Speaking of the very distant future, I find it disconcerting when it becomes the present, such as when a certain child in the house says, "I'm done with 5th grade, so that means I'll be in 6th grade when school starts again!"
Wait - what? 6th grade?
It gets worse. "And then I'll get to be in youth group!"
In what? Are you kidding?
It seems that most churches with youth groups start at 6th grade these days rather than 7th (not that one year would change my feelings about this much), so it's not as though this is unusual. And I really enjoyed being in youth group in my day - for the most part. I appreciated youth pastors and leaders and still do (so if any of the ones I know happen to be reading this, don't take it personally!). But now as a mom of a rising...6th grader, I find I have no great love for the idea of youth group at church, and I find myself in an uncomfortable position. On the one hand, I remember being ready to enter this exciting yet bizzare subculture of the church, and I know I would have been livid to have been refused entry, so I completely understand my own child's feelings about it. On the other hand, philosophically, I don't think it has a place in our family philosophy. Of course, it makes sense to have grounded kids from relatively good families available to be good influences on those who might need them. But it also makes sense that that which is innocent can only be made less so, not really the other way around. And let's say that all the kids in a particular youth group are already grounded kids from relatively good families...they're still just a mob of preteens and teens (of all ages!). Maybe a good mob as teenagers go, but still!
I'm struggling. I have a feeling it gets steadily worse from here!
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