Who Is This Boy??

Parenting is a weird thing. Some days you just have no clue where it all went wrong. Yesterday was one of those days.

Having a teen in the house means that we have to adjust to him NOT being in the house. He is very social. He has a job. We are uncool to be around. I GET these things. I remember being the exact same way at seventeen. Yesterday's drama unfolded in the form of what should have been a very easy conversation. He and his girlfriend have broken up. They started with a break but then decided to just break up. Okay. This is not a huge thing, teen couples break up all of the time. Well, the problem that we - the parents - have, is that the boy is still hanging out with the girl all the time. "We're best friends!", he tells us, and while that is ... well, that's weird! Plain and simple it's weird.

I think it's nice that they parted as friends. There was no drama, no one cheated, no one is angry, it seems that they just sort of outgrew one another. Okay, so then WHY be together all the time? Which is what we were asking him when he freaked out and basically told us to mind our own business because this was HIS life!

???

Um, excuse me...remember us, the people who GAVE you life? The people who put a roof over your head? Food on the table? Clothes on your back? Have taken COUNTLESS rides to the freakin DMV with you? Son, it is NOT your life yet. This started what turned in to a three-hour mini-series event. There was screaming, yelling, crying...you name it, we had it in spades. Somehow, though, the parents concerns got lost and suddenly we were no longer talking about the relationship with the ex-girlfriend but about how we, being scary people, have not allowed him to be his TRUE self.

Yes, you read that right. His TRUE self.

He is a man of God. He is a follower of Jesus Christ. He is a Godly man and he could not EXPRESS that because of US. For those of you who don't know me, let me introduce myself, "Hi, I'm Stace, and I became a believer in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior on February 4th, 1996." On top of that, we've gone to church for the last 14 years. The boy has been in church, Sunday school, youth groups and bible studies for 14 years. He tells us that we would have MOCKED him if he acted as his "true" self! Now, I will admit that Frank and I have some issues with some Christians who cannot talk about ANYTHING BUT the bible. I think being a Christian is great, but if you cannot talk about anything else, then I, personally have a problem. So we asked him "Can you talk about anything else but the bible as this Godly man?" and he's like "Yes" so where do we have a problem? Where do the scary, mocking parents come in?

Seriously, one a.m. is so NOT the time to be throwing this kind of discussion at me! I felt angered beyond belief at him for many, many reasons and not one of them involved him being a man of God. My main anger was that, once again, he took and issue that we had with him and turned it around to put the blame elsewhere. Secondly, I do not like people who then use the bible or their relationship with God to hide behind. And thirdly, I do not take kindly to liars. How is he a liar? Well, by his behavior and his actions. We have no idea who this child is because he never tells the truth. We think that it is great that he has a relationship with God, but you'd never know it by his actions in the home! He is nasty to his brother, he is disrespectful to us as his parents and honestly, you never get a straight answer out of him on anything! He wants us to accept him as he is (this newly formed Man of God) with no questions, no comments and just praise the heck out of him, but he is unwilling to accept US or anyone for that matter as they are! I have a HUGE issue with that one.

On and on and on it went. I'm still confused. After much talk I just laid it out for him - Okay, if this is what you are proclaiming then you better be prepared to be called on it when you are not doing it. Don't hold it over our head about how Godly and spriritual you are and then behave like a brat when you don't get your way. And you know what? I know that we all fall short. I get that, seriously. But as a Chistian, I know that I do things that I should not. I'm sure God would love it if I stopped cursing like a sailor when I'm angry. I'm sure that He'd also like it if I stopped getting angry! But I do not stand up and PROFESS my perfection. If you're going to profess it and want to shove it down everyone's throat, then be prepared to live it 24/7.

I'm still not happy with all of it but in the end I think we made headway on the original topic of not being a hanger-on with the ex. Pick your battles and baby steps seems to be the theme of the day.