Newspaper Page Text
December 3,1981
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Parents And
BY DOLORES LECKEY
Our oldest child has graduated from
college. That was a peaceful enough rite of
passage, in contrast to what we felt at the time
of her graduation from high school. ^
I expected her high school commencement
weekend to be one of steady celebration.
Instead it was filled with tension. The whole
weekend was tearful, sporadically.
Then came the baccalaureate service. A
Baptist minister, the father of one graduate,
spoke. He described the emotional climate in
his home, and, I thought: He could have been
looking in our windows.
Then the minister began to sift through
what was happening.
He said our sons and daughters were
experiencing their high school graduation as
an important adult threshold. They were
scared, he added.
We parents were also worried, wondering if
the children could survive without our close
supervision.
And, he indicated, other personal concerns
might surface at this time too.
Some time later, through the work of Dr.
Robert Hughes, I began to understand that
the minister was pointing to what Hughes
would call “the anniversary crisis.”
Hughes is a husband, a father, an Episcopal
priest and a seminary professor. His
many-faceted life feeds his theological
research which is centered on parenthood.
Simply stated. Hughes has explored how
being a mother or a father can lead to a truer
knowledge of God.
What he calls the anniversary crisis usually
occurs when a child reaches a point in life that
was especially difficult years ago for one or
both parents. At such times, parents often
unconsciously project their own fears onto
the child.
When parents see what really is going on,
not only will the child prosper, but the
parents will be helped to work through their
old, unresolved trauma and be stronger for it.
Clearly, tension recurred for my husband
and me each time one of our children
graduated. It was not until last year that my
husband recalled that his high school
graduation had been in jeopardy because he
had failed his final exam in Greek. He did pass
the makeup test and went on to college and
graduate school. Greek was forgotten - or so
he thought.
Obviously, however, the feelings of
uncertainty associated with his near failure
remained. When he read about the anniversary
crisis, he realized that these feelings regularly
surfaced when one of the children reached the
point of graduation.
This was a liberating realization for my
husband. When our youngest child recently
made the passage from high school to college,
he heard for the first time his father’s story.
What does all this say about parenthood
and God?
First, I think it says that most of us come
to parenthood still working through the stages
of our own maturity. As a friend says, “Few
children get grown-ups for parents.” On the
contrary, children help their parents grow.
I think rearing children can serve as a
crucial factor in helping adults become firm,
fair, loving bearers of authority and tradition.
This happens because the children given into
our care need us to be so.
Children act as mirrors for us in many
ways. We come to know our strengths and
weaknesses, and many of the hidden
dimensions of our own personalities, through
our children.
Sometimes what is seen in those mirrors is
not pleasant. Sometimes it hurts.
Hughes calls this undistorted
self-recognition a form of the spiritual dark
night, one through which all parents must
pass. He urges parents to see their children and
all the natural problems that occur in family
life as signals, accompanied by grace, that
challenge us to new levels of conversion.
Christian parents can help each other to
have faith during these dark nights, just as the
Baptist minister helped me to see what was
happening, long ago, during my daughter’s
graduation.
The help parents give each other, however,
will not come from comparing one family to
another, or through searching for the correct
family model. It will come when we share our
stories truthfully and humbly.
We parents can help each other to make
peace with our own parenthood, with all its
joys and sorrows. We can help each other to
see that our children are God’s gifts to assist us
in that arduous but rewarding task of
“growing up in Christ.”
Discussion Points And Questions
1. If you are a parent, think about this question: Is there a time that
stands out in your memory when the very demands of being a parent
caused you to become a better parent?
2. Why do you think Dolores Leckey says children act as mirrors for
parents?
3. Why did Mrs. Leckey find* Dr.' Robert Hughes helpful in
understanding her role as a paren t? ,
4. In Katharine Bird’s article, what are two ways suggested by Mary
Kenny for helping children through early adolescence?
5. How can parents find support during a difficult stage of parenthood,
according to Ms. Bird?
6. Can you think of a time when you wished you had more
opportunities to explore the role of a parent with other parents? Why did
you feel that way?
7. In Father John Castelot’s article, what is the significance of the
calling of Levi the tax collector?
8. What, according to Father Castelot, was Mark trying to tell his early
Christian community by writing about the calling of Levi?
The Kind
Of Company Jesus Kept
BY FATHER JOHN J. CASTELOT
Jesus took an interest in outcasts and
sinners. They ate together. This was a matter
of capital importance.
With that in mind, look at Chapter 2 of
Mark’s Gospel. Specifically, let’s look into the
second of the five stories about conflict found
in this section of the Gospel.
Once again, two stories that once were
probably independent seem to have been
combined: the call of Levi and a banquet
which provoked the indignation of some
Pharisees. Both stories illustrate the same
point.
Mark’s account of the call of Levi recalls
the call of the first four disciples. Jesus,
walking by the lake, bids Levi to follow him.
Immediately, Levi leaves his profession and
becomes a disciple.
This is so telescoped a narrative, it
probably does not take everything into
account. *
Levi, raking in money hand over fist, looks
up and all of a sudden sees a complete stranger
who asks that he follow him. Without
hesitation, Levi drops everything and follows
Jesus.
Now, the Gospels are not biographies. Just
as in the call of the disciples, Mark wants to
make a point. He wants to illustrate the
promptness and unselfishness with which
Christians should answer the call to
discipleship.
Further, Mark considers it important that
Levi is a tax collector.
That fact ties the story of Levi’s call with
the other story here - about a banquet at
which Jesus consorts with sinners. Especially
for the Pharisees, tax collectors were
considered sinners on more than one count.
Tax collectors were agents of a pagan
foreign power, Rome. They collected taxes
from their own people to finance that power.
Moreover, having bid and paid for the job, tax
collectors had to recoup their investment by
extorting money above the legal tax rate.
Many, in short, were crooks. Then, because
their business kept them in frequent contact
with gentiles, who cared nothing about ritual
purity, tax collectors were often considered
unclean.
Levi also was probably in the employ of
the Jewish King Herod Antipas. That did little
to change his image in the popular eye.
The banquet story once may have involved
a meal in Jesus’ own house - according to a
Greek text of the Gospel which reads, “While
he was reclining to eat in his house.” But now,
joined to the call of Levi, the story tells of a
banquet in Levi’s house.
At any rate, the guests included a crowd of
the same stamp as Levi: “tax collectors and
those known as sinners.” Sinners, especially
to many Pharisees, were those who did not
carefully keep the prescriptions of their
traditions.
Pharisees have often gotten a bad press.
But it should be remembered that, in the
main, the Pharisees were very sincere and
religious people. They were a group that
carefully kept themselves separated (the
word, “pharisee,” means separated) from
anything or anyone that might cause them to
contract legal uncleanliness.
Because Pharisees interpreted Jewish law
in this fashion, they understandably were
sometimes scandalized by Jesus’ conduct.
Eating with people like Levi was especially
repulsive to them. Sharing a meal was a sign of
unity and the chance of eating unclean food
from unpurified dishes was more than good.
But Jesus’ answer was:
“People who are healthy do not need a
doctor; sick people do.”
The point was not well taken, however,
and the fact that Jesus consistently put
himself above the laws infuriated Pharisees.
For Mark’s community, the all-embracing
table-fellowship of Jesus contained an
important lesson: The community was to
welcome all and sundry to the eucharistic
banquet.
THE REARING OF CHILDREN is probably the single
most important factor for helping adults become firm, fair,
loving bearers of authority and tradition. This happens
because the children given into our care need us to be so. (NC
Photo by Chris Sheridan)
The
Rites Of Passage
Stranger In
The House
BY KATHARINE BIRD
Marty came storming down the stairs, face
contorted, arms waving, “Mom,” he shouted,
“Janie’s been in my room again. Can’t I have
some privacy around this place?”
Out of the blue, the generally outgoing,
responsive 13-year-old had become moody
and withdrawn, spending long stretches of
time in his room and responding only in
monosyllables, if at all, to his parents and
siblings.
Mary Ann, however, was just the opposite.
Always a vocal child, at 14, she continually
pushed her parents to the brink of
exasperation by her constant criticisms and
complaints. Nothing satisfied her, from the
clothes she wore to the movies her parents
thought she should attend.
“Why can’t we drive a flashier car. Dad,
like the Allens do?” she asked time and again.
Or, dissatisfaction sounding clearly in her
voice, she would say, “Mom, why can’t this
family ever do anything really neat? Why
can’t we go skiing in Colorodo this year?”
Mary Kenny of Rensselaer, Ind., a
well-known writer on family questions, says
that such behavior is typical between the ages
of 12 and 15. Early adolescents often display
a “sudden and dramatic change” in attitudes
and behavior, she notes.
Naturally, the abrupt change comes as a
shock to parents. Mrs. Kenny, mother of 12
children, says: All of a sudden, parents find “a
stranger living in the house.” It hurts,
especially when early adolescents seem to
reject or question everything their parents
value.
She strongly advises parents to bear in
mind that time will help. The ages from 12 to
15 or 16 represent a “transition period,”
when children are taking the first steps to
“making sense of the world” for themselves,
Mrs. Kenny explains. Young adolescents, also
experiencing dramatic physical changes, are
“starting to form their own values and are
only beginners at making judgments.”
KNOW
YOUR
FAITH
(All Articles on This Page
Copyrighted 1981 By N.C. News Service)
V ✓
Mrs. Kenny thinks she has grown
enormously by helping children through the
challenging years of early adolescence.
At the same time, she admits it is hard to
keep a positive attitude and to see this age as a
time of growth for both parent and child.
With a younger child, it is simpler, she
observes. “It is easy to see the growth” when a
toddler starts to walk.
With adolescents, according to Mrs.
Kenny, parents should endeavor to maintain a
“delicate balance” between showing warm
interest, on the one hand, and not pushing
them to unreasonable lengths on the other.
Be quietly supportive, she advises. Young
teens are vitally concerned about their looks,
and often are overly critical of themselves.
Parents then can bolster their children by
making favorable comments such as, “How
well you socialize!” or “What a good race you
ran!”
Of course, parents have to set limits for
children - but they should set objective
bounds, such as curfews, Mrs. Kenny feels.
What if a 14-year-old protests vigorously
about spending the afternoon at
Grandmother’s? “Well, I’d probably let her
make the decision,” Mrs. Kenny says. But “I’d
take a dim view” if the same child wanted to
stay home from the family’s summer
vacation.
Teens of this age “take a friend
everywhere, she observes, and parents might
consider bringing a friend along to make
summer vacation happier for everyone
concerned.
How can parents bolster their own spirits
while their children are going through
adolescence?
“My husband and I have been helped by
other parents, most frequently at informal
meetings,” Mrs. Kenny remarks. Accordingly,
she recommends that parents “link up with
other parents,” especially those with slightly
older children. It is very helpful to see that
other parents have lived through the crises of
the early adolescent, she adds.
For by the upper grades in high school, in
Mrs. Kenny’s experience, most teens have
become surer of themselves and are easier to
live with.
A SOURCE OF ANXIETY for
parents comes from the feeling we will
lose with our children. We often are
fearful and anxious. This can be
creative and push us to greater efforts
or it can be destructive and
discouraging. (NC Photo by Mimi
Forsyth)