The cartoon above made me laugh in rueful memory. I can remember when our three daughters were teenagers. I can remember the almost inevitable fights that we had back then. They became teenagers in a foreign country and we had hoped that this would mean that they would not be as rebellious as if they had grown up in the United States of America. But, it was not to be so. In fact, between being missionary kids and culture shock, they developed rebelliousness in some “interestingly” multicultural ways. Some days we swore that they had picked up a little of the most rebellious of each culture. From the American roll of the eyes to the Latin American desire to overthrow the existing government, they seemed to have a chunk of it in their reaction to us.
Then, they would go to help out a fellow missionary. They would go visit some Latino adults. They would have an overnighter with fellow missionary kids. And, we would get this feedback about what sweet, obedient, and helpful children they were. We would look at each other and wonder whether they were talking about the same children that lived in our house. We almost felt like the parents above wondering if they had actually spent time with a doppelganger. Who were our children, really?
Yes, we now realize some of what was happening. They were developing their self-identity as over against us. At least, that is the way psychologists phrase it. To this day, I do not think that the explanation is that simple. I suspect that I will not know the full explanation until the Lord comes. But, it is true that they did not have reason to have conflict with other adults. And, in their behavior toward other adults, we saw some of what we had tried to impart to them. It gave us hope that our children would grow up to be sound adults.
And, so they did. Today we have multiple grandchildren and three grown daughters who are everything that we had hoped they would be. We are proud of them and happy with them. But, oh, how we never ever want to repeat those teenage years! I suspect that my mother would say the same about me. GRIN.
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