Parenting Teen Boys, Or How a Mom Can Actually Have a Relationship With Her Son, Part 2

New to this series? Start with post one.

In my first post on parenting teen boys, I mentioned that just before a boy turns the corner into his teen years, he can tend to be disinterested in most pursuits, scatterbrained, lacking any practical goals, and generally lazy. My answer to the question of what to do about a boy in this lackadaisical stage is actually the first of three main points I'll hit in this series:

1. Let Him Backslide

Shocking? Perhaps. But stick with me, because this is going somewhere positive.

I know that encouraging a kid (or, at the very least, allowing a kid) to backslide sounds contrary to everything we responsible parents believe in, but I’ve learned to hone in on the most important things. For us, as home educators, the most important things looked a little like this:

The Most Important Things

Yes, son, you need to continue doing your math because we’ve got to stay on top of that during the high school years. Yes, you need to keep writing and reading and paying attention when I teach you about the Huns or he rise of Nationalism or the fall of the Roman Empire. Yes, you might look back and wonder what the heck all of that algebra was for, but you will be a better thinker and processor and guy for all that struggle. And yes, we want you involved in some sort of faith community. 

But the things that weren’t imperative or core subjects, for the sake of relationships, I am willing to let go.

Hair styles? Not important enough to make an issue out of. Shoe choices? Nope. Sleeping until 11? Not if the required responsibilities are met. You can keep odd hours as long as you respect the rest of the family, but they don't have to be 9-5 around here. 

A messy bedroom, some time on the computer, eating weird/unhealthy/vegetarian/gluten-filled/whatever just isn't important enough to me to jeopardize a relationship with my son. Even energy drinks, which in my opinion, are up there with arsenic. Yep. Even those. And, dare I say it? Even if you stop reading your Bible on your own time. I'm just not going to legislate your relationship with God, because that rather misses the whole point of you growing in your faith, doesn't it? 

What Are the Most Important Things?

And so the question becomes: What are the hills you are willing to die on? What is of tantamount importance in your home? What is a life-changing, life-altering, earth-shattering precept upon which you will stand and require your son to stand in these early teen years?

For us, the guideline is that if it isn't illegal or unbiblical, it's allowable. That should give you a wide berth.

We Majored on the Most Important Things, and Then Something Happened

Then something happened: Around the age of 15, our oldest son discovered a love for filmmaking. He began by making short movies at home, studied filmmaking with his dad and online, and worked on his bachelor's degree in fits and starts. 

He found his passion, and it drove his choices. Incidentally, guess how he makes his living as a 24-year-old? Yep. Filmmaking.

Around the age of 16, our second son discovered that he was extremely motivated by a lifeguarding job. He worked summers at that community pool and by the time he left for college, he was managing the pool and making good money. He is a hard worker, married, and making solid life choices.

What about our third son? The son who told me to back off the goals since he was "only 14 and didn't have to think about that yet"? When he was 16 he transferred to a high school that was just starting a basketball program, and because it was brand new, he got on the team as a junior. Basketball became the surprise sport that motivated the rest of his high school career. He's a self-proclaimed non-academic who has been promoted at his salaried job with full benefits, in a setting he loves in a city a state away from us. He's forged a life there and tells us he's exactly where God wants him to be. 

What more could we ask for?

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Parenting Teen Boys, Part 3

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

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.

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

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More in this series:

Parenting Teen Boys Part 2

Parenting Teen Boys Part 3

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Read More on Parenting

A Tribute to the Good Men in My Life

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. 

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