But a lot of us don't. For many of us, the most fundamental relationships, those with our parents, are broken. And that's wrong. We can feel it in the very fibre of our being. A mom is supposed to love her kids. A dad is supposed to be there and protect them. And maybe your parents didn't.
I spoke at retreats that last two weekends, and one of the stories I tell is of learning how to forgive the dad who left me when I was two, to only have a very sporadic relationship with me afterwards. For most of my teenage years I was really bothered by this, but I'm not in the least anymore, because God has worked a real healing in me.
Some of that you could call forgiveness. In this recent post we got into a bit of a debate as to what forgiveness really is; can you have forgiveness if the other person hasn't repented? I think you can, but I think it depends on the definition, and so that's what I want to talk about here. And maybe a better word than forgiveness is "freedom". When we talk about forgiveness we get all caught up in what we're forgiving and in what spiritually that means, but freedom we tend to understand. Jesus came to set us free, and He wants us to live in freedom. So how do you find freedom if you're haunted by bad relationships?
After sharing at one of these retreats, a university-aged girl came up to me to talk about her dad. Her story was similar to mine, she said, and what she just wants, more than anything, is for her dad to acknowledge that he messed up and hurt her. Yet he never seems to do that. Instead, he's active in his church and preaches about how to be a good father (he has a second family now). And all the while he's never really reconciled with his daughter.
Can she find freedom?
I think she can, and I think it comes in this form: giving up your expectations that he will one day realize that he was a jerk. Giving up on the idea that one day he will actually apologize.
Should he apologize? Absolutely. But the fact is that most parents who messed up never see that they did, indeed, mess up. They've built this whole fantasy inside their heads about how they did the best they could, and everything that went wrong is someone else's fault. I have a friend who was abused by her mother, and her mother still won't admit it. It was always because someone else was cruel to her. And her kids never understood her.
People can be so cruel to their kids, and sometimes we feel like the hurt would be made better if they could just acknowledge that hurt. If they just saw it, it would be like they were validating us as people, and confirming that our feelings matter. Our view of the world is indeed correct; they did mess up, we were hurt, and we are not wrong for thinking so. It's validating our personhood.
Is it the right thing to do? Yep. Is it going to happen? Most likely not, short of a miracle of God. People have this whole self-preservation system that often prevents them from seeing their own guilt. We can justify anything. And it's quite likely they will continue to justify it, all the way to their graves.
So what do you do? I told this girl she had to let go of the dream that one day he would apologize. It's not a question of whether or not he should; the problem is that as long as that dream is alive, then whenever she sees him she hopes that today will be the day. Her stomach is in knots. She gets a headache. She wants it so badly. And when it doesn't happen she gets angry all over again, as though he has hurt her all over again.
If she were to let it go, though, and just realize that he is a very imperfect person, and that he was not the father he should have been and that he never will be, then she can renegotiate a new relationship with him. Maybe she can get to the point where, as an adult, they can enjoy the occasional dinner together, or talk on the phone sometimes, and that's as far as it goes. Her emotional energy won't be drained by these small encounters; they can just be part of her life, and that's fine.
That's where I'm at now in my relationship with my dad. I'm not mad. I'm not angry. And we chat occasionally, and that's fine. And I got to that place because I let go; I said, "God, I want you to be my Father, not him, because you are the only person who can ever love me perfectly." And I looked to God for my affirmation.
Some may call that forgiveness; I don't want to put a label on it because then we get into the whole debate about repentance and reconciliation. The point, to me, is that by freeing him from the expectation that he will one day apologize, I freed myself from all the tension around our relationship.
Does that mean we have a close relationship? Nope. For that to happen, he would have to acknowledge what he did, because real intimacy isn't possible if it's based on lies. But we can find a type of relating that works for us, even if it's not what it should be.
And I don't have stomach pains anymore. I don't cry anymore. I don't really care anymore. God has given me so much more today, and I don't need my dad. Occasionally I grieve for the little girl I was who deserved more, but not very often. I am the person I am today because of the things that happened to me, and I'm quite happy with who God has made me to be. So I just accept my dad as part of my story, and decide that God will be the one who will fill the holes that my father left.
It is hard to release people of expectations, but when you do that, you really free yourself. You realize that you will never get the emotional affirmation that you need from them, and so you turn to God instead. And then you end the tension that surrounds that relationship.
Have you ever experienced this? Or are you still trying to let go of expectations? Tell me about it!
When my children were first born, I did something radical. I didn't really decorate their room.
Part of it was a money issue; we had so little cash, and we were trying to save for a downpayment for a house. I thought putting our money into an apartment sized washing machine would be a far better use of our funds than buying cute little Noah's Ark wall hangings.
But part of it was also a conscious choice. I figured they were babies; what did it matter what their rooms looked like, as long as they had a comfortable place to sleep with an interesting mobile above the crib to look at? So we bought a sturdy crib, a practical change table, and a rocking chair where I could feed them. Everything else was kind of boring. In fact, until my oldest was four we actually stored our Christmas decorations in their room, in a pile in the corner.
Here's the clincher: I knew that throughout the day, they would be spending most of their time in the family room, not in their bedrooms. They would need to be where I was; so why put all kinds of money and time into a room that they really only used for sleeping? I wanted to keep the living room in our small house as fun for them as possible, so I often sacrificed some of the comfort in their bedrooms--where they rarely were--for the family space we all shared.
I think modern parents pay far too much attention to children's rooms. We want to create a fairytale for them, but honestly, how important is that? I have seen 3-year-olds with televisions in their rooms. I have seen six-year-olds with video games and computers in their rooms. And it's a big mistake.
When children hit the teenage years, they will need some privacy. Giving them a nice, bright, comfortable room where they can do homework, read, and practice an instrument or something is good.
When they're 8, they don't need that. What they do need is an incentive to be with the family. We spend far too much time in North America cocooning in our own individual places than we do hanging out, all together, in common space.
I respect the urge to try to create a comfortable home for your child; I really do. It is admirable to want to provide for your child and to nurture your child.
What I don't agree with, though, is how our society comes to define "providing for" and "nurturing". We think that this means that our kids should have access to all the latest gear. Really, I think nurturing our children means giving kids access to each other and to us. They need family far more than they need a television.
What happens when kids have a television in their bedroom? They sleep less. They gain weight. They score lower on reading and math tests. And perhaps most importantly, they're more likely to start smoking and get involved in other delinquent activities, even controlling for all other factors.
While the health and educational factors are important, it's that last one I want to talk about. When kids have televisions and computers in their room, they are more likely to make lifestyle and moral choices that you would not approve of. Why would you want your kids doing that?
And the reason they do that is because their lives have now become more and more separate from you. Kids with TVs in their rooms live in their rooms, not in the kitchen or the family room, where they can hang out with you. And perhaps just as importantly, they tend to live solitary lives, not lives with their siblings. If you've ever wondered why our kids squabble so much, perhaps it's because they aren't forced to play together or cure boredom together. Instead, they just retreat to their rooms to be entertained on their own.
I really can't think of anything much more destructive in a family than encouraging your child to coccoon, all without you. Kids need input from us. They need conversation. They need meal times. They need to have fun! But we're letting them grow up by themselves, in their wonderfully decorated room with every little gadget. It's wrong.
This year my family started enforcing family games night. We've had it theoretically for years, but somehow other things often intruded: meetings or dinner engagements or kids' activities. Not so now. It's every Tuesday night. I've stopped accepting speaking engagements on Tuesdays (except this one, because I'm away for a whole week! But my family is playing without me!). The kids don't work or get together with friends on that night. And that night we have a great dinner, and then pull out the board games and laugh and laugh altogether.
Let's provide for our kids. Let's give them a great living environment. But that environment should not be in their own rooms, where they're encouraged to spend time far away from the rest of the family. It should be altogether.
I find that my girls need to talk about the stuff of life, but that conversation usually only comes after we've been together for a while. They need to be comfortable opening up. After we've been goofing around or chatting or cooking together for a little bit, suddenly out will come this torrent of feelings about friends, or youth group, or their futures, or whatever. But it only comes after that initial bonding time.
If your lives consist mostly of gathering the children for the practical functions of life, like putting food on their plates or collecting homework or ascertaining everybody's schedules, and then you separate during your leisure times, I doubt that kind of opening up will happen. If your children hang out in their own rooms, rather than in the family room with siblings, I doubt great friendships will develop.
So here's an idea: think about how you want your kids to turn out. What values do you want them to have? How do you want them to act? Now, does your physical home reflect those values, or are you undermining them? If your kids coccoon, you're undermining them. And maybe it's time for a readjustment.
What do you think? Does your family have a central place where you hang out? Where is it?
I'm trying to write a column on the disappearance of childhood, and I'm not getting very far. It was all started a couple of months ago during the Democratic debates when the candidates were asked what they thought about teaching about homosexual couples to grade 2 children. They all agreed this was a great idea.
And I thought, why in the world would you introduce sexuality--any kind of sexuality--to 7-year-olds? Is that even decent?
So the idea has been percolating for a bit, and then I saw Miley Cyrus' stunt on the weekend posing naked in Vanity Fair. Give me a break. It's like childhood has vanished.
Neil Postman wrote a book on this very topic in 1982, although back then he didn't foresee the sexualization of children to the extent that has now occurred. But his basic premise is that childhood is a new phenomenon that we're now losing. In the Middle Ages, there really was no difference between childhood and adulthood. By 7 a child was basically an adult, doing all the same chores, understanding the same jokes. They all slept in the same bed, so there were no adult secrets.
With books came the need for kids to be able to read to enter an adult land, so it took longer. And increased wealth meant that children were separated from the private space of the adult. So the basic difference between children and adults was a knowledge one. Adults knew things that kids didn't.
Those were great days, weren't they? They're not here anymore. With television, kids have an eye into the adult world that means secrets disappear. And so children are now miniature adults once again, without the maturity.
So what can we do about it? Here's what Postman wrote back in 1982, and I think it's still great advice:
But, as with all resistance, there is a price to pay. Specifically, resistance entails conceiving of parenting as an act of rebellion against American culture. For example, for parents merely to remain married is itself an act of disobedience and an insult to the spirit of a throwaway culture in which continuity has little value. It is also at least ninety percent un-American to remain in close proximity to one's extended family so that the children can experience, daily, the meaning of kinship and the value of deference and responsibility to elders. Similarly, to insist that one's children learn discipline of delayed gratification, or modesty in their sexuality, or self-restraint in manners, language, and style is to place oneself in opposition to almost every social trend. Even further, to ensure that one's children work hard at becoming literate is extraordinarily time-consuming and even expensive. But most rebellious of all is the attempt to control the media's access to one's children. There are, in fact, two ways to do this . The first is to limit the amount of exposure children have to media. The second is to monitor carefully what they have exposure to, and provide them with a continuously running critique of the themes and values of the media's content. Both are very difficult to do and require a level of attention that most parents are not prepared to give to child-rearing.
Nonetheless, there are parents who are committed to doing all of these things, who are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are in effect defying the directives of their culture. Such parents are not only helping their children to have a childhood but are, at the a same time, creating a sort of intellectual elite. Certainly in the short run the children who grow up in such homes will, as adults, be much favored by business , the professions, and the media themselves. What can we say of the long run? Only this: Those parents who resist the spirit of the age will contribute to what might be called the Monastery Effect, for they will help to keep alive a humane tradition. It is not conceivable that our culture will forget that it needs children. But it is halfway toward forgetting that children need childhood. Those who insist on remembering shall perform a noble service."
I'm ready to perform that noble service. My kids don't watch television. We keep them sheltered but not naive. We want them to be kids. And ironically, they're often more mature than their counterparts who are saturated in the media culture. It's a good warning for our day.
About Me: I'm a Christian author of a bunch of books, and a frequent speaker to women's groups and marriage conferences. Best of all, I love homeschooling my daughters, Rebecca and Katie. And I love to knit. Preferably simultaneously.
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