PODCAST · kids
Light Duties
by Catherine McKay
We all want to be good mums and we want to like doing motherhood. The trouble is, it's hard to work out what's good and harder still to be happy about it. This podcast is a long meditation on what Jesus has to say about what's good when we're raising children. It so happens that joy sneaks up on us when we get on with doing it.
Episodes
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Upholding the Sixth Commandment Without Breaking the Ninth
Growing up without a father and then becoming the mother of many children are two experiences that have taught me two things relevant to the abortion issue. The key to ending abortion is not to lie about life with children. The truth is so much better.
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Growing With Teenagers
I've been asked about parenting teenagers, by some people who are anticipating their children soon growing to be teens. This collection of observations is a snapshot of what I've been learning thus far (with my 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 8 year olds). I expect to have more and less to say down the…
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Why Do We Have Children's Ministry?
In this episode I start with a brief history of the problem that Sunday Schools were first trying to solve. I then spend time considering how the 17th Century challenges are not the same as ours, which then raises the question of what Children's Ministries exist for in 21st Century Australia. I...
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Seeds Buried
This episode features a brief life update as well as an article I wrote at Easter-time, but true for all times. Life is a cycle of deaths, seeds buried. But we believe in resurrection through Jesus Christ. My garden is a metaphor for that.
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You're Invited! A monthly study group
God built certain responsibilities into the parent/child relationship. If you are looking to grow in understanding and doing that role, then you might appreciate the monthly Charlotte Mason study group I host. This episode explains what that is all about. You can join the group via Patreon ($5…
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The Bible's Costly Assumptions About Families
First published August 2024 on the Australian Presbyterian website. For the full text, see the AP site or the Light Duties website. This article explores the disparity between the sentiments of the 2024-25 Women's Budget Statement and the Bible's vision of how children are raised. Instead of...
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Think-Aloud Chat: Children's Books
Following the How to Fill the Time episode, I've received questions about what kinds of children's books to read. Here is a response, to help you filter out many of the options and point you to some good springs. I mentioned: Biblioguides Vigen Guroian, "Tending the Heart of Virtue" (No affiliate...
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"Bringing Forth Life" Book Review
Jodie McIver is the Christian friend every expectant mum needs, especially in Australia. She understands the Bible, she understands midwifery and she understands the great variety of experiences faced by women who are becoming mothers. This is a review of her book, "Bringing Forth Life: God's...
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The Necessary Desperation {bonus}
When we've been invested in giving good and restraining harm for our kids, the situations that bring them low can be bitter to us. But we and our children need these pains, lest we miss the best of comfort, especially as they become independent.
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God Will Not Do What We Imagine {bonus}
Our work in mothering is not going to achieve all that we imagine. Why bother when we don't know which way the ball will bounce? This episode is about the comfort we can count on.
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#54. Stretched, Strained, Sustained
How can these maternal duties be called "light" when they are so weighty in importance and difficulty?
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Q&A: How to Fill the Time?
A listener has asked, "What good things can I fill my time and the kids' time with before starting formal schooling?". This response was recorded while I was out and about (so it sounds a bit raw). It's a start in thinking about why we have trouble filling time with very young children (I propose...
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#53. Ruined, Recycled, Restored
Perhaps we find motherhood difficult because we haven't given much thought to building a house? The thing is, we're all building from ruins, salvaging and restoring what we can. We have ideals, but none of us are working with ideal materials. Our splintered posts have meaning.
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Affection Follows Attention
In this think-aloud chat, we consider how our most basic form of treasure is our attention. And where our treasure is, there our heart will follow. Some thoughts on how we might come to love things we really don't like doing.
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Abundance and Loss in Motherhood
Sometimes God's generosity exhausts us. When the good gifts generate more work, we often treat them like a curse. This episode is about recognising the abundance we've had put in our hands so we can get busy doing something with it. It's about how to do a faithful job of handling the abundance…
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Evangelism Think-Aloud Chat
Perhaps telling people about Jesus while we're caring for our children isn't as complicated as we make it? Some reflections from a couple of decades (while I clean and repair books).
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#52. Two Ways to Ruin Motherhood
The great terror of motherhood is that we'd ruin it. This dread causes some mothers to do less: the less we do, the less we can fail. The same dread causes others to grip tighter and work harder: the harder we try the more sure the outcome will be. The painful truth is that both—minimal doing and...
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Christmas Greetings Uncut
I could NOT let Christmas come without saying something. But such is the sweltering pace of things around here that I am talking on the run, complete with the creaking of doors, thrum of traffic and stretching of sticky tape. Minus editing and intro and outro. It's a worked example of giving what...
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#51. Obedience is More Fun
We don't have to trick kids into obedience. And we mustn't neglect climbing trees. A life of obedience isn't a legalistic life. Obedience training is not a constant drill of facts and instruction. It isn't micromanagement, explicitly teaching every virtue and moral lesson by rote. It's not that…
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What if it Doesn't Work Out Well?
What if our children grow up to squander the good gifts we have tried to give them? If it doesn't end up achieving all we hope for, would faithful Christian motherhood be a waste of time? This is a think-aloud delve into how to stay motivated for a fraught work. I pray it is a comfort, and...
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Q&A1
This is the first episode answering a few questions lately received. Ranging from preparing for the teen years; parenting books I wish I had read at the start of my time as a mum; suggestions for Bible study guides to support Christ centred mothering. Along with some comments about Christian…
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#50. Unrestrained Cute Blasphemy
If there was a way to sober me up in the euphoria of anticipating new motherhood, this verse was it. A hint that there was a weighty trust and great danger. I wasn't merely welcoming a baby, but a person who would grow into an adult who would either fear the Lord or despise him. "his sons...
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How do Kids Become Independent?
In this think-aloud chat, Cathy talks aloud through a few things she's noted watching kids grow from complete dependence to almost the opposite (in a shockingly short space of time). A few things she's learning to focus on with the escalating pressure to fast track our kids into independence. It...
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Maternal Mood Strategies
In this think aloud chat, I continue thinking through my experience of handling motherhood and unwieldy moods. This is about some practical considerations that have helped. And books. See website for links.
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Maternal Mood and Mental Health
In this think-aloud-chat, Cathy talks through some of her experience of learning to cope. This is a look at one mum's experience over a long time, and the things that made a difference when dealing with long term depression and anxiety.
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Digital Kids Think Aloud Chat
My experience as a mum started before it was normal to have a smart device on hand constantly, but I soon had to come to terms with the opportunities and follies of screens. These are some thoughts (complete with the soundtrack of my domestic life) about some principles that have come to shape…
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#49. Belong and Obey
Obedience doesn't bring about belonging, the belonging comes first. When we belong, we express our connectedness through obedience. Obedience isn't about keeping ten thousand rules. In our own obedience as mums, and in helping our children learn to obey, rules cover only a fraction of the surface...
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To the Young Women, Thinking Ahead
This is a think-aloud chat especially for my unexpected audience: the women who are still young enough to be dependent on parents; the women who are looking at a future full of unknowns--the not-yet-mums, the younger women who still have many choices waiting to be made. When we find ourselves...
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#48. The Perils of Teaching Obedience
Once we're persuaded that it is good for us to train our children in obedience, a new set of potholes form in the road, some deeper than others. There are many ways we get things wrong. Our sin mangles and makes further obedience more complicated. But the complications don't nullify the command....
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#47. Taught to Obey, By Whom?
Teaching children to obey is a delicate, yet robust work. No relationship other than parent to child is designed to bear the weight of it. The trained childcare worker, the babysitter, the neighbour, the aunt, the uncle, the grandparent, the friends, the Sunday School teacher, the pastor, the...
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#46. Some Basic Features of Teaching Obedience
So, how do we actually teach children to obey? Here's a bullet point list to start with.
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Bible Reading Challenge {Think Aloud Chat}
This chat is about what has been helpful in different stages of my mothering years, as far as personal Bible reading goes. Resources I mention in the chat can be found on the webpage. https://biblereading.christkirk.com/women/#
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#45c. Ideas That Hinder Obedience: The Threat to Grace
Like me, were you ever the person at school who hated every subject you weren't intuitively good at? The need to save face meant avoiding the areas where one's incompetence could be exposed. Which meant it took me decades to realise there is more to enjoying something than being the best at it....
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Boredom {Think Aloud Chat}
A casual chat about both maternal boredom and bored kids. Is boredom really good for us? I used to think so. It's taken 17 years of being a mum to think otherwise. And, what can we do about it? https://www.motherbiblelife.com/articles/whymotherhoodisboring
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#45b. Ideas That Hinder Obedience: Belief Before Behaviour
Bringing about belief in Jesus is God's, hidden, sovereign work. On the other hand, tending to behaviour (which can either help or hinder belief) is definitely on the rather visible parental job description. God starts and finishes the work of saving people, but he uses all manner of means in the...
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#45a. Ideas That Hinder Obedience: Total Depravity
Should we expect children will learn to obey when we know they have a sinful nature? Is it even possible this side of Genesis 3? The fallen, sinful nature does not completely erase the divine likeness every human being bears. If our thinking about total depravity has us conclude that no child can...
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#44. If Your Theology Stops Obedience...
When it comes to fulfilling the great commission in our families (to teach our children to obey Jesus), sometimes our Christian conundrums paralyse us: Should we expect children will learn to obey when we know they have a sinful nature? Is it even possible this side of Genesis 3? Should we expect...
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Teaching Kids to Obey Jesus {Think Aloud Chat}
This is another audio-only free think about some aspects of teaching kids obedience, shared casually over my kitchen sink. These think-aloud chats are a bit of a birds-eye view from 17 years of parenting six kids (ie. lots of years not being able to ignore the realities of obedience!). You can…
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Christian Music for Kids {Think Aloud Chat}
This is another audio-only stream of consciousness. Cathy talks through some reflections on the changing relationships she's had with music for kids across her 17 years of mothering. Real-time, real sound (complete with the soothing sounds of dishwater). An exercise in trying to think behind the...
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#43. Why We Don't Teach Kids to Obey Jesus
When I was younger, "obedience" was merely uncool. In the 90's and 00's, we didn't use the word because it was daggy, uptight and prudish. Obedience meant deprivation and legalism, the arbitrary spoiling of fun. Thoroughly unappealing. Now, it is counted among the evils of this world. In this...
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#42. The Mission of Motherhood: Teach Them to Obey Jesus
Jesus tells us to teach obedience to those for whom we have some sort of discipleship responsibility. The most profoundly connected disciples Christian parents have are their own children. We are obliged to teach our kids to obey Jesus. Every moment and task in our children's young lives is given...
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Bible Reading in Our Family {Think Aloud Chat}
This isn't the usual audio version of an article, but a bonus "thinking aloud" session, going back through our family history of reading the Bible together, over the past 17 years. It might illustrate many of the ideas I write about at Light Duties. Mostly, I hope it fortifies you! articles...
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#41. Wrong Ideas About Mission Stifle Motherhood
Here are some problematic assumptions about the Great Commission which end up stifling motherhood (and stifling the mission too): Wrong Idea 1: We're all meant to be constantly expanding our range of relationships to tell the gospel to new people. Wrong Idea 2: Our children don't qualify as…
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#40. "Go" is Not the Only Verb in the Great Commission
Are home duties a rival to the Great Commission? Will building an overflowing home waste resources that could otherwise be spent telling the world about Jesus? This is the question that troubled me most as I fumbled around in the early years of motherhood. The word that evangelical Christians…
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Losing Our Maternal Bristles {bonus}
The golden law of our time is that whatever a woman is doing, she is Always Only Ever choosing the very best thing. Her holiness is indisputable. Her instincts are infallible. According to a poster on a wall near you, Women are Perfect. The trouble is, when we are struggling to know how to deal...
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#39. Overflowing Home
Home is meant to be the central place from which we worship and train up worshipers. It is naturally the locus of our maternal responsibilities. It won't be the only place where responsibility and influence happens, but it is the basic place. We can't leap over it. This is a bland thought if…
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#38. Constant Embodied Worship
It's not unusual to divide life into sacred and secular, bits God cares about and the bits he doesn't. Because gathered worship and the Bible and prayer and evangelism matter enormously, we think that everything else doesn't matter at all. But that is an unbiblical view, and a rather…
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#37. Why Motherhood is Boring
We live in a time where home is seen as either a day spa you retreat to, or the site of heavy-duty, mind-numbing labour we're desperate to escape. For the mothers of young children, we long for the former but live with the latter. Both ways of thinking about home are pretty boring and neither…
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#36. The Less Than Ideal Church
What do we do if we're tying to help our children grow into worship, but our church situation isn't ideal? Well, none are ideal. This episode is about what you can do.
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Reclaiming Time Without Urgency
Much of the trouble with motherhood comes down to time. Either we don't have enough, we're trying to live three lifetimes at once; or we are adrift… bored…with too many vacant hours. We struggle with proportion and order and finding the right substance to fill the void. Urgency undermines a lot…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
We all want to be good mums and we want to like doing motherhood. The trouble is, it's hard to work out what's good and harder still to be happy about it. This podcast is a long meditation on what Jesus has to say about what's good when we're raising children. It so happens that joy sneaks up on us when we get on with doing it.
HOSTED BY
Catherine McKay
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Light Duties have?
Light Duties currently has 94 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Light Duties about?
We all want to be good mums and we want to like doing motherhood. The trouble is, it's hard to work out what's good and harder still to be happy about it. This podcast is a long meditation on what Jesus has to say about what's good when we're raising children. It so happens that joy sneaks up on us...
How often does Light Duties release new episodes?
Light Duties has 94 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Light Duties?
You can listen to Light Duties on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Light Duties?
Light Duties is created and hosted by Catherine McKay.
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