Pastor Speaks, July 23, l998
"The Awesome Task of Being a Parent"

One day our l5 year-old son informed his mother and I that he wanted to attend a rock concert with some friends. The plan was to drive 3 hours to Cleveland, spend the night with a relative of a friend and return the next day. Our options are to say, "No", permit him to go, or take him there ourselves. He is a good student and has never been in any trouble. We are wrestling with our options and also our fears.

Being a parent these days is a real challenge. We are frequently faced with difficult decisions, especially when it comes to teenagers. How liberal should we be? How much discipline is enough? What set of guidelines can we use to successfully raise our youth into responsible, healthy and productive human beings?

There are no easy answers and no one seems to have mastered the art of parenting. While we can look to the Bible for help in most areas, the area of parenting is just about non-existent. There is however, a very good story in the Old Testament that speaks directly to the issue of parenting. It is found in Genesis, Chapter 2:l5-3:7. It is the story about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

In that story God is the divine parent. Adam and Eve have been given a home in the garden. They are free to enjoy that gift as long as they adhere to a few ground rules. The garden was their responsibility and theirs to enjoy. All they had to do was stay away from the tree of knowledge, the tree of good and evil.

Isn’t this what we tell our youth? Our house is their house. They can live there as long as they live by the house rules? Nothing is expected of them except to take care of it as if it were their own. It sounds simple enough, but why then do so many families struggle with the task of parenting?

I believe that this story can help. First of all, note that the boundaries were clear. The parent (God) told Adam where he could go and where he couldn’t. "You can till and keep the garden and eat of it’s fruit. Just avoid that one tree." No guess work here. The limitations were clear, the boundaries well-defined.

Many parents are not clear about boundaries. A young person cannot know his/her limits if they are not articulated in a way that is understood. Instructions like, "stay close to home" or "don’t go out of the area" are vague and misleading. How close? One mile, two, ten? What area? The neighborhood, the city, the county? Boundaries have to be clear and concise or they can be easily misinterpreted.

Secondly, parents need to be consistent and together on their instructions. When one parent overrides another, the overridden parent becomes powerless and loses respect. When a youth hears different messages from his/her parents they are confused and have to fill in the blanks. This leads to conflict and tension in the home.

Third, there has to be some trust. After God entrusted Adam and Eve to the garden, God left them alone. God didn’t spy on them or look over their shoulder. They were free to manage their space without interference. God, as their divine parent, trusted Adam and Eve completely. When a youth feels trusted they respect their parents. When a parent trusts their youth, they give them the freedom to themselves and make their own choices.

It is my experience that our youth today do not know how to make healthy choices. I believe the primary reason is because parents are making the choices for them. A parent who tells their son, "you are going to play football because I want you to be tough" is not giving his/her son a chance to decide. Using our youth to live out our fantasies will eventually cause resentment. A more serious problem exists when we permit our youth to do everything and never give them the opportunity to make a decision.. By trying to be "nice" to our youth we are enabling them to do everything they want instead of being selective. When they don’t have to make choices they will not learn that choices have consequences.

The choices that Adam and Eve made had consequences. On the one hand they could manage the garden and have a great and prosperous life. On the other hand, they could eat of the tree of knowledge and live with the consequences, in that case, hard work and difficulty in child bearing. In other words, making an unhealthy choice would make it harder in the future. If they didn’t listen to the divine parent, God, they would find parenting difficult when the time came. By the way, their family was quite dysfunctional if you read further in Genesis. When Adam and Eve became parents, they had their hands full.

Every choice that we make has consequences. If we play in the band, we can’t play on the football team. In both activities we can learn a skill and make friends. We can be part of a team and be representatives of our school. But, choosing football means weightlifting, working out and running while being in the band means practicing an instrument, marching at half-time and reading music. Youth need to make choices. They need to realize that whatever choices they make, there will be consequences. Adam and Eve were free to choose, and they had to live with the consequences of the choices they made.

Many parents find it difficult to say "No" because they don’t want their children to think of them as mean or impossible. Those parents that can’t say "No" have not made the boundaries clear, are afraid to set clear guidelines or have not taught their youth that choices have consequences. When a parent feels sorry for a poor choice that a youth has made and bails them out, or covers for them, their son or daughter has not experienced the consequences of that choice. For example; if we tell our youth they can go to the fair if they pay for their own ticket, but then give them the money to go because they have spent it on a new pair of shoes, we have not taught them that choices have consequences.

I can’t think of a better story that illustrates some of the basic tenets of parenting. Making the boundaries clear, making choices and living with the consequences of those choices are all part of this great story. My wife and I have decided that Cleveland is outside of the boundary. Our son does not want us to take him to the concert and that is his choice. It means he will have to miss it. He will be disappointed and most likely will argue his case. Those are the consequences with which all of us must live.

Dr. Keith Wagner, Pastor,
St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney