Interview With Mary DeMuth on Authentic Parenting
In one sentence, what is Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture about?
It’s about learning how to parent our kids in a winsome, authentic way, so that our kids are well-prepared to face life when they leave home.
The title sounds a bit intimidating and intellectual for me, a homeschooling mom of four who can hardly string together a coherent sentence at the end of the day. What will I get out of reading this book?
Grace. A lot of grace. I share a lot of parenting stories (and they’re not all triumphant. Oh how I fail!). One mom told me yesterday that it was the stories that spoke to her. Basically, the premise of the book is falling in love with Jesus, that parenting is more about our vital relationship to Him than it is about following a set of parenting rules. Good parenting flows from a good heart. The best thing we can do for our kids is to get right with Jesus. That applies universally, to every relationship we face, even our relationship with potty-training toddlers.
What’s different about this book from your last parenting book?
The last parenting book (Building the Christian Family You Never Had) focused on relearning parenting if you’d grown up in a home you didn’t want to duplicate. I shared the story of my upbringing, and the amazing things Jesus did to heal me and make me a new parent. This book is more about my journey of parenthood since then. We spent two and a half years in France, a hotbed of postmodernity. We watched our children grow in grace, despite persecution and really difficult school situations. The book is really a testimonial to Jesus and how He amazingly worked through my children.
Who should buy this book and why?
Any parent parenting kids from toddler-hood to teen-dom who wants to see their kids truly and authentically engage with Jesus, and, in turn, engage the world in a positive, light-bearing way. Why? Because I believe the book (because of God’s work in my life and my kids’ lives) is transformational.
