Wouldn’t it be great if children came with a user manual? Or a recipe? Two teaspoons of discipline here, and a heaping cup of love. A few assorted homework sessions on the side. Add a pinch of lectures while mixing the batter. Put in school for 18 years and voila, you have a perfectly adjusted, well balanced child.

I think we all know that it just doesn't work like that when it comes to raising children. You can do everything right and things don’t turn out as anticipated, and someone else can do everything wrong and things seem to turn out just fine.

I want my children to be kind, generous, principled, and responsible.

And, like all religious parents, I want the recipe of the day to look something like this: Wake up, wash hands, say the morning blessings, pray, make blessings over your food, dress modestly, eat kosher food, observe holidays and Shabbat as I taught etc. (I could go on and on, literally).

But, despite my best efforts, this is not always the case.

Not to, G‑d forbid, speak negatively about our holy and revered ancestors, but it is safe to assert that our righteous and holy patriarchs and matriarchs, like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and King David, were model parents. Yet they all had children who did not seem to measure up.

Abraham had a child who wasn’t exactly the valedictorian of his class: Ishmael. Isaac and Rebecca had a wild child who became a murdering hunter: Esau. Moses’s children didn’t merit to succeed him as leaders of the Jewish people, and within a few generations became idol-worshiping priests. King David had some very challenging children who tried to unseat him as leader and accumulated more than a little risque behavior between them.1

So, what’s the deal? Is there a recipe for getting it right? And what goes wrong when we do our very best yet the results are different from what we saw in the cookbook?

I think the answer lies in one word in the title of this article: Good

What makes a child “good”? I don’t know that any educator, parent or expert can answer that. Good is subjective, and, more importantly, applying it exclusively to one specific outcome denies the existence of G‑d’s providence.

To say that a child did not turn out the way he or she should have is essentially saying that G‑d isn’t truly running the world. However my efforts turned out, that’s exactly what G‑d intended.

True, our mental image of perfection is different from what we are seeing. But that doesn’t make the child good or bad. Do they have work to do? Yes, and so do we. But that is all related to what they must do. Regarding who they are, they are exactly as G‑d intended.

Isaiah 60:21 says, “And Your people are all righteous. They shall inherit the land forever. They are the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, in which I take pride.”

Every one of us is righteous, formed by His hand, and He is proud of us! Sure, we all mess up and there are times we must improve. But that does not reflect who we are.

When it comes to who we are, He is proud of every single one of us and our children just because we are the work of His hands.

There comes a point when I must accept that I've done my best in my parenting journey, and I’ve modeled and continue to model the life and values I wish to pass on to my children. Each child will have absorbed and resonated with some, all, or none of what I’ve attempted to convey.

At some point the parenting (read: forcing) part ends and the acceptance of the cake is exactly what G‑d wanted. It looks beautiful and tastes delicious, because it is G‑d's cake, not mine. I am only a partner in its creation. If He is proud of my children, how can I not be? Even if I’d choose different behaviors.

Of course we need to do our best to empower our children to live closely to our ideals, but G‑d’s pride in us has nothing to do with the outcome. To be a hundred percent clear, this is not an understanding that I've mastered; it is one that I am actively working on. My brain knows its truth, my heart is working to incorporate it.

Our job is to use the Torah’s cookbook to try to bake the best cake we can, but the cake that comes out of the oven of life is exactly what G‑d wanted from us.