That was probably exactly the problem. The tent didn’t have enough give to adapt to the wind and flex, which is why a pole broke. Lesson learned.
During our vacation, I became aware of the parallels between pitching a tent and raising our kids. With our kids, too, we can pull the guy lines too tight or too loose, for example when it comes to passing on our faith or to media use.
If we pull the lines too loose, there’s no stability. As long as the weather stays calm, you hardly notice. But as soon as the wind picks up a little, the tent gets pushed over. If we don’t give our kids a framework within which they’re free to shape things, they lack direction and security.
But if we pull the lines too tight, we risk breaks. Breaks in the relationship between our kids and us. When a child can’t live out their need for independence and a say in things because everything is strictly regulated, there’s a danger that they will break with their parents and with what their parents care about. They break out of the tight grip.
That’s why, at the campground, I resolved to keep asking myself, together with my wife, whether our kids have enough guidelines, expectations and limits on the one hand, and enough freedom, room to shape things and responsibility of their own on the other. The art is finding the right balance, in camping as in parenting.
