Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Launching Young Adults

Hahaha!  Gotcha!

If there was a "successfully launching well-rounded adults from your home" continuum ranging from "novice" to "expert", I'd be the one at the starting line waving a rattle and blowing spit bubbles.  

I freely admit to being new at this, but what I have been surprised by is the unsolicited horde of experts who have suddenly come out of the woodwork to openly tell me I am doing it wrong.

If I had a nickel for the number of raised eyebrows, pursed lips and cynical comments we have received from people who learn that our girls have not immediately flown the coop upon reaching the ripe old age of 18, I'd have almost enough to buy one college textbook;)

"You know, you're going to have to let them go sometime."

"Eventually they're going to have to learn to stand on their own two feet."

"You can't shelter them forever."  (Patronizing verbal head-pat.)

First of all, I don't lay claim to knowing the one and only absolutely foolproof method of raising children to adulthood and ensuring that they never make stupid decisions.  (Actually, I'm pretty sure there isn't one, seeing as how all children are humans, and all humans make at least a few regrettable decisions during the course of a lifetime.)

As for why our girls are still living at home, at this time both of our adult daughters are engaged in meaningful, productive activities both outside and within our home.  They work hard and contribute to our household and their community.  They have active social lives, but also seem to enjoy being with their parents and their siblings, and we certainly enjoy being with them.  

For these and other reasons, we have felt very comfortable in saying they are welcome to live here until God calls them elsewhere.  What I wasn't prepared for was the number of people who have openly intimated that we are doing it wrong.

I'm sure we are.  We have done certain things wrong at every state of parenting and there's no reason to think anything has changed, but neither are we just flying by the seat of our pants without any sort of plan or rationale for this phase of life.

We are trying to nurture our young adults by following the example of others we know who have raised fine, godly children, and for now, this is what it looks like. 

I freely admit that I am at the grammar stage of learning to launch young adults.  What this means is that I am mastering the facts of the situation, gaining vocabulary, and becoming familiar with the foundation of the concept before I build a house on it.  

And like anyone who is a grammar student in a subject, I need to look around and identify the people who have done this already and done it well, and then try to see what, if anything, they have in common with each other, and hopefully gain some wisdom from their methods.  

I learned how to speak English from those who speak it well.  I learned to read, write, and do math from people who were fluent in those disciplines.  I took piano lessons and played volleyball, learned how to play the drums, and ran track in high school under teachers and coaches who knew their fields better than I did, and I grew in skill under their tutelage.

In the same way, my parents took care to nurture my young faith by putting before me good role models, pastoral teaching, books, sermons, discussions, and mentors, and I learned how to walk in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

By the grace of God, I continued to follow the same model of purposeful discipleship into adulthood.  When I was married, Jamey and I attended marriage conferences every year without fail, and actively sought the fellowship of older couples who were "doing marriage well".  

As a new mom, I read voraciously and again set myself under veteran mommies and sought the wise counsel of my own mom.

And now again, I find myself at a new stage of parenthood, and a new stage of learning how to do it well.  

Let me be clear--I am under no illusion that if I just "do everything right", I will magically end up with a perfect marriage, perfect kids, or a perfectly running household.  Human beings are quirky, unpredictable beings and formulas are only foolproof in math and physics:)

But God has given us principles--a moral framework within which human thriving is accomplished--and those principles are inculcated within a system of community marked by consistent accountability and discipleship, wherein (ideally) the elders take the younger men and women in hand and help cure them of the remnants of childish folly, pressing them gently and firmly toward the life of love, service, and sacrifice to which we are called as Christians.  (Titus 2, Hebrews 13:7 , Philippians 3:17, 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 )

As in so many other things, our culture has managed to get this concept completely backwards.  We have adopted the "youth-as-god" model and allowed the students to become the teachers in everything from the mundane (fashion) to the monumental (faith).  

Around age 14, this generation has begun pushing away the very people who have the experience, wisdom, and knowledge to help them grow into healthy, functional adults.

Parents have been made to feel guilty for exercising some measure of oversight of their teenagers in matters of music, movies, and social media.  Instead of pulling their children up into the world of adult conversation, industry, and responsibility, we immerse them in a youth culture which glamorizes selfish irresponsibility and hedonistic consumerism of both people and things.  

At their demand, we give them unfettered access to devices full of unprofitable, immature, and often dangerous material.  We fill their eyes and ears with powerful images of sex without boundaries or consequences.  We gratify their whims and remove the expectation of hard work and sacrifice from their shoulders.  

We bless the intrusion of social media into every crevice of their existence and allow it to push our kids out of the warp and woof of family life, so that they effectively trade the community of individuals they were born into for a tailor-made posse of hand-picked admirers.  

Is mom demanding?  Are siblings annoying?  Is grandma boring?  With the flick of the thumb our babies can instantly connect with a throng of cheering fans, ready to "like" every selfie they take in the bathroom mirror, as well as the avalanche of artsy Instagram posts of their toes in the sand, their fingers curled around coffee cups, and delicate strands of hair wafting in front of cynically arched eyebrows.

We allow our teenagers to develop an addiction to electronic endorphins and foster an unrealistic appetite for adulation.

And then, at the ripe old age of 18, we drop these over-praised, over-sexed, over-stimulated, under-disciplined baby adults into a college culture packed with other over-praised, over-sexed, over-stimulated, under-disciplined baby adults (overseen by a gleeful band of career visionaries and academicians), wave goodbye, and yell, "Live long and prosper!" over our shoulders are we drive away.  

What?  Is it any surprise that the campus life at most colleges is awash with young men and women flaunting their nascent sexuality with reckless abandon, getting drunk, making permanent, life-changing decisions with half-formed frontal lobes, abusing drugs, committing suicide, and generally wreaking havoc with their lives and the lives of others?

Should we really be shocked that these "snowflakes" we have unleashed on the world are exhibiting all the thoughtful self control of a class of grammarians whose teacher has been locked out of the classroom?

This generation is having so much trouble adjusting to reality that, in addition to some of them not even being sure if they are boys or girls, they also need pet therapy and cry rooms to cope with the lawful results of a democratic election process. 

Could it be they are only living out the consequences of skipping the grammar stage of adulthood?

They are trying to speak a language they have never been taught, and I think that we parents are in large part responsible for putting that impossible burden on them.  

We cannot completely blame our children for acting like hedons when we as parents have been cowed into silence on the "ought to's" of adulthood.

And here again is where I start talking to Christians alone.  A pagan culture is being true to itself when it lives as though every man is his own god.  We ought not be surprised when we see it because God has told us it would be so. 

 Jeremiah 17:9 says,  "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"  

 Mark 7:21-23 reiterates, "For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

As with most things related to human thriving, God has not been silent on either the pitfalls or the protections we can choose.

Here is what we know.

1).  No human is as spiritually strong or morally unassailable as they think they are.  (Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to one another, so that you do not do what you want.")

2). We never outgrow our need for community and accountability, which means that we are ever in the roles of both discipler and discipled.  (Philippians 3:17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.)

Because of the two previous points:

3).  We will become like the community of people we choose to closely surround ourselves with.  (Ephesians 4:17-25  "You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more. But this is not the way you came to know Christ. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in keeping with the truth that is in Jesus.  You were taught to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are members of one another.")

4) At every new stage of life, we need to humble ourselves and learn how to do it well from the people who are doing it well. (1 Corinthians 11:1 "You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Christ.")



I am not saying that your adult children should never leave home without you, or that no one should ever send their kid off to college or into the work force, but for goodness sake, send them with the expectation that they will need to continue to live lives of connection and accountability.  

Check on them.  Ask hard questions.  Strive to maintain the heartstrings you have tied for 18 years.  Exhort them.  Encourage them.  Remind them gently of your mutual need for spiritual connection and Biblical instruction.  It is through this sharpening process that grammarians master their discipline and transition from being "snowflakes" to becoming spiritual leaders of the faith.   

Of course, with the learning of any new grammar, be it Latin declensions or "living holy as a young adult in a pagan culture", there will be missteps and errors, but for the Christian person, the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God and fellow believers walking in fellowship will faithfully redirect a willing heart when it falters.  

My prayer for my youngsters is that they will mature with the expectation of needing and welcoming that guidance throughout every new season of life-- not because they aren't grown up, but because they are creatures made for community, made to be both teachers and the taught from the moment of their birth to the moment of their death.  

This includes how to be a child, how to be a student, how to be a young adult, newly married, young parents, old parents :), empty nesters, grandparents, widows and widowers.  

There is a grammar stage for how to be godly when you fail and how to be godly when the world is your oyster, how to be strong, how to be sick, how to be young, how to be old, and ultimately how to die well.

For all of those stages, if we are willing to be humble enough to seek counsel from the faithful who have walked before us, we will conduct ourselves as the Apostle Paul wrote, " in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. [so that] whether I come and see you or hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending side by side for the faith of the gospel."

 This is what we are trying to give our children for as long as they will receive it.  For now, it looks like all of us living under one roof, but even when that changes, my prayer is that they will always be willing to live under accountability--both to those who share the bonds of family and to those who share the bond of faith. 

Despite what our independence-obsessed culture says, interdependence is actually a gift we give one another.  

--A gift designed for us by a benevolent and wise God because He knew it would be the path to inner peace, true freedom, and human thriving. 

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Proverbs 3:1-8

My son, do not forget my teaching, 
but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and year of life
and peace
they will add to you.

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness
forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.

So you will find favor and good success
in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.