Parenting Teen Boys, Or How a Mom Can Actually Have a Relationship With Her Son

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I am the mom of five sons: three adults, one 10-year-old, and one intellectually disabled 9-year-old. This does not make me an expert; it means I am experienced and tired and middle-aged. We started young. I was just 22 when we had our firstborn. In my 20's and 30's, I possessed boundless energy for the parenting of the three little boys who soon shared our home, and I loved being the mom of those exuberant, funny, and often plain-crazy boys.

Life was pretty simple. The floors were strewn with Legos, the appetites were boy-sized, and there were varying degrees of homeschool love and hate, depending on the boy, the subject, the weather, the mood, the time of year.

And Then They Became Teens

Then something unexpected happened. I mean, not totally unexpected; I had been a teen and had teen brothers and had oft been warned by strangers in the grocery check-out line, "Just wait until they're teeeeeenagers." But this undetectable switch was flipped in their brains and suddenly the boys who were interested in historical war stories and world domination through Minecraft and seeing who could eat the most jalapeños, weren't. 

It wasn't just the academic stuff, either. Laundry? Why? Clean teeth? What's the point? Video games? Well, yes. All day, every day, if given the option.

I began to see a lot of foot dragging, and because we homeschool, there began the season of pretending to do school work. “Is your math done?” — emphatic nodding — "Yep!" And then of course they'd bring me their math book and nothing had been done for weeks. (Before the homeschool naysayers load their guns, here's the deal: We'd gone through a period of excellent self-motivation prior to this 12-year-old transformation thing. I had no reason to doubt their integrity up to this point. Think: kid pretending to do homework. Same thing.)

And Then They Have Exactly Zero Goals

I also noticed in one of our boys that there were absolutely no life goals, short term or long. Apparently, spending the rest of your life on a Nintendo is a perfectly viable goal. Rather, not having the goal of spending one's life doing anything was the goal. I think. 

One afternoon I was driving down a long country road with our third son, Jack. By number three, I was a seasoned pro at this unmotivated teenage boy gig, and I was recognizing the signs. I thought maybe it was time to light a fire, at least mentally. "Hey Jack. What do you want to do with your life?” At the time, he had been learning to play golf and was out on the course at least once a week. "Do you want to be a professional golfer?" Whatever is pausier than a pause, that's how Jack responded. Dead silence. And then he spoke.

“Mom, I’m only 13. I don’t have to think about that.”

If he had been able to communicate what was really going through his brain at the time, it was likely more in line with "I don't know, I don't care. I get up, I eat breakfast, I go back to bed, I disappear. This is working for me."

I've learned now how to move through this season of a teen boy's life without destroying our mother/son relationship, and next time I'll share with you some things that I think can help yours, too. There's hope ahead!! 

This is Jack (with his sister Abby). He eventually graduated. In fact, on time, which seemed nigh impossible around age 12.

This is Jack (with his sister Abby). He eventually graduated. In fact, on time, which seemed nigh impossible around age 12.

Just a couple of years ago. They are now 24, 22, 20, 10, and 9.

Just a couple of years ago. They are now 24, 22, 20, 10, and 9.

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The Cross Took Care of That

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My friend Hannah has three sons with autism, all under the age of six. I’ll let that sink in a little bit, because that fact about Hannah alone is as extraordinary and overwhelming as it sounds.

But Hannah doesn’t come across as overwhelmed. She’s tender, often tearing up as we moms gather every Friday morning with one main thing in common: the parenting of kids with special needs. We share our struggles and our triumphs over a living room coffee table, and for some of us, our weekly gatherings together are the only place where we feel truly understood.

I want you to know Hannah as I know Hannah, because not only is she tender-hearted and kind and extraordinary and yes, sometimes overwhelmed, she is rock-solid. When she tells stories of the escalating tantrums her sons stage, complete with violent bouts of throwing objects at each other and kicking and biting, of the daily phone calls from school because of yet another behavioral issue gone down, of the screaming and the lack of sleep and the way in which their family has had to change everything about how they even live inside their home, she also reminds us that God is there in the chaos of their environment, that He gives her what she needs in each singular moment, that she knows, because He has always been faithful, that He is unshakably faithful. Hannah is a rock of a woman.

If Hannah were to read this, that’s what I would want her to know: that each of us feels as if we’re about to be pummeled by the next big wave, but standing outside of each other’s catastrophes, we can see the strength and courage and beauty of each other when we often cannot see it in ourselves.

I hosted our gathering on a late autumn morning before Thanksgiving, and only Hannah was able to come. We poured steaming mugs of tea and sat together at my dining room table. Hannah’s youthful smile was hiding behind weary eyes, but it emerged as it always does, especially when she talks about Jesus. Hannah doesn’t know the details of our story — of the legalism and religious gate-keeping we slowly shook out of nearly a decade ago — and so when I made an off-handed remark about doing something for God, she replied without any sense of self-righteousness, “Uh-uh. The cross took care of that.”

“Just when I think I’ve grasped the whole impact of the gospel, I am shown, again, how much I really want to prove to God that I am worthy of all that Jesus did for me. As if I could.”

Boom. If there were a word for the gospel slapping me fresh across the face, I’d use that. It would be better than “boom”. Hannah’s words caught me with my law-loving pants down and I felt thrown a little off-kilter, too. In that disorienting moment, I saw once again that in my heart of hearts, I am a legalist who continues to look for ways to add to what Jesus has already done for me. Just when I think I’ve grasped the whole impact of the gospel, I am shown, again, how much I really want to prove to God that I am worthy of all that Jesus did for me. As if I could.

For more than 40 years, I’ve misunderstood grace. Seven years ago we left a church culture that informed us of all we must do, how we must strive, work, gain, grasp, and earn God’s love for us. When God gently began to peel off the layers of religion, as He reminded us of Who He is and what He’s done (done: finished, already accomplished, put to bed), our lives began to change in remarkable ways. First of all, we finally understood what Paul was talking about in Romans 8. Truths like “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”, and “God has done what the law could not”, changed everything. The cross changed everything.

We began to grasp what it actually means to “live in the flesh”, too. For all of my religious years within evangelicalism, I was led to believe that those people who ran to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll were the only ones living in the flesh. No one ever pointed to our own religious, law-loving hearts as also rejecting the freedom of living in the Spirit. But when God pulled us out of our legalistic environment, my religious heart finally understood that by trying to add to what God has already done, I was living far more “in the flesh” than all those heathens I thought were doing so because they wore their worldly sin on their sleeves.

“That’s what it looks like to live in the freedom of the gospel.”

We’ve been pursuing a relationship with the loving God now for the past seven years, and it looks very little like the old religious lives we led for nearly a decade before. Our choices are made in freedom, our daily lives influenced by the solid knowledge that God loves us, and there’s nothing we can do to make Him un-love us. But even so, I am, in my very human heart of hearts, still wanting to try harder and do more. And God shows His love has no bounds, no constraints, no end, when he brings into my life the mother of three little boys with autism and she looks me square in the eye and declares, “The cross took care of that.”

That’s what it looks like to live in the freedom of the gospel. It eternally redeems the worldly and it beckons and restores the religious, freeing both from sin and sure death. The gospel seeps into the dark corners of autism and uncertainty of every pedigree, and it declares, with a resounding boom, “The cross took care of that!”

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A Tribute to the Good Men in My Life

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A Tribute to the Good Men in My Life, or Why I’ve Had a Hard Time Coming to Grips With Sexual Abuse in the Church

Oh, what a time we're living in.

I suppose that statement has rung true since the beginning of time, but I know you know what I'm talking about. The men: They're falling like dominoes. The women: We're not taking it any more.

So let me back up a bit in my own story.

Born to really great people (not perfect, but not swindlers, cheats, and liars), I was raised in the American evangelical church. That makes many of you cringe, I realize, but please generously recognize that for many of us kids growing up in that environment, life was pretty cheery. 

Hypocrisy, you say? Well, of course. Hypocrisy abounds, friends, and the church doesn't own the corner on that market. But I recently heard someone wax poetic about how Hollywood had it coming because of the smut they espouse, and I thought, "Yeah, well, at least they aren't hypocrites." You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Anyway, I had the unbelievable good fortune (which I like to call Providence), to be raised by a man who was not one of them. He never (and I mean, never) made lewd comments about women. He never (and I mean, never) cheated on my mom. He doesn't have a porn problem, doesn't think sexist jokes are funny, and he taught my brothers to honor every female they came in contact with. When he sent me off to college to study a subject that is not anywhere in the realm of his own gifts and interests, he supported me with gusto. He's one of the good guys.

But what about those evangelical churches I grew up in? Well, at church number one, the larger-than-life narcissistic head pastor had an "inappropriate relationship" with a woman and the congregation rolled over. Except my parents. When I was in the 3rd grade, we were out of there.

I spent most of my formative years then at a Presbyterian church with a humble, kind, theologically balanced pastor, but when I was in college, a woman came forward to expose the affair they had been having. And then another. Good god.

It should have wrecked my faith.

Except, right about the time all of this was coming to light and the man I thought that pastor was wasn't the man I thought he was, I met my husband Fletch. He was one of the good guys. Like my dad, he never (and I mean, never) made lewd comments about women. He never (and I mean, never) has cheated on me - 28 years and counting. He doesn't have a porn problem, doesn't think sexist jokes are funny, and he teaches our sons to honor every female they come in contact with.

This has been my intimate, personal view of men. From father to husband to brothers to uncles, I have been surrounded by good men. And not just a few.

And so when my sisters in Christ began to open up about the abuse the've suffered at the hands of many a puny man, my little white bread world began to shake off of its evangelical foundation. I realized sometime during college that only one other friend and I were the only women I knew personally who had not been molested, raped, fondled, stalked, or coerced. And it made me sick. Look, I know that writers can tend to over-state, but this is no exaggeration, and if you don't believe me, you haven't been paying attention.

Let me get to my point.

It's time for the church to come to grips with sexual abuse. It's time for Christian churches and universities to call out the sick and the sinful within their ranks and remember that this is why the gospel is so penetratingly powerful. It exists for porn addicts and philanderers and sick, sick, men like you. And me. You aren't Jesus. You are why He came here. In the meantime, step down. Get out. A ministry platform isn't where you should be if abusing women doesn't shock you.

It's also time to recognize, in the midst of the profligate, abhorrent abuse of women in our culture, that there are good men. We need to applaud them for their choice to swim against the tide of lewd and inappropriate and nasty locker room banter and for keeping their hands to themselves. And this is what we teach the future men we are raising: protect, defend, uphold, and honor.

And if you can't keep it in your pants, go take care of it in the bathroom. Seriously. But in the meantime, at the very least, recognize what Jesus recognized: That women have inherent value, purpose, worth, and significance because they are created in the image of God. So do you. So. Do. You. You can be one of the good men, but it will take the Savior to make it so.