What Loving Authority Looks Like for New Moms
I would give two pieces of advice to new moms. The first piece is this. Take a photo every day and print your photo book every year. If you don’t follow this advice, it is very possible that your oldest child will be almost sixteen, and you will be like thirteen years behind in photo albums.
The second piece of advice is this. For the first six months of being a new mom, just survive. If you just survive, you are doing absolutely fantastic at life and deserve an A plus. Go, you!
There is, however, a part B to this second piece of advice. After the first six months, you will start to find your wings again. You will find yourself having the capacity to do things like: Shower. Clean a toilet. Paint your toenails, even. It will feel absolutely invigorating. When this Second Wind appears, you need to begin wrapping your head around a very important concept of motherhood, and that is this: YOU ARE THE BOSS.
Why Loving Authority Can Be Hard to Embrace
There are three possible reasons that this role is very difficult to accept. The first is that, at the beginning, babies are beautiful, helpless little marvels of wonderfulness. They’re yummy and harmless. But there comes this moment when you will, unbelievably, catch a whiff of something that almost seems like . . . disobedience? It’s incomprehensible. Surely that child did not just throw that sippy cup down for the fifth time with a vengeful look in my direction. My precious little angel?! It cannot be.
But it was.
And then it happens again, and it’s undeniable. Alas, this precious child is somehow not perfect. So that’s sad. And you are never quite ready for it.
The second reason it is difficult to accept that you are in charge is that you as a mother may, actually, not prefer to be A Person Who Is in Charge. Some of us bossy firstborns (*clears throat*) have lived for this moment and step quite readily into the role of Commander in Chief. So that helps. But others of us—more naturally likable and pleasant—prefer a more supporting role in life. These are helpers, tender hearts, playmates. It is not super fun for these people to have to suddenly be in charge.
When Children Resist Parental Authority
The third reason it’s difficult to accept that you are the boss is that the child may turn out to be a person who would actually prefer to be in charge! Never mind the age difference . . . they want you to give them the reins and let them steer. So when reasons #2 and #3 combine, that makes for a rather amusing scenario in the checkout line at Target if there are orange Tic Tacs at eye level.
Are you destined for public tantrums and internal strife if you don’t relish being the boss as a mother? Of course not! The word I am getting at with all this talk about who’s in charge is authority. Loving authority is the “salt” of the family soup. You really can’t make anything good without it.
Parallels Between Loving Authority and Pack Leadership
The best way I can define what healthy authority looks like is to talk about a show Todd and I used to watch that featured a dog trainer who helped people with dogs that were out of control. Some of the dogs were vicious beasts who bit and drew blood, and others did weird things like bark for three hours if someone sat on their favorite pink pillow.
This show was such a study in personality. Human personality, that is! You eventually realized that when the trainer came in to save the dog owners from “bad” dogs, he was training the owner more than the dog. He emphasized the importance of dog owners channeling a calm and firm demeanor. I can’t tell you how often this idea pops into my psyche and guides me in an hour of parental confusion.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I know our children are not dogs. As beings made in the image of their Creator, they are clearly much more complex and worthy of all the dignity that comes with that. But bear with me. See if you notice any similarities to parenting here that might give us insights into our challenging task. For one thing, dogs need to have a “pack leader.” The problem arises when dog owners do not know how to be the pack leader, to be the one in authority. If domestic dogs don’t have a pack leader, one of them will step up to be the leader but may do so anxiously. Sometimes in the show, the owners were trying to be in charge, but they didn’t really know how to go about it.
What Healthy Authority Is — and Is Not
Good authority—for dogs or children or anyone else—is not yelling to get someone to obey in a language they don’t understand. It is not anxiously hoping someone will obey. It is not asking quietly and seeing what will happen. And it is not attempting to control every little thing. It is paying attention. It is fearlessly putting boundaries in place and standing firm on them. It is knowing—deep down—that you are in charge. And then being calm and happy and going about your unrelated business.
Did you pick up the interesting parallels there?
At the end of each show, when the trainer had rehabilitated the dog (slash owner), everyone was so much happier. The owners could do things like sit on the pink pillows and have people over for dinner without them getting eaten by angry Chihuahuas. You know—live ordinary lives.
The newly happy dog owners were relieved. The dogs were relieved. It was life, functioning as it was meant to be.
Here it is, bluntly: dogs and children need leaders who are ready to be leaders. Neither dogs nor children ostensibly appear to want this, and sometimes they fight it. But deep down, they really, really do want this.
God designed life to be this way. We were made to be subject to the appropriate authorities. If we try to live against the way we were made, things go south.
Why Loving Authority Builds Strong Families
Let me put this another way. If you don’t teach your kids to obey you, you aren’t loving them well, and they won’t reach their potential. Their life will be harder and messier. And most notably here, building that strong family will be one hundred times more difficult because you will be swimming upstream, alone. When you exert loving authority, when you teach your kids to submit their little wills to a leader who can be trusted, you are giving them an incredible gift. I believe that so many of the problems facing younger generations stem from the fact that kids are being left to write their own rules.
Particularly for our purposes of building a strong family, authority is most certainly needed. There are many other characteristics of a strong family, like quality time, friendship, connection, loyalty. All of these require someone to lead the pack. You can’t really make the magic of a strong family if some of these characteristics are optional for your children.
Adapted from Come on Home: A Grace-Filled Guide to Raising a Family Who Loves (and Likes) Each Other by Jessica Smartt, releasing in September 2025.
