Scripture: Luke 2:41-52

Jodie Cadman is a New Zealand girl who came to live in Sydney. Jodie never forgot her mother’s words which she overheard when she was six. It was at the end of her first year at school. The day was hot. Jodie slipped inside for a cool drink of water.

She was at the fridge when she realised that her mother was talking to a neighbour in the next room. She heard her mother say: “I can’t bear to touch Jodie. I wish I’d never had a girl. She just revolts me, some­how.” Jodie could not move. In a few seconds, her whole world had changed.

She huddled, white-faced and shaking, against the wall, trying not to cry. She hardly heard anything else her mother was saying. There was something about a baby boy that was ‘stillborn’. She shakily tiptoed outside. She climbed the old tree and cried and cried until there were no more tears. Eventually it got dark and cool. Jodie went inside to tea. Nobody seemed to notice how quiet she was.

The hurt grew inside her and she began to hate both her parents. “How dare my mother not love me. She is my mother.” Jodie noticed more and more that Mum cuddled her brothers fondly. She craved the same affection and would run up to her mother, but she would be pushed away. When she was a young teenager she fled her country life for the bright lights of Sydney.

Some time ago, when she was a young Sydney street-kid, Jodie said: “I feel as if I am desperately searching for something and I don’t even know what I’m searching for. Maybe it’s happiness. Or love, I don’t know. Nothing satisfies me. I still feel hollow. Frighteningly hollow. There’s something missing. Something important. Perhaps if ever I found it, I’d know what life was all about and what the point was in it all.”

Christian street workers, Charles and Jill reached out to her and prayed for her. Charles said to her, “God wants you to forgive your mother, Jodie, for everything she did and everything she didn’t do.” Jodie’s fists were clenched with familiar anger.

“Why the hell should I? She doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. She couldn’t care whether I forgave her or not.” Then she reached a stage in her life where she wanted God to deal with her feeling of rejection. Charles explained a very important biblical principle: God cannot do much with us unless we release our revengeful grip on those who have hurt us. When Jodie released her hate toward her mother she said, “I felt an enormous weight lift off me. I felt strangely warm and peaceful inside like I’d never felt before.”

Over a period of time she met a number of Christians who knew that peace. It was not easy for Jodie to discover that peace, but recently she said, “I love being alive. It’s just so good being able to live peacefully with myself and with other people. I’m at peace with God. The anger’s gone out of me. I didn’t want to live, most of my life I was running away, searching. I’m glad to be alive now. I just want to thank Jesus for giving me life.”

For ten of the most important years of her life, Jodie Cadman had known anger, resentment, loneliness, then years of abuse and being used on the street. The likelihood of her recovery and restoration to society as a normal young woman was very remote.

Thank God that Christian people met her where she was, responded to her need and persisted with her until change and conversion through faith in Christ made the difference. Jodie left her home because she was unwanted, rejected and felt the pain anywhere else could not be as bad as the pain at home.

Over many years of running street contacts, homeless youth drop in centre and accommodation centres for the homeless youth in Sydney’s streets, I heard many people like Jodie.

Many other young people are restrained at home by strong, caring parents who refuse to let go. Others find the struggle to be independent, causes a rupture in the family life that ends up with them taking off to some flat or shared accommodation or some squalid squat or, as in Jodie’s case, to a life on the streets.

Many times in Sunday Nite Live church service in Wesley Theatre, I interviewed young street-kids about their fight for independence and their eventual flight to the streets.

It is one of the most delicate arts of parents and teenagers to work out when the young should leave. In the old days, it was simple: a person left home to be married. As the Bible said 3,500 years ago, (Gen 2:24) “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, (cleave unto her) and they will become one flesh.”

The leaving preceded the cleaving together. Far too often today, young people become sexually active with a partner or partners while they are still living at home. The average age of leaving home has risen dramatically, and so a young person who believes he is liberated is still at home where his parents expect that their standards and lifestyle will be observed.

The description of Jesus’ adolescent years is brief. The span from the time He confronted the elders in the temple at age 12 until He was baptised by John in the Jordan at age 30 is covered in these words: “When He was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while His parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking He was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for Him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for Him. After three days they found Him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers. When His parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” “Why were you searching for me?” He asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what He was saying to them. Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men.” (Luke 2:42-52).

Scripture is given for our instruction. Here the Scripture refers to the four major areas of living: the physical (stature), the mental (wisdom), and the social (in favour with mankind) and spiritual (favour with God).

We know that these areas are interrelated and that they must work together if we are to be whole persons. Most adolescents are confused about these major areas of life. Modern society adds to their confusion. This confusion comes to a height during adolescence when there is often a crisis over letting go.

1. THE CRISIS OF LETTING GO.

As children grow older, parents should begin loosening the screws – not tightening them. Parents naturally tend is to hold on tighter especially when newspapers carry surveys about the rate of teenage pregnancy, STDs, AIDS, alcohol, drugs, and teenage suicide. These statistics terrify parents.

Christian parents seem to be fearful about the temptations and problems their children face in today’s world. This, coupled with our desire for them to follow Christ and live by His principles, adds even more pressure. But these dangers should not force parents into tightening the controls just when they should be letting go.

If they are tightened then we create the kind of pressure that brings about explosions within the family. In a large church children the same age grow up together, spend time in each others’ homes or at church camps, experiencing being away from home without Mum and Dad but in safety.

It is now common for young people to be dependent until a later age due to longer education and a prolonging of starting work and marriage. This not true for everyone – gender, class and ethnicity make for major differences.

But the decisions to leave the parental home, to establish a meaningful relationship and to live as you please, can create a family crisis. Older children living at home are likely to be interdependent with parents. Yet a minority of young people have no parental support from quite an early age. The balance between parental responsibilities and the legitimate desire of young people for increased independence is not an easy one to strike. Many young people at present are being denied independence and opportunities. (“Family Matters” No. 38).

Whereas once adulthood came with leaving the parents’ home, marrying, having children, starting work and buying a home – all clear transitions which tended to occur simultaneously – these events are now widely spaced and may not occur at all.

In the Australian Family Institute’s “Becoming Adult” Study, young people were asked what being an adult meant. Their definitions focused more on psychological development than leaving home. Adulthood meant developing a sense of responsibility, independence in decisions relating to self, and psychological development involving growth, learning and consolidation of self.

But adulthood always has meant independence from parents. Changes in education and the labour market have meant that young people are financially dependent upon their parents for longer than was the case in the past. Yet these young people have been taught to be more self-reliant, to be better able to make decisions for them­selves and to be more aware of their rights.

The parents who have encouraged these changes are often unable to deal with the consequences. Hence the family tension. Young people seek to act independently and to make their own decisions while at the same time being frustrated by financial dependency upon parents.

Parents on the other hand may not be ready for the freedoms demanded by young people and may resent the continued drain upon family finances of having an adult child still at home. These tensions may be worse in stepfamilies where a stepfather may not like a young person who is a trouble to him and to his relationship with the young person’s mother, and a drain upon the household finances. These tensions are also heightened in ethnic families where the cultural freedom for Australian teenagers and young adults are not acceptable to the older generation of immigrants who have a more conservative understanding of youthful independence.

2. PARENTS MUST LEARN TO LET GO.

Many young people struggle turning the externally imposed standards of their parents into their own internal standards. We call it “drawing the line”. When children are small, we draw the line for them. We tell them what is right and wrong, and they obey or disobey. They observe if we also keep them and other parents have different values.

During adolescence, our children begin to draw this line for themselves. They experiment to find out what it’s like to go beyond the line we have drawn for them. They test our values against the values of others. Establishing the validity of parental patterns is part of growing up.

When children experiment, they are not necessarily rebelling against our values. Usually they are just trying to draw their line for themselves.

While adolescents are experimenting with their options, parents must give them some freedom in their personal search for values. Decisions made after this kind of personal testing are better than those beliefs impressed upon the young.

Parents who allow their children to discover will see less rebellion than parents who are always defensive and condemnatory, trying to force their children into a mould. There are four important lessons all parents must learn:

1. Parents must develop involvement with their children.

Moses commanded his people to be involved with their children if they were to develop as a nation and have a vital faith. (Deut 6:6-7) “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Moses wanted the parents and the children to understand by interacting together.

2. Parents must give warmth to their children.

God loved the man called Israel, whose name later came to mean the whole nation. God’s love for him was given as the pattern for parents to love their children. God said: (Hosea 11:1-4) “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realise it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.”

That was the pattern of paternal love that God showed to the parents of young Israel. Parents today must always give their children a sense of loving acceptance. That was what Jodie, at 6 years of age, felt she ought to have, but did not receive.

3. Parents must exercise strong discipline.

The Old Testament says (Prov 29:17 “Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.” Today, many parents do not know how to adequately discipline their children. The Bible also says (Prov 22:6) “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Until recently, most taught this verse to mean that parents are to make sure their young people are correctly trained in accord­ance with the will of God. That is good advice.

But Charles Swindoll and others have suggested that in the original Hebrew this passage is: “Train up a child according to his or her bent”. The root word has to do with the bend of the tree. For instance, a willow tree that leans out over a pond is bent in a certain way. If you try to force it to bend in another direction, you will break it.

Parents should raise their children as responsible and obedient, but according to their different temperaments and personality. Parents should not project their own dreams onto a child with dissimilar bents. (“Growing A Healthy Home” Ed. Mike Yorkey, Word Publishing, p 219f.)

4. Parents must launch their children into adulthood.

Psalms 127:4 “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.” This is the crux of the matter. Parental influence can linger too long. A mother who gives her son “smother love” both smothers him and is unfair to his future wife. The father who gushes “Daddy’s little girl” is preventing her growing up and is being unfair to her future husband.

We are not talking about an incestuous or emotionally abusive relationship (though too many women do suffer from sick treatment at the hands of males in their families). The problem created by this father is that the “I’ll-take-care-of-you-honey” spirit he implants in his daughter hangs on well after his little girl has become a woman.

Therefore, the daughter of this kind of father may not be prepared to seek a true marriage partner. She “needs” a man who will be a daddy to a little girl – a man who will listen to her, cuddle her, give to her, make her a queen the way Daddy always did. That’s a role no man her age can or should fill, so she’s headed for eventual disappointment.

Another kind of father produces a daughter who is frilly and feminine, where he plays the role of Rescuer. So instead of letting his little girl go, he keeps her dependent on him by making himself indispen­sable by undermining her attempts to make it on her own. This daughter can only survive if she has a man to care for her.

A father who can let go sends his daughter out into life in the care of God. And if she needs a “launching” out of the nest, he provides the nudge. He consciously works at helping her solve her own problems, drawing on people and support besides his. He prepares her for independence, then grants her freedom gladly when she’s ready. (“Dealing With The Dad Of Your Past” Maureen Rank. Bethany House Publishers). If children are like arrows in the hands of the warrior, then arrows are to be launched.

3. HOW TO GET YOUR PARENTS TO LET YOU GO?.

Wise parents want to launch their young people into the world. That is why they celebrate all the rites of passage such as birthdays, especially at 16, 18 and 21 years. But they do this at all stages of life: when the pre-schooler first attends crèche, or goes to kinder, or as a student first goes to secondary school, to university, a job, TAFE, brings home the first girl friend or boy friend. The parent is wisely preparing you for being launched as an adult. You can help.

1. ACT MATURELY NOW.

Your parents want to see you mature. Act so now.

2. DISCUSS THEIR FEARS.

Your parents love you. That is why they are hanging on. Discuss what they fear about your behaviour and reassure them.

3. SHOW YOU CAN BE TRUSTED IN LITTLE THINGS.

You cannot demand freedom, you earn it. Show you can be trusted in things like coming home when you say you will, spending only what’s agreed upon, cleaning up after you.

4. INFORM THEM OF YOUR PLANS AND KEEP DEAD LINES.

When young people change plans with no notice given to parents, or do not keep parents informed of where they are, what they are doing or whom they are with, tension rises. You can help shift responsibility for you from your parents to you by informing them of your plans and deadlines and so ease a source of tension.

Jodie Cadman knew anger, resentment and loneliness. But faith in Christ made the difference. Many young people are restrained at home by strong, caring parents who refuse to let go.

Others find the struggle to be independent causes a rupture in the family life. Your mature Christian commitment is the greatest reassurance parents can have as they face the task of letting go.

Reference: Jodie’s Story: The Life of Jodie Cadman, Jeanette Grant-Thomson 1991 ANZEA

Tuesday, 25th May, 2010, 9:46 am | Bible Studies, Family Life