Mercy and Justice in Parenting

Meg Herriot reflects on how sometimes it’s hard to walk the tightrope between mercy and justice with parenting. 

My husband and I have difficulty walking the line between mercy and justice with our parenting. When our son was younger, I think I did a decent job. Once his brain started to grow, along with his sense of individuality … yeah, it got hard.  

Worrying that I'd failed as a parent

It’s easy for us to see other people parent and think, “I’ll never do X,Y, Z.” It’s also easy to tell parents (as I’ve been told) that they should listen to a particular parenting expert. Well, let me tell you something. It took about 7 years for me to figure out that experts sometimes have great advice — and sometimes their advice is not the right answer for your child. God gave everyone individual children, and even though there is no parenting book that has all the answers, He gave us maternal and paternal intuition. 

I was recently stewing on how I might be failing as a parent with discipline (when my son went off on a tirade of disrespectful speech). Then today happened.  

First, I should tell you I recently had surgery. This was a result from a day in the summer that just went wacky and I had to make two ER visits in the same week. Now, I’m wearing a boot and I’m pretty much not supposed to do much, which if you know me, is difficult. It’s especially challenging when we have a rambunctious puppy with a personality similar to our child, multiple cats, ducks and chickens. And, oh yeah, the weather …  

The missing ducks

I woke up this morning to my husband telling me how the dog had made a mess overnight (not typical) and one of our ducks from the pond had snuck through the cat entry into our garage (our ducks are the large white variety, so this is remarkable). My first thought was predator.  

I struggled to do a head count. Yep. We were missing some ducks. Then my overwhelmed husband found one that was injured, but couldn’t catch it. My son readily gave up some of his morning routine so we could try to catch it with me definitely skirting the rules of what I was supposed to do (I wasn’t putting weight on my leg and I was relying on my husband for balance, but I’m pretty sure the surgeon wouldn’t have thought kneeling in the snow with a fish net was on his post-op idea list).

My kid stepped up during a crisis

I obtained the duck and husband carried her to our garage, which my son has now renamed, “duck rehab.” With straw, heat, food and medicine, we will see if we can help nature heal from what nature inflicted. My son was ready to help me get supplies and medication. A kid who isn’t always enthusiastic about helping out stepped up.  

The day continued, involving a 10-pound dumbbell to break open the ice covering our pond, as well as various other antics (we can thank our aerator people for caring) and my son continuing his thoughtfulness as we tried to bury our favorite duck (we couldn’t dig a hole, so I ordered fresh soil on delivery, since I can’t drive and we it put over “Splash”).

I then had my son take a bucket of water to put on top and hopefully freeze the soil so the coyotes wouldn’t try digging. How did I get out to said spot to do this with my son? I was carried by my son on a sled, with my boot wrapped in plastic shopping bags, with him pulling and me kicking off the ground with my good leg (much easier to do where there is snow than where there is not). 

Looking back at my son’s actions, thoughts and concerns and hard work and helpfulness today, I think my mercy parenting is doing ok. I need to strengthen the justice muscle, so I’ll just have to keep reminding myself to balance and remember, the Great Balancer, our Lord, is the one expert who does have this parenting thing figured out. 

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Copyright 2025 Meg Herriot
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