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I Understood My 12-Year-Old Daughters. Lord Help Me.
A close friend of mine has frequent close encounters with Satan: She has a 12-year-old daughter. I have three little girls, who are now 20, 22, and 23. So I remember. I understand. Sort of. But not really, because I was protected from the worst of it. My friend shares custody with her ex-husband. Which makes her situation much more complex than mine. I’m married to the mother of my children. Which sounds like no big deal. But it’s a big deal.
When one of my daughters was 12 years old, she would develop an interest in acne creams and bra shopping. But she would not develop an interest in directly challenging my sainted wife, who would stomp her into oblivion if she much as looked at her the wrong way. I don’t remember being a boy, but my wife is still a girl. Which means she is still capable of the same level of viciousness and savagery as, heavens forfend, a 12-year-old girl. She can hold her own. Actually, more than that.
My friend has custody every other weekend, and more on holidays and summers. But my wife and I were full-time parents. When one of our angelic daughters hit the horrifyingly horrible hormone stage, it would rage unabated until my angelic (but not stupid) daughter reached the inevitable conclusion: “I’m going home with this lady.” They could be horrible, up to a point, but it was best not to cross that line: “My mother loves me. Unconditionally. Well, up to a point. But after that point, my life will be hell. My limitless hatred for the world around me cannot match what my mother can produce if she’s in a bad mood. So I should not encourage her to be in a bad mood. I’ll just roll my eyes at my Dad. Much safer.” Which is why Christians behave differently than Democrats.
Because Christians are sort of angelic, pretty much, most of the time, but we worship a vengeful God. Democrats are not angelic either, but they worship Santa Claus. So their boundaries are less clear.
Mothers are loving. Up to a point.
My daughters know that their Daddy loves them unconditionally, because he doesn’t understand them. But they also know that their Mommy loves them, pretty much unconditionally, pretty much, even though she does understand them. My God.
Just that thought would give even the unopposed viciousness of a 12-year-old girl pause.
Unless she thinks she can get away with it. Unless she is going back to her ‘other house’ in six hours. Unless her parents split up, giving her the leverage to express her true feelings of hate and destruction. She can always appeal to the good intentions of her ‘other parents’. I mean, she’s a 12-year-old girl, for heaven’s sake. She will avoid reality where she can. She’s young and hormonal. She’s not stupid.
None of us like reality. We avoid it when we can. We behave accordingly only when we must. And if we see a way out, we will of course explore that option. Until we realize that our Mother has already thought of that. And then we put on appearances of compliance until we find another phony option to explore. Until our Mother stomps on that, too. Because she loves us as much as she can, while still understanding us.
The only excuse for atheism that ever made any sense to me was exactly this: “If there really is an all-knowing, benevolent, loving God, how on earth could he love me? With all my defects and sin? How could he love me?“
A very reasonable question.
But a better question is this: Ok, so God loves me. Ok, let’s just take that as a given. For the sake of argument.
But why would I return his love, when I could instead simply choose to do whatever I want? I’m just exploring my options, right? I mean, up to the point until there are no other options. Right? I mean, I’m just growing into my newfound sense of adulthood, right? I mean, I should explore my limitations, right? Right?
Well, you wouldn’t, of course. Not if you understood. You would only acknowledge the reality of God if you recognized that there was no other choice. That you could avoid reality up to a certain point, but after that point your life would become a living hell. The kid who is going to her “other home” in six hours might make different decisions than a kid whose mother puts her to bed every single night of her life.
Just like 12-year-old girls, we all seek our boundaries. And just like 12-year-old girls, even if those boundaries are made painfully clear to us, we tend to wander over them (sometimes pole-vault over them) from time to time. Until our Mother (or, Lord help us, our Father) stomps us into oblivion.
I was pained by my friend’s agonizing description of her troubles with Satan her 12-year-old daughter today. I wasn’t sure what to say. Her daughter is going back to her Dad’s house. She really doesn’t have to listen to her Mother if she doesn’t want to.
All she can do is sit back and wait for her daughter to hit rock bottom, and then come running back to her, seeking forgiveness and assistance. Which her mother, will, of course, offer her. Of course.
Just like we all do, with God. I suspect that he gets pretty sick of this. But for some reason, he continues to put up with it. When we hit rock bottom, it’s our first time. It’s not HIS first time. Rock bottom is a familiar place to Him. Even if it seems new and exciting to us.
Because he still loves unconditionally. Even though he’s seen this before. Even though he understands us. My God.
Love is hard to understand. I certainly don’t understand that level of love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
That whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
I certainly don’t understand that level of love. I try. But I don’t understand. Neither do you, I suspect.
I love my daughters. It was a little rough, for a while. But I knew they’d come back. At least, I hoped that they would.
And since my sainted wife would allow them to wander only so far, they didn’t have quite so far to come back.
My friend can’t control how far her daughter wanders, since she lacks control, after her divorce. Her daughter can wander farther now, back to her “other home”. Which means she will have farther to come back. Presuming that she eventually decides to do so.
I can’t imagine how frustrated my friend must be. Or how frustrated my God must be.
I try to wander only so far. But gosh, it’s hard.
I mean well. I really do. But some urges are difficult to resist, sometimes.
Sometimes, my wife didn’t seem to understand our 12-year-old daughters. I suspect that she did. But sometimes, she didn’t seem to understand them. Or rather, she didn’t appear to try to understand them.
I did.
Which wasn’t always helpful. But I’m not God. And I’m not a Mother.
We do the best we can.
We seek our boundaries.
But we do the best we can. Pretty much. Most of the time. Overall.
My God loves me.
Why, I don’t know. I really don’t.
But my God loves me.
Dr. Bastiat with his Mom in 1969.
I miss my Mom.
Glory be to God.
Published in General
Okay. Then please accept my sincere apologies for misreading the copy. :-) I did not get it. Now I do. :-)
And please accept my apologies for not making my point more clear.
Why should we believe that? Any evidence you could give for it would just be an expression of flesh and DNA. My fingernails aren’t a good argument, so neither would your evidence be a good argument.
Great read Doc.
Solid theology doesn’t require all those fancy, multisyllabic words: “Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” ~Mark Twain~
“Don’t use a fifty-cent word when a five-dollar word will do.” – William F. Buckley
(Note – If WFB didn’t say this, he should have…)
The ‘everything is genetic’ position comes across as a copout…quite nihilistic. Why bother since it won’t make any difference anyway.
Of course, corrupted religion can do the same. Say, like turning a Calvinistic viewpoint into nihilistic predestination. It’s all planned out anyway so what good can I do? It leads me to consider nihilism as a product of escapism.
Whether I accept any evidence for Calvinism would seem to be, on Calvinism, a predetermined fact, but at least on the Calvinist position G-d’s mercy restores us to right reason, able to know facts and think straight.
It does seem humans will believe what advances their ideology rather than what the evidence advances.
Disclaimer: I hope it was clear my goal in the previous illustration wasn’t to disparage Calvinism.
Generally, yes, they do.
And you weren’t wrong, whatever the goal.
But you can disparage Calvinism as far as I’m concerned. Not a problem for me. I just want to be fair to it while we’re beating it up.
Thus my point about genetics. In my view, even well-educated people never change their mind when prevented with evidence. They are genetically inclined towards a belief and that’s it. I think the social science seems to confirm this pretty well.
You ignore a tremendous amount of history with this statement. And the follow-up
is, at best, intellectually lazy and conveniently skirts the entire nature vs. nurture discussion. Genetics and its relationship to consciousness and permanent human behavior is tenuous, at best.
Honestly, I’m floored that so many ’empirical’ atheists/agnostics seem to trivialize the impact on human flourishing that Judeo-Christian values have had. Especially compared to potential replacement ideologies.
In light of ‘reluctant converts’ across the millennium, and the positive impact such an ideological change makes in both individuals and on society as a whole, even from the most cynical point-of-view why not give it a whirl? G-d will equip the called, not necessarily call the equipped.
Refusing to accept evidence is different than denying the evidence exists. It’s a great place to start:
“IF Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? If the answer is ‘no’ then it isn’t a matter of the mind; it’s a matter of the heart.” ~Frank Turek, Crossexaminded.org
In those days 50 cents was a lot of money.
Plus some researchers explain that many things affect our DNA, every moment of every day.
Schizophrenia could well be such an affliction.
One PBS broadcast on the nature of this ailment showed work by scientists who dissected the brains of schizophrenics who had died. The brain slices indicated, to them at least, that schizophrenia was the result of a brain inflammation.
I really never heard much about this theory after that. But some time later, I was a care giver for an adult schizophrenic. She was a bright bubbly person at times and she was also obsessed with being a water colorist. Much of her work along those lines was spectacular.
One day a woman came to see her. She was stunningly beautiful.
I was amazed to find out she was my client’s identical twin.
The ravages of schizophrenia had caused my client to look a good 10 to 15 years older than the sister. She was a plain homely woman.
The difference between the twins was astonishing. If I had not been told they were identical twins, I would have not ever guessed it.
But, according to your theory, the social science doesn’t overcome my genetics, or add anything to yours.
That is such a good pic of my Aunt…that far away look. Just beautiful. She took her motherhood very seriously.
No it isn’t. Genetics determines 50-60 percent of every trait.
Now I admit that I previously used exaggeration to make a point. Perhaps it was not wise of me because I made it too easy to interpret my exaggerations as plain statements of opinion. For this I apologize. But I find the evidence compelling that we are heavily nudged into our beliefs, even our religious beliefs, by our genetics.
I hope this clarification will make our dialogue more fruitful Hoowitts.
Well. No objections there!
Good by me :-)
My goal wasn’t to discount the effect of genetics and I would generally agree with the 50%-ish claim…which leans towards a solid mix of nature and nurture in our behavior. Where that mix ends up shaking out is very individualized
I don’t think God would make people such that one thing would determine everything about us. And in his infinite wisdom, he keeps the knowledge of our true heart and mind to himself.
This is why I prefer Lucifer. He gives knowledge to humanity rather than condemning to a life of pleasant ignorance. But tastes differ; what can you do?
Um…looking for a sarcasm tag, Henry.
I’m certain I’ll regret this…ignoring the advice: Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.
No sarcasm. In addition to being pro-Lucifer. I endorse: sex robots, genetic engineering, I.Q. tests, ending ‘one man one vote’, bigamy for Doctor Bastiat and Russian literature. Much like Ben Franklin, I march to the beat of my own drum.
I didn’t know Russian literature was even interested in bigamy.
Support the Oxford comma, everyone.
Death to the APA. Long live Turabian.
Amen to that.
Ah geez…can’t agree on this point SA.
Shoes, yes:
But the dangling comma…not a fan.
But proper comma usage has quite an impact:
The Enunciation Apocalypse