Free Of Me: Why Life Is Better When It’s Not All About YouSample

The Dangers of Image Management

I will never forget my dad predicting that one day I would be too cool for him. “No way!” I protested. I was eight years old and thought my parents hung the moon. Seven years later, I proved my dad right by being mortified at whatever my parents did. 

Most of us outgrow this phase of our teens, but we don’t outgrow the tendency to manage our image. In fact, it often becomes heightened and more destructive in marriage and parenting. When our spouse or our kids become extensions of us, they are forced to bear a burden that was never theirs to carry. It’s a toxic dynamic for relationships.

Image management is one of the ways we treat family like a mirror. Rather than seeing who they are, what they need, and how to love them, we see our own aspirations and fears. Sometimes we even end up using them for our perceived benefit.

One of the first steps to avoiding image management is to name it. Knowing about this habit is powerful, because you will begin to recognize it when you’re doing it. 

The purpose of your family is not to make you comfortable. It is to free you to love God and the world more because you could not have done it alone. As Christians, that is our challenge and our call. Family was never meant to be a pawn in the game of image management, because it was never meant to be about us. For us, yes. About us, no. When our families are about loving God and others instead of maintaining an image, or comparing ourselves with others, or making sure our kids stay ahead, we don’t have to strive anymore. It also releases our children from the society-imposed burden of self-focus. When we invite children into a purpose much larger than themselves, the pressure is so much less. 

There is a calling greater than family. Family is good and beautiful and God-ordained, and it can be a part of this call, but it was never meant to be an end in itself. That mission—not our perfect marriage or successful kids—is always higher. 

In what areas of your life are you most tempted to “manage” the image of how you appear—marriage, dating, friendship, work, parenting, social media?