Act Your Age

When my kids were young, I was surprised to hear myself voicing fatherly clichés I thought I would never use: "Go ask your mother" (a cop-out when I didn't know what else to say). "When I was your age . . ." (a lesson in ancient history). "Lie down for your nap" (because I was tired!). "Eat your vegetables or you won't get any dessert" (while I pushed the brussels sprouts around my plate and schemed to enjoy a bowl of ice cream after the kids went to bed).

One cliché that has stood the test of time is the stern admonition, "Act your age." My parents used that one on me now and then. If my friends and I misbehaved in church, Dad would catch my eye across the rows of pews with a look that said, "Act your age, or you're going to be in big trouble when we get home!"

But what does it mean to act your age when you're 12? As I recall, I burst onto the adolescent scene with a flurry of gangly arms and legs, and shoe sizes that changed almost as swiftly as my changing moods. Socially awkward, spiritually searching, emotionally unpredictable—that's what I was like at 12. "Act my age"? I think I did!

Parents need to encourage their children to grow toward maturity at every step of development. On the one hand, sometimes our culture pressures children to grow up faster than they should. Five years ago, Pati Souder wrote in The Lookout, "Young children are forced to learn about drugs, alcohol, sex, AIDS . . . and 'Stranger Danger.' Adult worries and responsibilities are coming earlier to many children in big cities and rural areas alike" (August 6, 1995). "Ironically," she continued, "those trying hard to be good parents sometimes rob their children of their childhood by overloading them with sophisticated toys and endless activities . . . leading to stress and burnout, even for the young." This trend has not abated during the last five years.

On the other hand, sometimes parents prevent their sons and daughters from growing up fast enough. How? By paying for everything instead of insisting that they learn to work and manage money. By siding with the kids whenever they get into trouble at school so they don't have to take responsibility for their own actions. By neglecting to talk with them about their faith. By modeling self-indulgence instead of service.

The apostle Paul observed, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me." Those words appear in the "love chapter" of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13 (v. 11). "These three remain," Paul wrote: "faith, hope, and love." If you are struggling to stay afloat as a parent, these three can help: Faith—trust God to be with you even during your family's turbulent times. Hope—don't give up, even when parenthood pushes your patience to the limit. Love—even when your sons or daughters act anything but lovable, keep loving them anyway (and tell them so).

"The greatest of these" is still love (1 Corinthians 13:13)—and sometimes the people who need love most are the ones with gangly arms and legs.