Jesus, Take the Walmart Cart
What happens when mama doesn't know best
The good patrons of Walmart that bright August morning didn’t see the train wreck heading their way. Unfortunately, neither did I.
I was taking my boys back to school shopping, which, in the past, has gone as smoothly as a Trump rally in downtown Portland. After debating whether to shop online, I convinced myself we should go to the store. It will build character, I thought.
Our errand began derailing before we reached the cart rack. My 3-year-old immediately dashed through the sliding doors toward the pharmacy for an impromptu game of hide and seek. Taking the bait, my 13-year-old chased him and nearly plowed down the customers waiting for their heart pills. Seconds later, my 11-year-old stomped up to me and fumed, “I told you, Mom! They don’t have the supply lists printed out.” Doh! After frantically digging my phone out of my purse, I scanned the blasted QR code to download the digital lists.
The oldest returned, dumping the youngest into the cart with the gentleness of a lumberjack. I barked a couple items for each big kid to fetch. The process went fine for a few blessed minutes, then the inevitable happened. One son, upon seeing his little brother rearrange the neatly separated supplies, shrieked as though he’d dropped his Pokémon cards in the toilet. Launching a counterattack, he yanked a box of crayons from the mess-maker’s hands, causing him to wail.
At that point, I noticed my face warming. My chest felt tight, like my lungs were being smooshed by a mammogram paddle. Two sons had lost their regulatory capacity, and the third looked ready to throw a punch. I had to make a call, fast. Heaving a breath, I shot orders through clenched teeth. “LET’S. GO.”
I gathered the few supplies we’d found and abandoned them next to the knockoff Bento boxes. As I swiveled the cart around, a gray-blonde woman sidled up to me. “You could give the little one his own basket,” she offered. “Oh thanks, but we just need to leave,” I muttered, jetting for the exit before another stranger could comment.
On the drive home, I thought more about the interaction. While I appreciated the woman’s desire to help, her suggestion felt a little judgy. In that moment of crisis, I didn’t need someone to challenge my decision.
My defensiveness eventually faded, giving way to self-blame. I kept brooding about how this wasn’t my first rodeo. After years of experience shopping with kids, including other disastrous Walmart trips,1 I’ve learned that preparation is essential to avoid chaos. I should’ve planned better.
Then I started imagining what a Christian influencer would do in my position. Surely she would’ve devised a gracious and marketable way to handle the situation. Or maybe I could’ve taken the woman’s advice and conjured some creative solution. Or I could’ve doled out punishments, or resorted to bribery, or tried gentle parenting techniques.
Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve. Round and round I spun the wheel of second guesses. Even after we pulled up the driveway, and the kids settled into the relative calm of our four walls, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d failed.
Parenting, in perspective
Managing my kids sometimes overwhelms me. I hesitate to admit this, first because I prefer to be in control of my circumstances, and second because it implies a knowledge deficit. Moms are supposed to be experts of our children. We’re expected to know everything from the five steps to soothe a ballistic toddler to the secret for getting our teenager to do his chores cheerfully.
This is the thrust of most parenting messages today. It’s what we read in the potty training books and hear on the therapy podcasts. To parent well, we must acquire the keys to success. The more we know, the better results we’ll achieve.
We see this mentality endorsed in Christian parenting circles. Experts offer tips and hacks that promise to help us meet godly goals for our kids. Other moms share nifty catch phrases that teach children a biblical code of conduct, maybe with a bonus lesson for training them to fold their own laundry.
Moms snatch up this type of advice for good reason. We’re always busy and eager to find solutions that address common kid issues. Plus, we can glean legit insight from professionals and fellow parents who’ve been through the weeds already. So I get why we feel compelled to educate ourselves. And hey, I love a good hack as much as the next mom. (Whoever thought to cut a sticker in half and put it inside your kid’s shoes to help them tell left from right? Genius!)
The problem with the emphasis on knowledge is that it can turn parenting into a competency program. We can be tempted to rate our success or failure according to how well we implement our accumulated wisdom. Note that the Mama Knows Best Program runs continuously. There’s no margin for bad days or brain farts. Given the stakes—our kids’ well-being, or, gasp, their eternal standing before God—we dare not risk failing. Ever.
Talk about great expectations. They sound right, because aren’t we the adults here? We should be held to high standards. That’s a tricky thing about lies that feed pride. We confuse faithful service with a need for superiority.
Thankfully, God doesn’t command moms to be omniscient. He isn’t holding a golden grade book, scoring whether we “win” at any given parenting scenario. Scripture does say we have a responsibility to love our kids and teach them his Word.2 However, we’re mistaken to assume we can become smart enough to handle every parenting difficulty with ease.
Lately God has been showing me a different way to view parenting competence, or lack thereof. Before I think of myself as a parent, I need to remember my identity as a child. God says I’m his. I depend on him not only for my eternal safekeeping, but also for my morning oatmeal. Nothing I have comes from my own wit or wherewithal. My perfect Father gives plentiful gifts, including the abilities to soothe tantrums, correct disobedience, and nurture seeds of faith.
God is the source of any parenting skills I put to use. He supplies the wisdom, strength, and extreme patience required for shepherding children. And when I faceplant as a mom—either due to sin, or because I am a human who forgets things and needs to rest once in a while—I’ve gotta believe his grace covers me then too.
When I remember who God is, my dependence on him, and his utter competence with handling my life, I’m relieved from the pressure to be a parenting whiz. My self-sufficiency slinks away, making room for a better guide. As God’s child, I know he’s given me the Holy Spirit. Yielding to him allows me to walk in his light, which can lead somewhere unexpected. In the case of the botched school supply shopping run, he led me out the door and straight to bed.
The way of escape
Faux down blankets swathed me in a world of gray. I was zoning out, eyes glued to a random speck on the wall. The boys had found books and games to keep them occupied and mostly quiet. Grateful for the respite, I tried to lay still to calm my mind.
Shame and doubt kept swirling, but a simple truth broke through. God is in control. I drummed the words over and over, like how my 3-year-old repeats his nighttime mantra: “There are no monsters in our house.” Within a few minutes, my pulse steadied. God pulled me back from the spiral, restoring peace after the stressful outing with my kids.
I can’t say I had entirely pure motives for fleeing Walmart that day. Yet that’s the direction Jesus took us. His deliverance didn’t come through me knowing what to do, but through my admission of weakness.
Some commotion rattled downstairs. Time’s up, I thought, marveling how the house hadn’t burned down during my mental health break. I rolled out of bed, followed the sound, and discovered my youngest clambering up shelves to reach a board game. I grabbed the box for Ticket to Ride and called the other two boys to the table. Surprisingly, they joined without protest.
I started to hand each kid their own bag of plastic trains, then hesitated. This was going to incite crying and/or cheating, but oh well. Winning didn’t matter, anyway.
How eventful are your Walmart shopping experiences, on a scale of Boring to The Running of the Bulls? More seriously, how do you fall into the “If I know enough, life will be a breeze” mindset? Talking through expectations helps us sort out where our confidence needs realignment, away from ourselves and staked in Christ.
Where to begin chronicling my boys’ Walmart escapades? There was the time one kid punctured a bag of flour in our cart, leaving a powder trail up and down the frozen food aisles; the time I lost a kid who’d wandered looking for the only acceptable brand of hot cocoa; the many produce section throwdowns when they flung handfuls of those green twist ties at each other and lobbed onions like grenades; the countless occasions I had to peel a hysterical child off the floor and hold them, flailing, while the receipt checker moseyed about his business. Truly, these are the moments a mother cherishes.
See Proverbs 22:6, Deuteronomy 6:5-9, Psalm 78:4-7, Ephesians 6:4, 2 Timothy 3:15.
I love how you balance humor, honesty, and insight. I needed every truth you shared here. Thank you!
This all sounds very familiar, as we have 8 kids. But to be honest, the one doing most of the work was my wife. Maybe she was too close to the action to see what was going on: now, with only 4 left at home, other women are seeking her out for the moral support and advice she never got in their situation. And I notice another thing: the character qualities, the patience and kindness and so forth that we always assumed we had, we actually do have now. And few observers seem to notice that the difficulty of parenting causes character changes that can happen no other way. It's important to focus on the impossible changes, not the situations that cause them.