I’ve been reading a book on parenting called Parenting Teens with Love and Logic. Actually, I’m pretty much finished with it now. It’s quite good. It’s really a guide to help parents understand how they can gradually put more and more responsibility for a teen’s behavior onto that teen. It’s a delicate balance and more difficult to achieve than you might think. It is difficult to love someone and yet allow them to accept painful consequences for bad decisions. This is difficult to even think about. But it’s been on my mind lately as I’ve had some conversations with LightGirl about issues like drinking and sex outside of marriage. These are issues that I have choices to make as I talk to her about them. I can make rules and forbid her from doing them. Of course, drinking alcohol is also illegal until she is a certain age. The problem is that when I make those rules, I put both of us in a really bad place. I put her in a place where she feels as though she must test the water and the boundaries I have set. I put myself in a place where I must eternally police those boundaries and that water. It’s bad for both of us. And it does nothing to nurture or grow our relationship.

In the last day or so, John Smulo posted about a recent Resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention concerning the use of alcohol by their members. I got to thinking about the resolution in light of the book I’ve just read on parenting. There are many styles of parenting. And there are many styles of living in community together. And there are many styles of relating to God. But somehow I think these are all intertwined with one another. I am coming to believe that the way we parent and look to parents is a reflection of how we interact with God and how we look to God.

For me, I believe that whether or not one drinks alcohol is a matter of personal preference. The consequences will be born by that person. God is going to love me no matter what, but it’s going to be painful for him to watch me go through that hangover. In the same way, if LightGirl chooses to drink when it’s not in her best interests, it’s going to make me very sad. It will be painful for me to watch her bear whatever the consequences are of that choice, but I will still love her. I’m going to give her lots of information, tools, and support to make good decisions. But they are ultimately her decisions … because it is ultimately her life, not mine. But she and I are in loving community with one another. We talk, we wrestle with these decisions. She knows I love her and have her best interests at heart and she has mine.

So, I wonder sometimes, about institutions and entities who feel that more rules will help these sorts of issues. I’ve come to believe that rules are put in place when community is lacking. Rules must be established when people feel they can no longer speak to one another face to face. Regulations and resolutions must be passed because it is no longer individuals who count but standards which must be upheld. Where there are laws, there does not need to be community, there only needs to be a police force … and life becomes more and more stark.