NeoZine

The Simplicity of Maturity

Our world is deeply confused about parenting, and it shouldn’t be any surprise that kids are deeply confused about growing up. For millennia the proven path to maturity required children to learn sacrifice for others, but new and unproven theories are redefining parenting and the family itself in the twenty-first century. Often seeded with humanistic assumptions, modern approaches have now shipwrecked a few generations of children, beginning with Baby-boomers, and now secular research and even the popular press are documenting how widespread this failure is.¹

It means modern parenting is a best-guess scenario. Little social consensus remains, and even the self-proclaimed leaders among academics and social scientists are deeply divided.² Far more tragic, parents often cannot (and sometimes should not) look to their own parents for guidance. The confusion and failures of parents now spans generations, and the proven model of maturity is fading from modern memory.

Fortunately God provides us with a clear and simple path to maturity. It is a process:

1. To move away from immature demands that others meet our needs.
2. To become capable of providing for our own needs.
3. Finally, developing a surplus to give in sacrificial love.

Paul captures this process of growth in one verse:

He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Ephesians 4:28 (NASB)

“He who steals” accurately describes demanding Infantiles. The solution? “Steal no longer!” Infantiles may not feel their demands are thievery, but that is what God calls it, pure and simple. (Read “Steal No Longer” which is someone’s blog about employing this principle, and how to win.)

It means the demands must stop! This is not optional. It is a timeless, culturally-agnostic fact of human genetics that until “he will have something to share with one who has need,” the Infantile lives in a cauldron of seething emotional turmoil. Demands will not satisfy long-term emotional needs.

The Furnace of Present Love Feelings

The modern child-centered home and the influence of the “Self Esteem” movement is producing a new social phenomenon where childhood extends far beyond the age of 18.³ It means a population of “adult kids” is forming. It is a subculture with a consensus that further perpetrates Infantile demands. Their propaganda is seeded in the media, movies and TV sitcoms.

This new Infantile subculture is a furnace of super-heated emotional needs. As Infantile meets Infantile, expectations crash against demands, and when relationships crumble they fall back to one conviction: I was betrayed! The furnace intensifies with loneliness and heartbreak, but the Infantile is oblivious to the obvious problem: the problem is me!

Often our response is not repentance. Many move into self-protection. “I can’t be wrong. It is the world that is wrong!” ::bibtex(Ankenman-Approach2,Ankenman - Biblical Approach part 2)::

Parents were the first to stoke the furnace of Infantile demands. In a safe and loving home, kids were provided Present Love Feelings that met their emotional needs. Growing up in the center of the universe, the child charges into the world with confidence, feeling loved, supported, and completely ungrateful.

The goal for parenting is not to make kids feel loved. Nowhere in scripture can we find such an injunction. We don’t mean to say that parents shouldn’t make their kids feel loved, but we are saying this isn’t the goal of parenting. Many parents would agree, yet because it’s the easiest way to make someone feel loved, pumping out the Present Love Feelings ends up becoming a parent’s default effort. “Soccer Moms” and minivan families lavish such a wealth of Present Love Feelings on the kids, but these are all modern behaviors and part of the modern confusion about maturity.

Leaving home, these kids thrive on a reservoir of Present Love Feelings which fuel their spirited dreams of conquest. But a latent emotional bomb lies beneath the surface: unable to create healthy relationships, these young adults suffer painfully in their quest to refill Present Love Feelings. Usually the bomb explodes after the collapse of a few random romances.

Without emotional fuel people cannot function for long. The hidden bomb explodes in a cloud of emotional instability which can deal crippling blows to the body’s chemistry, its immune system and large array of crippling maladies, as research has demonstrated (see Loneliness). These young adults become new patients at Dr. Ankenman’s clinic, crippled with emotional distress:

Every emotionally unhappy person in the world works from the perspective that says, “love has to come to me.” The final cure of the emotionally-upset person is learning to give love. ::bibtex(Ankenman-Approach2,Ankenman - Biblical Approach part 2)::

The problem for parents is one of investment.

Continue Reading »

1. See Raising Infantiles for more about the Baby-boomer parenting phenomena and the sensational results in Millennials documented by 60 Minutes and others. [⇑]
2. See ::bibtex(Seligman-Forum,Seligman)::. [⇑]
3. See ::bibtex(Safer-Millenials,Safer-Millenials)::. [⇑]

Ed.Note: the following is an enhancement of the teachings given at East Harbor State Park this past Labor Day weekend.

Forest Gump was a silly movie in many respects, but whoever wrote it grasped what makes life work and what doesn’t. Life doesn’t work for Jenny, the little girl who befriended Forest. She was sexually abused, and she grows up ruined by it, drug-addicted, sexually promiscuous, unable to love, and she dies from an STD, leaving an orphaned child in Forest’s care. There’s the lieutenant from Viet Nam who became suicidal and deeply embittered when he lost his legs in the war. Forest Gump was a stark and refreshing contrast to these figures because his life was miraculously useful, despite being physically and mentally handicapped. He received scholarships, launched Elvis and others to fame, was decorated by three presidents, and made the cover of Fortune magazine as a millionaire tycoon.

Thankfulness marked the difference between these characters. Forest was simple enough he never really understood the reasons for bitterness, and took life as it came with gratitude. This opened doors of opportunity few with far greater gifts ever see.

Jenny was deeply embittered, but her only revenge was to throw rocks at her father’s house one night, decades later – but her father was long-dead, and the house was a pile of charred wood. It was the pinnacle of her life, the most she could do with all her bitterness. The lieutenant was also headed for a dreary life, stuck in a home for incapacitated vets. But he took a chance and joined Forest on a shrimp boat. Hurricane Camille descends on their little boat, and the lieutenant spews his bitterness at God who is the cause for all the world’s suffering. When the storm subsides, he realizes God is not the cause for suffering. Even more, he sees God is someone who provides for those who suffer.

The movie was a fable, but (miraculously, for Hollywood!) it depicted a deep truth about the human condition: it’s a realm filled with opportunity for bitterness, and those who choose it get nothing in return. Those with thankfulness can step back to see the forest for all the trees, and they can find their bearings in a sick, hurting world.

The Furnace of Depravity

Ingratitude is the furnace for depravity in the human heart. It triggers a landslide of poisonous thoughts and actions, and it seals the fate of its victims with a blinding obsession of bitterness.

Ingratitude begins with rebellion, and then takes its own momentum. Paul describes it in Romans 1:

For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools Romans 1:21-22 (NASB95)

Paul sums up the results in one phrase, “their foolish heart was darkened.” The darkness that descends on the ungrateful heart is the missed opportunities of real life, replaced by a self-made world of imagination colored with dark bitterness.

The problem follows a clear pattern, starting with an attitude towards God, and as we will demonstrate, it ripples across a lifetime of relationships. Continue Reading »