No one who reads my blog with any regularity can come away with the impression that I know it all. I'm actually somewhat fond of denying that. I hold what I believe firmly, but one of the firm beliefs I hold is that I don't know everything and I could be wrong in some things. So here's a request for help. What to do, what to do?
Let me lay out a scenario. You're a parent of an adult son. You love your son dearly. No questions about that. Your motivation in this scenario is love. Okay, so your son tells you one day that he's planning to do something foolish. I'm not talking about stupid. Stupid is unintelligent and, in the case of this scenario, generally a matter of preference. You know -- he has the ability to be a good doctor but chooses to drop out of school and become a singer ... something like that. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about foolishness -- the biblical kind. It's the kind that is a violation of biblical instructions, a violation of wisdom, a choice that will not likely, but will certainly end up badly. I don't know ... pick something. Your son tells you that he has figured out how to solve his financial crisis. He has joined up with a couple of guys and they are going to rob a couple of banks. Don't worry ... it will be fine, and all his money problems will be behind him. You won't have to be concerned about him again. Good news, right? Well, of course it isn't.
Now, don't get hung up on the bank robbery thing. I'm simply talking about a son or daughter who has decided to take a course of action that you know is a violation of Scripture, a sure sin, and, worse, certain pain and trouble and conflict and injury -- spiritually and more. So ... what do you do? This isn't an at-home offspring. This is an out-of-the-house kid on their own. What do you do?
I see very few possibilities. Let's see what I can come up with. You could say, "I love my child unconditionally and he is an adult, so I'm going to do nothing. If I try to say or do anything it will just result in conflict. Best to be silent and avoid a fight which will probably produce nothing positive and be there to help pick up the pieces when it's over." I have a hard time reconciling "I love my child" with "do nothing", but that's one possible approach. You could choose the other extreme and decide direct intervention. Do whatever is in your power to actually prevent the choice from being made. Call the police or intervene in the relationship or whatever action it takes to stop it. "I love my child and he is going to hurt himself, so I will prevent it. He will surely not understand and likely hate me for the rest of his life, but that's not nearly as bad as just letting him go. I may even go to jail for what I'd do, but it would be better than him getting hurt." I can see the possibilities here, but I'm not sure he would learn to avoid the problem. He'd likely simply learn to avoid you. There is the obvious middle of the road here as well. Speak up. Say something. But surely you can see that this is problematic as well. Tell him your concerns and he will likely see you as someone who doesn't understand, who is only speaking out of personal bias rather then reality or genuine concern, that you're narrow-minded and don't know what you're talking about. He'll likely resent you for saying anything and could very easily ignore anything you might say as an intrusion. Now, if what you're saying is out of genuine love, you'll have to come up with a way to get that across first, foremost, and last. But "I love you so much that I have to say ..." usually won't cut it. You need more than that in situations like this. So ... what?
Those are the only basic options I can see. To be honest, none of them are encouraging. But I have to keep in mind that the motivation is love and the result isn't mine to begin with, so it's not all bad. Still, I'm hoping for better ideas. What do you do? What do you say? How do you approach this? What do you recommend? Any decent parent loves his or her children for life. Love demands involvement, concern, the hope for their best. With the premise of love, what would you recommend a parent do faced with the situation of an adult child about to (or having already) put himself or herself in serious jeopardy? There are a lot of wise people out there. I'd appreciate your input here.
19 comments:
I would first ask their permission to give them advice. Then I would most likely give that advice mostly in the form of questions... "if you do this and this happens, then what?"
or, "If you follow this thing through and think it out completely, what conclusion do you draw?"... That sort of thing. But yes, in the end, the result is theirs. And if they know the Lord, He will make all things work together for their good... eventually.
Wow, so he's going to rob a bank, eh?
A lot here depends on what your Biblical understanding of your relationship to your 'adult' son is. As I believe that you still have all of the authority (and responsibility) given to you as father under Eph 6, I would tend toward the 'max' response... in fact a little more 'max' than you list in your choices.
Mike,
Ask permission to give advice. I don't know. Who wants to hear it when they know what's coming? I can pretty much assume at the start the answer is "No!" and then I'm back at option 1: Do nothing. But trying to get them to think things through themselves -- that's what I try to do. Usually not very effective, but we don't do what's right because it's effective or not, right?
Von,
If one of my adult sons decided to rob a bank, they certainly would not tell me because they know I'd have the police there to meet them before they get started. :)
I'm interested in what you mean by "a little more 'max' than you list". How much more? What more?
I would physically stop them as well. We own several weapons in our house :)
And, in response to Mike I would say that 'advise' is inappropriate, and a violation of your jurisdiction. Even if we were merely talking about a brother (let alone a son) the words should be 'command' or 'rebuke'; and definitely no 'permission' should be asked.
17Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him.
... and that is just for a neighbor. A son is under the father's jurisdiction, and his actions are part of your household.
Someone told me once, that when he was about to leave his father's home, heading in some wrong directions, that his father stood at the door and said "I see you in a row boat heading towards a waterfall over a steep cliff, and of course I'm going to try to stop you, because I love you".
That person turned out okay...I think! ;-)
Yeah, starflyer, I have recalled that very story when thinking this over. Of course, (to both starflyer and von), what exactly I could actually do to physically prevent the situation I have in mind (you know, without going to jail and nullifying any attempt at preventing anything ever) is beyond me. If the offspring in question is in the house, that's one thing. If they're not even geographically close, that's another.
I have trouble controlling my 14-year-old daughter so I don't think I'd be much help, but, since you ask, I'll suggest two responses to two different scenarios.
If the action considered flirts with fraud or the law in some way he is dragging you into it as you share the last name and father-son relationship. He would be hurting you privately and publicly.
If it's something personally selfish like divorce then there's 1 Corinthians 7 with some good advice on marriage and divorce. I would react more strongly if there are children involved.
Children are tough. You teach them right and yet they often choose wrong. Jeremiah might have been thinking of his own kids when he wrote that famous 17:9 verse. Perhaps showing them the consequences of these bad choices are the only thing that will change their ways short of divine intervention. Good luck and God bless.
Jim Jordan: "I would react more strongly if there are children involved."
What adult offspring (after all, aren't all adults also offspring?) do to their children can be quite stunning, either via divorce or the like or lifestyle examples they play out. So ... you would react more strongly if there are children involved. How?
(By the way, Jim, the email link on your blog doesn't seem to get me an email address for you that works.)
Stan, this "option" for that scenario may seem too much like you are not actively DOING anything to stop him, but... what about praying? What about prayer?
Did you mention that somewhere and I missed it? Is it much, much too simplistic in this case? Or am I to assume that it goes without saying and that of course you have been and will be praying? But what good is praying if we don't trust that it has the power to actually DO something?
How about bringing this before the Lord, then TRUSTING HIM to actually have heard you and for Him to maybe bring someone else besides yourself into the picture to confront your son? God could do that.
I'm a parent of adult children, too. I would find it VERY difficult not to do or say something if I saw one of my kids going off in the wrong direction. Very hard! I'm not sure I could just "bite my tongue" and say nothing. I'm not sure I could even follow my own advice here and only pray. But... this MAY be your only viable option.
If I found myself in the same position, it might be my only viable option, too. And we'd then have to TRUST that God could do HIS THING in our children's lives, apart from any confrontation from us, any interaction with them on our end.
I suppose, whether I tried to talk to my adult child or not, I'd be praying hard that God confound those plans of his, that roadblocks be put in his path every step of the way, hindering his progress, and that He send/bring someone into my child's life to speak to him.... someone, anyone who my child might actually be open to listening to and even heeding.
You know, call down the powers of Heaven? Dispatch some angels to the scenes of wherever your son is at that time? We have access to such power.
Only God knows what He has up His gigantic sleeves for our kids' lives. Maybe He has some hard lessons for them to learn and they will have to walk through Hell on Earth in order to learn them. (Unfortunately, because we love them we then we have to go with them on this journey, to some extent.) Making foolish decisions would surely be more apt to put them on that path. Even knowing this might be the case, I'd still be praying! I'd still be talking to God about this situation. I'd be praying for my child's safety, that his life be preserved, or that, if it is not, his soul. If I didn't see that his plans were being thwarted, I'd be praying for his eventual (hopefully speedy) return to the right path, God's way.
I think one of THE hardest things for most us to have to do sometimes is sit still and "just" pray, when we want to be doing more. And maybe God WILL open up a way for you to do more. He frequently uses you to speak to others in concise and loving ways.
Forgive me, please, if anything I just said might have been offensive. I just wanted to mention this option.
Oh, yeah, well I figured prayer was a given because, well, it's what I do all the time for my kids. But it really is a good idea to mention it outright in case other readers don't think about that.
My "problem" with prayer is not that I have no confidence that God will do something, but that I have no confidence in my own ability to discern what's best for my kids. As an example, when I was young, I strayed ... badly. My parents prayed and all, but I really went awry for awhile. It was bad. But it was good. God made me into something different at the end. Almost as if He knew what He was doing.
I've heard people urge us to "pray a hedge around" people as in the case of Hosea who sought to hedge his harlot wife. That's okay. That's fine. But my naive desire that my beloved children would never suffer and never go astray is naive ... like I just said. So when is it best and when is it not?
As for adult children, I can't think in terms of saying nothing. I mean, if I have a brother or sister in Christ and I care about that person, isn't it my duty of love to rebuke, exhort, encourage, and so on? Shouldn't I do the same for my kids? I know I hope to have people who care enough about me to do that for me.
...Do you have something to say to me...?
That's so funny, David. My wife and my son who is present here were also trying to figure out to whom I was referring. "So," my son said, "it's not him and I guess it's not me because you said it was someone not in your home. Who could it be??!!" Of course, the wife figured it out ... and it's not you. (And I'm being vague with terms like "my wife" and "my son who is present" because I don't guess that the Internet World needs to know their names, does it?)
This is kind of a tough thing not knowing the specifics. I think as you already are concerned with God's Will, I would assume that's more important to you than anything on earth. So, what next? It seems to me the next step is deciding how important is the relationship between you and the person in question. If it ranks higher than your relationship with God, you obviously must tread lightly. But if God ranks, then you must steel yourself for the possibility that the person will reject you for at least some period of time, not wanting to be in your presence and frankly, being pissed at you. It's really not a question of whether or not you can bear this, because you obviously love the person or you wouldn't be laboring over the options.
I recently had an issue with a niece of mine who lives in another state. She had dropped the F-bomb on Facebook and as we are "friended", these comments appeared on my FB page. I added my own comment about how I didn't find it very classy. I did a post on my blog regarding the ensuing crap I took from her and her friends (they're freshmen in high school---among the most knowledgable people known to mankind). It was amazing how many thought I was a fool to risk my relationship over profanity. I couldn't believe that anyone would risk the soul of their loved ones just for the sake of avoiding a conflict.
Speak your mind and let the chips fall where they may. If the person is not aware of your love by now, there's little you can do to avoid hard feelings. It'll be tough enough if he IS aware, but they are likely choosing their path out of emotion rather than cool-headed thought. Emotion lowers intelligence and your outside POV is required, even if not welcomed.
So toss down a few shots and let 'er rip---in a loving manner.
Marshall Art: "If it ranks higher than your relationship with God, you obviously must tread lightly."
Throwing out that possibility -- no relationship I have ranks higher than my relationship with God -- it seems as if you're saying, "You have a choice: Choose to be nice and get along with them and choose to be harsh and not." Are those the only possibilities?
I chose the middle road, that is to do your best to reason with him and warn him of the consequences.
I know this is difficult, gut wrenching, heart breaking, and all the rest; such is life in this sin stained world, but remember that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed. As parent, I'm sure that this provides little solace, especially if this foolishness gives insight into eternal realities. But we must remember that there is always hope as long as he draws breath, and it is in this hope that, perhaps, we learn the meaning of fervent prayer. And in the end, if that hope is not in vain, the suffering soaked fervent prayer will have culminated in tear soaked joy.
I got a good response from my father. I'll post it tomorrow.
Regarding harshness, the old saying "the truth hurts" is relevant here. We know the truth can be painful and we don't want to cause pain. But just as a shot with a hypodermic needle hurts, the pain of the illness or injury is worse. But to tell the truth as you see it will be harsh even with the best choice of words. It's the truth that hurts, not so much the words you use to relate it. I say this assuming you'd take pains to lay out your position with tact and love. But even so, the hurt must be assumed and forgotten in favor of getting the message across. I'm also assuming that the stakes are somewhat high.
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