Parenting: The Complex and Beautiful Vocation of Raising Children

Shannon Whitmore reviews a new faith-based book by Holly Taylor Coolman that covers every age and stage of parenting.

There are a lot of parenting books available to moms and dads, including many that have been written by Catholics, for Catholics. But Holly Taylor Coolman’s Parenting: The Complex and Beautiful Vocation of Raising Children is unique. She does a wonderful job of portraying a vocation that is both complex and beautiful. As a mother of two elementary-aged children, I can remember vividly the struggles of life with infants and toddlers, I can understand perfectly the efforts that come with school-aged children, and I can imagine the labors associated with raising preteens and teens with a fair amount of fear and trembling. As an adult daughter, I can also sympathize with the chapters dedicated to accompanying adult children. Parenting is able to address each stage of parenting in a manner that is both expansive and concise.

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Coolman covers every stage of parenting in her book, and dives deeper into some of the specific topics associated with each stage, including technology use, education, and dealing with mental illness. She proposes a new style of parenting that is both new, as far as parenting philosophies go, but also timeless, since it gets at the core of what it means to be a human person made in the image and likeness of God. Coolman suggests adopting a method of apprenticeship, where parents are called to accompany their child as a unique person created by God as they grow and mature. It is less about doing things to our children, and more about doing it with them. We work alongside our children, teaching them when they are little, guiding them as they reach adolescence and that first taste of adult independence, and then taking a step back and watching as they prepare to move into mature adulthood.

Coolman also stresses the importance of community in the raising of children. We were never meant to raise children alone. As the saying goes, it takes a village. Coolman repeatedly emphasizes the need for community. As a member of a thriving church community, I wholeheartedly agree with Coolman’s focus on community. Unfortunately, one of the only topics not addressed at length in her book is what to do when you don’t have a strong community. When my first child was born, we didn’t live near family or in a thriving parish. We had to travel far to reach a community where we were accepted, and as a new mother, I did not feel able to make the trip. I spent over a year without a strong community, until my husband got a new job and we moved to our current town, where there is a thriving parish and local community. But not everyone is as fortunate as we were, and I know that many families feel isolated and do not have the ability to change their situation. I would have loved to learn what Coolman proposes as a solution to families in these circumstances.

Coolman’s Parenting is a wonderful book to have in your home library, and its advice is very relevant and faith-based. She addresses the many facets of parenting with both honesty and hope. As any parent will tell you, being a mother is both hard work and totally worth it. Parenting is both complex and beautiful, and that is a sentiment to which any mom can relate.

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