We had the chance to catch up with ACR team member Joc Loane to speak about her brand new book, Motherhood.
Hello, Joc! It’s great to speak to you about your new book. For those who don’t already know you, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Sure! I was born in Tasmania but grew up all over Australia because we moved frequently for my dad’s work. I came to know Christ while I was at boarding school in Sydney in my early teens. I worked as a dentist until I studied at Moore College with my husband, Ed. We’ve since had five children together; they are now aged from 18 down to 8. Ed currently serves in a residential university ministry, and I work part-time at Moore College as a chaplain and in alumni relations.
I imagine being a mother of five children has given you a lot of parenting experience! But I’ve heard you say that you don’t consider yourself a parenting expert. What prompted you to write this book on motherhood?
I tempted at this point just to say “you”, Kirsten! And you’re right in saying I don’t want to put myself out there as some sort of expert. I firmly believe the Bible has much to say to us about how we go about being mothers and I’ve developed an enthusiasm for sharing that with others. For a long period, much of the ministry I did was among young mums.
After a seminar on biblical motherhood that I gave at the Priscilla and Aquila Conference, Kirsten got in touch with her Matthias Media hat on to ask if I’d be interested in developing that material into a book. I felt hesitant and under-qualified at first. But my husband gave me some encouragement: writing a book is just another way to speak the gospel into people’s lives—and framed like that, I felt it was something I could have a go at!
What has been your experience with Christian parenting books? What are you hoping to offer your readers that you didn’t see in other books?
I’m a big reader. Reading has long been my coping reflex for whenever I feel out of my depth. The day we found out we were pregnant with our twin boys, I bought five books about how to raise twins! Just recently I counted all the parenting books on our shelves: we have 54. And that’s just the ones we own! Many of them are really helpful. So why I would write another one is a very good question!
I’ve sometimes found Christian parenting books can tend to either be very theoretical and never land principles in real life, or else apply principles so prescriptively that they lay up burdens on parents’ backs.
In my book I’ve tried to think biblically about principles for mothering and also how to apply them, without being overly prescriptive. My hope is that this book won’t shame or over-burden mothers, but rather refocus them in their purpose and encourage them with the abundant grace we have in Christ.
I also wanted to address some of the trickier parenting topics with a biblical basis—things like paid work, the sensation of ‘losing yourself’ in motherhood, and some of the newer parenting strategies like the gentle parenting movement. There’s not much written by Australians, and none that I know of that particularly think about what it might mean to be a mother, rather than a generic substitutable parent.
Do you think that Australian Christian parents have many distinctives from US or UK Christian parents?
I had assumed these English-speaking cultures were very similar until we lived in the UK, and I saw that our cultural differences can play out in quite significant ways. The Bible speaks clearly to all cultures and its truth doesn’t change. Yet I do see influences on the way we parent here that are much more tied to our culture than the Bible.
One small example might be the way Australians relate to ‘experts’. Think of the way different populations responded to the Covid lockdowns. There was a stark difference in the way Americans, as a whole, tolerated these mandates compared to Australians. In Melbourne and Sydney, we faced some of the harshest and longest lockdowns in the globe. And yet, for the most part, Australians were compliant with health authorities.
Despite our reputations as larrikins, I actually think Australians are quite submissive to experts in authority, and this affects our parenting too. You take your kid to the piano teacher to learn piano, the tennis coach to work on their serve, and so on. Often we can slip into seeing church as the place we send our children for their spiritual input, and perhaps we don’t take primary responsibility for this ourselves. Or maybe some parents feel ill-equipped to do that compared to the wonderful youth ministry team.
That’s just one example that you might not agree with! But I do think much of the Christian parenting material we have has been written from the perspective another culture that doesn’t always resonate as strongly in an Australian context.
Are there any particular dangers that you see this generation of young parents tending towards?
Social media has had a huge impact on this generation of young parents. I’ve seen this change in my own time as a mum. When my eldest was born, I logged onto Facebook from a desktop computer once or twice a week. When my youngest was born I had a smart phone and an Instagram account where I followed dozens of parenting pages.
Our exposure to parenting advice has grown exponentially. There are some helpful aspects to this, but one danger is that the primary place today’s parents seek direction is Instagram accounts run by psychological parenting experts. It’s less likely to be primarily from the Bible or from older Christians.
I’ve noticed that even the parenting courses our churches run tend to come from a psychological angle rather than a biblical one. There is much common grace wisdom we can glean from understanding neurobiology and development in children and in focusing on calm, connected and confident interactions with our kids. However, as followers of Christ, we want to look first to the Bible’s wisdom and understand what God’s word has to say about our purpose and priorities as a parent.
What encouragements did you find in the book-writing process?
I was reminded afresh of the great privilege God has given us in our relationships with our children, and this reignited my joy and sense of purpose as a mother. Mothering can often feel like something we do on autopilot. To pause and reconsider what the God of the Bible has to say to us as mothers was very reenergising for me.
Taking the time to think through some areas of parenting where I had vague gut feelings but had never done the work of thinking them through theologically was also helpful and convicting.
Who or what has most encouraged in your own journey of motherhood?
My church family has been a huge gift to me as I mother. It has been such a precious thing to be encouraged and spurred on by older Christian women to love my kids and persevere through the difficult times. They have helped me keep fixing my eyes on Jesus.
When I fail yet again, when I’m weary and tired of it all, when I feel unseen and unnoticed and unappreciated, then there is nothing that can compare to the refreshment the Spirit brings through God’s word.
To know God sees me, loves me, is for my good, and is strong when I am weak is a balm for my soul. To know I have the hope of eternity ahead of me—and the presence of Christ with me as I walk on in faith—is such a deep encouragement as I mother.
Our thanks to Helen Xing for the feature image.
Joc’s book is available now from Matthias Media.