Family Squeeze (4 page)

If you are the parent of a teenager, here is something you need to tell yourself each and every day. Apart from selling mittens to South Africans, parenting teenagers is the world’s toughest job, so go easy on yourself. Do not compare yourself with other parents who sit in church looking happy and well organized. Chances are they are heavily medicated and may be hours from being institutionalized.

Someone mailed me a plaque recently. It says:

TEENAGERS! Tired of being harassed by your parents?
Act now. Move out. Get a job and pay your own
bills while you still know everything.

I hung it up in my study.

It went missing the very next day.

Teenagers want to be in charge. I say we let them…just not quite yet. First, we let the air out of their tires and put sugar cubes in their gas tanks. Wait—I guess that would be
our
gas tanks. Scratch that idea.

It’s time to be honest. Contrary to everything I’ve just written, the strangest thing happened when our children turned into adolescents: I discovered that—stay with me here—I absolutely
loved
the teenage years. You may think I’m crazy (and you may have a point), but I will not apologize for a second.

Yes, these almost-adults are moody, sometimes obnoxious, and relationally challenged. Yes, they listen to music that sounds like someone is throwing lawn darts through a jet engine. True, the teenage years are like a game of golf: terrible and fabulous and heartbreaking and wonderful, all in the space of a few hours. But I wouldn’t trade these days for anything, not even a peaceful night’s sleep.

When our children were young, I squeezed them into a grocery cart and pushed them around supermarkets seeing if I could find products that would line up with the coupons I’d clipped. Sometimes I’d try to swap my cart with other people, but they never accepted my offer.

Older folks would trundle over to us wearing foreboding frowns. Squinty-eyed, they would peer over their bifocals and offer advice that went something like this: “You think things are bad
now
. You just wait.
Soon they’re gonna wanna date and drive your car.” Then they’d shuffle off to the Prune/Bran Flake aisle.

Well, I’d like to tell you that they were wrong. Contrary to the fears and paranoia programmed into us by television and the squinty-eyed prophets of doom, my favorite parenting years so far have been the teenage years. Lest you think I am delusional right now, allow me first to agree with you.

Yes, teenagers are crazy.

I remember a particularly wild-eyed and frantic woman who said to me, “My teenagers remind me why certain animals eat their young.” In Old Testament times they used to stone the odd teenager, which helped keep the others alert and home by 10 p.m. I wonder sometimes if the parents weren’t the ones down front with the biggest rocks.

When our children were small we begged them to finish their broccoli. “Come on,” we’d cajole, “just one more bite.
Puh-leeze?”

Now that they are teens, they finish their plate. They finish our plate. They clean out the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry (but not the dishwasher). Then they look at the dog dish and think,
Hey how bad can that be?

When our children were small, we used to send them off on their bikes, praying they wouldn’t hit a tree. We’re still praying, because now they’re driving our cars.

My daughter loves to drive. She jangles the keys in front of me like a hypnotist. “Come on, Dad, you are feeling generous. And there are stores open somewhere.” If she loves anything more than driving, it’s shopping. In fact, Rachael loves shopping so much that she signed up for shop class last year. I kid you not. And when she arrived, she discovered she was the only girl there, surrounded by teenage boys. Not a single one of the boys minded. Nor did she.

When our children were small, we used to pray, “Lord, please help them sleep through the night.” Now that they’re teenagers, we can’t get them to wake up. They are in their prime sleeping years. Jeff recently returned from a week at Bible camp, and he slept a full twenty-three hours in a row, weary from memorizing Scripture. “That’s not sleeping,” I told Ramona. “That’s a coma.”

Girls began e-mailing. I told him to give out his new e-mail address: [email protected].

The other day he came through the door and said, “Dad, I’m thinking of getting an earring. Maybe some tattoos.”

“That’s quite a coincidence,” I said, slowly hiking the cuffs of my pants. “I was thinking of having all my pants hemmed just below the knees. And getting a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m Jeff Callaway’s dad.’“

He laughed so hard he forgot about the earring.

Somewhere within this illustration lies the key to retaining your sanity during the Middle Ages. Five keys, actually. But before we get to them, let me explain that I suffer from ADD and have always written short chapters. So feel free to set the book down and put on a pot of coffee before you turn the page.

Or you may want to find a teenager to read the list at the beginning of this chapter aloud to you. Just remember to take your heart medication first.

If you want to recapture your youth,
just cut off his allowance
.

A
L
B
ERNSTEIN

P
eople ask if I really have ADD, and I say, “Sorry, could you repeat that? I got distracted.” The truth is, I’ve always had trouble paying attention. Except when our children’s friends come over. I pay very close attention when they take to looting and pillaging our pantry like locusts. “Hey!” I ask, “What do you think this is? A buffet?”

They smile and laugh and help themselves to more cereal.

That’s the trouble with making a living as a funny guy. They think I’m kidding.

I smelled something out of the ordinary one night about 11:30 p.m., slipped on my housecoat, and found a neighbor boy in our kitchen frying up a steak I had paid good money for. My son had fallen asleep on the sofa. I asked the neighbor boy if he wanted my wallet, seeing as we were out of potatoes and he might need some. He said, “Sure.” Expecting a teenager to limit himself to six meals a day is as naive as listening for something original in an echo.

But all in all, it’s not so bad. The squinty-eyed prophets in the grocery store programmed me to believe that the worst is yet to come. That amid the rebellion and horror of the teen years, I will lose my sense of humor, my dignity, my wallet, and my hair. They were wrong about the first two. Oh sure, we’ve had our moments of fear and uncertainty. We’ve shed some tears, bought some Tylenol, and lost some sleep.

But five keys keep us thriving in a period of life when so many are just surviving. I’ll lay them out over the next two chapters, using the acronym TEENS to tell you what they are.

Everyday life can be deadly serious for a teenager. Take, for instance, the following scenario:

Monday
. A gorgeous girl named Madison winks at you, and your heart goes
ka-blam!
She says she is thinking of marriage, but you may not be ready for such a commitment. Not before Saturday.

Tuesday
You realize that Madison was really winking at your best friend, and you want to plunge off a cliff in despair.

Wednesday
You score a touchdown in front of a thousand screaming peers! Madison is there! Too bad you were running the wrong way!

Thursday
. You start talking to Olivia—the girl who was standing behind Madison when she winked at your best friend—and after a deep conversation that lasts six or seven minutes, things appear to be getting serious. So serious she wants you as a friend on Facebook, and you decide to buy a ring on eBay.

Friday
. Your mother tells you that Olivia is your first cousin, and your best friend asks you to be his best man when he marries Madison tomorrow. Your only consolation is that he agrees to buy the ring you purchased on eBay.

The American novelist Jessamyn West once wrote, “At fourteen you don’t need sickness or death for tragedy.” She was right. It’s surprising that teens pay good money to ride roller coasters; they’re already on one. They can move from elation to depression in the space of about four seconds. Each zit is leprosy. Each magazine cover mocks them with what they’ll never be. When Rachael was sixteen and had no boyfriend, Valentine’s Day was like tin foil on a filling. “It should be renamed SAD—Singles’ Awareness Day,” she joked.

To complicate things, teenagers wonder whose rules to respect, whose lifestyle to adopt, and who on earth kidnapped their body and began performing experiments on it.

How I thank God for the stability of the home where I grew up, a home where laughter was never far away. I know of few assets more valuable in unpredictable and difficult times than a tantalizing haven where contagious laughter is present. Wholesome laughter is a testimony to our children that everything’s gonna be okay, that God is big enough to see us through the next exam, the next relational hiccup, the next bout with acne.

Last summer my wife and I were standing on a beach far from home when someone interrupted our conversation. “Phil? It’s Gerry. How you doing?” Though we had grown up a few blocks apart, I hadn’t seen Gerry in years. (Note: If you think that’s his real name, I have Enron stocks I’d love to sell you.)

Immediately Gerry launched into memories of his hometown, memories you wouldn’t want in your scrapbook. He told us how his father had crushed his spirit and his tape collection, verbally stiff-arming his son in almost every conversation while quoting Scripture
to defend his actions. His was formula parenting, with control being point number one. Sadly, Gerry hadn’t been home in years.

Chuck Swindoll wrote, “When it comes to rearing teenagers, rigidity is lethal. Parents who refuse to flex, who insist on everything remaining exactly as it was in earlier years, can expect their kids to rebel.”
⁷
Wise words, those.

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m learning that good parents change and adapt and listen more than they lecture. That suppertime and bedtime can be more significant in a child’s upbringing than school and sports—or even church.

My wife is a morning person. Our teenagers don’t want to go to bed until morning. Thankfully, Ramona has the foresight to know that a sturdy cup of tea will keep her awake long enough to watch them eat us out of house and home.

Flexibility is gold when it comes to investing in teens. Last month our younger son turned our basement into a teenage hangout, complete with a 680-volt drum set, three electric guitar amplifiers with volume controls so small no one can find them, a sofa that was at its best before the 1970s, and a stereo system with surround sound and things called “woofers” and “tweeters.” But we’re okay. We figure if our kids are gonna party, we’d like it to happen about twenty feet away. The music may be annoying, but we’re getting to the age where we can’t hear it anyway.

The old believe everything; the middle aged suspect everything;
the young know everything.

O
SCAR
W
ILDE

I
f life were fair, we’d be born at about ninety-three and slowly grow toward our teenage years, where we would have enough money to really enjoy our good health. But life isn’t fair, and the teenage years move fast—unless you’re parenting your way through them. I told someone recently that I think Sundays are a particularly difficult day for raising teenagers. Also, Monday morning through Saturday night.

But when hasn’t this thing called parenting been difficult? When have you heard the mother of two toddlers say, “You know, we have such peace and harmony now. The house is so clean, and I’m feeling overly rested”?

We’ve covered the T and the first E. Let’s look at the last three keys:

We taught our children, from the time they were small, with question marks. We challenged them when they spouted cliches. We asked questions they would be asked in the big bad world, and we did it in a way that was fun and challenging. To this day, their friends will sit in our living room a few feet from a dormant television and discuss everything from politics to alcohol to evolution. I believe there is no safer place to think through
difficult issues than under the guidance of godly parents who love Gods Word and think teenagers are the coolest things since Brylcreem.

Never in history has a generation had more bad choices so close by. As parents, we’d find it easier to run than to reason. It would be easier to unplug than teach understanding. But model discernment we must, unless we want them to float through life with the crowd that’s heading toward the waterfall.

Teenagers have their baloney detectors set on high. They can smell a fake from clear across the church. They don’t expect us to be cool—to know who Tom Cruise’s latest wife is, for example. But they do need us to be real. To say we’re sorry. To be vulnerable.

When a friend of mine discovered that his son had left curious
footprints on the Internet, he was devastated but not surprised. “I knew enough about my own wicked heart,” he told me. “So I sat down with him and talked of the difficulty I’ve had making the right choices, but how, with God’s help, I’ve taken steps to make them—steps that have likely saved my marriage.”

Our teens need to know that we were teenagers once, even if it was back before the invention of electricity.

Teenagers aren’t too old to hear how wonderful they are or how much they are loved. There are enough voices out there telling them they aren’t
cool enough, thin enough, tall enough, or rich enough. So affirm them every chance you get.

My teenagers have doubted my sanity at times, but never my love for them. They know there is no hour of the day or night during which they are forbidden to flop on my bed and tell me their problems. I may keep right on sleeping, but at least they can talk. Sure, there are times I’d rather lecture than listen. I’d rather watch
The Amazing Race
than take them out for a greasy basket of fries. But in this kick-you-while-you’re-down world, our teens are starving for a pat on the back, a listening ear, and to hear those three magic words: “Hey, waytago! Youdabest!”

I once asked Bill Hybels, teaching pastor of the fifteen-thousand-member Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago, what he would like his children to say about him when he’s gone. He replied, “That I was their biggest cheerleader.”

When I leave on a trip without my kids, I sometimes leave them notes pasted to their mirrors or placed atop their pillows. I always sign them with,
Your Biggest Fan—Dad
. They do not greet me at the airport with a hug and a kiss anymore, but I have yet to hear a complaint about one of those notes. In fact, I often find them propped up beside their beds.

Sprinkled throughout the diaries of atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair were these words: “Please, somebody, somewhere, love me.”
⁸
We are never too old to be told how much we are loved.

Do whatever it takes to keep the lines of communication open. We Callaways are not an extravagant bunch, but through the years we’ve invested in season passes at the golf course and dropped almost everything at the possibility of a family vacation. After our family returned
from traveling across an ocean (thanks to Ol’ Uncle Air Miles), someone squinted oddly at me and asked, “You took your kids?” You bet we did. I have yet to meet someone in a nursing home who ever regretted such an investment. Besides, our children talk often of continuing this tradition after they have families of their own. They’re in…if I pay.

Those who are wise enough to allow their teens room to breathe, who listen more than lecture, and who remain calm when screaming seems like the better option will find that the teenage years are invigorating, adventuresome, and even—particularly when you least expect it—rewarding.

And for those who are afraid of seeing the teenage years come to an end, don’t worry. There isn’t a teenager I know who hasn’t gone out into the brave new world without eventually returning home starved. And carrying a bundle of dirty laundry.