Caroline Jarboe, Author at Missionary Mama

Being a Confessing Parent

Caroline Jarboe — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:58:54 +0000

I am a member of a church that practices sacramental Confession. I wasn’t always. My family were Southern Baptists, and I was baptized, as a teenager, into the Reformed tradition, so I know all the theological objections to the idea of confessing one’s sins in...

The post Being a Confessing Parent appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Prayer at Work

Caroline Jarboe — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 13:48:36 +0000

It is six o’clock in the morning. I am on an overnight business trip to New York, alone in my hotel room. Weak streams of dawn light leak around the edges of the blackout shades on the window of my room in the Club Quarters...

The post Prayer at Work appeared first on Missionary Mama.

The Life-Changing Magic of Picking Nits

Caroline Jarboe — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 15:39:22 +0000

I was at work last Thursday when I received the call from the school that every parent dreads: My eight-year-old daughter had been discovered with nits in her hair, on suspicion of lice. Actually, she was not alone. A bunch of children in the class...

The post The Life-Changing Magic of Picking Nits appeared first on Missionary Mama.

The Grace of Enough

Caroline Jarboe — Thu, 24 Aug 2017 13:16:08 +0000

For me, this has been the Summer of Sufficiency. Like most moms—and probably like you, too—I am always on the lookout for better and more thoughtful ways of doing things: running my household, teaching my children, opportunities I want then to have and experiences for...

The post The Grace of Enough appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Our Children and Media Exposure

Caroline Jarboe — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 13:25:19 +0000

Here’s a little story that doesn’t speak to well about my parenting: around the time my daughter was three and my son was eight, one my daughter got up and asked for orange juice to be served in a champagne flute, right about the time...

The post Our Children and Media Exposure appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Guiding Our Children Through Disappointment

Caroline Jarboe — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:30:11 +0000

I’ve been through a lot of heartbreak in my life. In addition to the real, lasting losses in my life—the death of my father and my mother’s mental illness—there are scores of disappointments. Awards not won, books not published, stories rejected, and opportunities on which...

The post Guiding Our Children Through Disappointment appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Free-Range Parenting (with Guardrails)

Caroline Jarboe — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:42:20 +0000

There’s a private elementary school in Washington, D.C., that advertises itself with this adage from Plato’s Republic, “The beginning is the most important part of any work.” As 2017 launches, I am thinking a lot about the concept of “process” as it relates to my...

The post Free-Range Parenting (with Guardrails) appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Anticipating Christ’s Birth through the Advent Fast

Caroline Jarboe — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 22:28:55 +0000

In my Eastern Orthodox church, it is a traditional practice to fast during Advent. I can’t think of anything better to underscore for my children the idea of anticipation, and waiting for the birth of Christ. But by December 23, we are all getting kind...

The post Anticipating Christ’s Birth through the Advent Fast appeared first on Missionary Mama.

Communion Across Culture

Caroline Jarboe — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:30:31 +0000

Twenty years ago, when I was still twenty-something and single, I was received into the Eastern Orthodox Church at St. George Cathedral in Wichita, Kansas. I had been in that small windswept city on a graduate fellowship, and had spent some ten months living in...

The post Communion Across Culture appeared first on Missionary Mama.