“Dear friend, don’t let the bustling culture determine the needs of your own children. You get to choose how they grow up. You can protect their time, energy, and imagination. You are the gatekeeper of the garden of their childhood.”

-Ainsley Arment

As a parent, I am a master gardener. Master gardeners raise our most precious babies in a greenhouse so we can ensure they are in ideal conditions to thrive. We carefully monitor water, nutrition, temperature, humidity. We keep them protected from pests and other sources of damage. We plant them in healthy soil, free of pathogens so they can focus solely on healthy growth, rather than fighting to thrive. Once they are mature, with deep roots, we slowly work to harden them off with careful, measured exposure to the elements before transplanting them outside of the greenhouse.

When I hear the phrase “sheltered” in reference to children, even if the speaker meant it in a negative way, I think GOOD! Children SHOULD be sheltered. This world is not for us – certainly not for our children (John 17:16, 1 John 2:15,2 Corinthians 6:17, etc). Just look at the way God shelters us!

God is our refuge, He shelters us from our enemies and destruction, He is our shield and our hiding place. He is our fortress. Psalm 91 really puts it out there:

Psalm 91

¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

³ Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

¹⁴ “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

God has made it clear that the world is not for us and He has given us example after example of how He shelters His children. How can I not reach for the same for my own children? Being sheltered is not something to be ashamed of or something to be sneered at. Being sheltered means you are cherished and valued and being given a strong, healthy advantage.

That’s not to say we should shelter them from making mistakes, or shelter them from seeing their need for Jesus, but we should be protecting and nurturing them in the way God intends. God entrusted us with these children. They are His and we are blessed with them to love and teach and raise up. Scripture makes our duty as parents clear:

“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”

Ephesians 6:4

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Proverbs 22:6

And in Matthew 28, we are told to make disciples; teaching them to obey all He commanded. This is to all nations, yes, but that certainly applies to our very own children as well. Our number one responsibility to our children is to teach them about God and His commandments.

The goal of sheltering my children should not be out of fear or a desire for control. I want to shelter my children from the influence of the world and encourage them to follow Jesus because within God’s will is the safest place for them to be! I want them exposed to only enough of worldly things to be inoculated against them. The greenhouse doesn’t shut out the world; it provides the proper environment for what’s growing inside to truly flourish in time.  

Rather than merely shielding our children from the world, we should aim to be giving them the tools they need to engage with the world in a biblical manner. Ephesians 6:10-18 speaks of putting on the full armor of God so we can stand firm. Just as a plant in a greenhouse grows stronger through carefully measured exposure to the elements, our children grow stronger in faith, character, and wisdom as their roots deepen in God’s Word.

So, yes, my children will be raised in a greenhouse that will hopefully and prayerfully nurture growth over time allowing them to form deep roots in God’s Word as they grow in their understanding of a Biblical worldview. Then, when they are ready, they can leave the greenhouse of their childhood which gave them such a wonderful, healthy start, and they can go on to flourish and thrive.

“It’s okay to raise your children in a greenhouse where they are planted, loved, nurtured, fed, and given an unfair head start.”

-A Better Way to Homeschool