We are a cohort of Emperor Babies, leaving spittle on everything we touch. In indulgent child-rearing, parents pay attention to children. In the earlier, Scriptural approach, children pay attention to parents. Childhood is just one phase of a continuum, a path of life-long growth and accountability before God. Responsibility parenting does not isolate children in a special protected sphere, but places them at Mom or Dad's knee learning daily the trades, chores, and skills of adulthood.
Parents attempt to include their kids in the adult world as much as is feasible.
Instead, responsibility mothering includes setting an example of full-fledged adult womanhood. While time spent cuddling and playing on the child's level is an indispensable source of fun and security in a child's life, a mother must also prepare her children for adulthood, not life-long childhood. Her own long life will encompass many more roles and responsibilities than the intensive child-tending of the early years. When contemporary Christians look back longingly at the cozy family life of the Fifties, we may forget to read the experiment to the end and assess how those kids turned out. Jesus used the illustration of a father who, when his son asked for bread, would not give him a stone.