Family Squeeze Read online

  When our children were small we begged them to finish their broccoli. “Come on,” we’d cajole, “just one more bite. Puh-leeze?”

  Now that they are teens, they finish their plate. They finish our plate. They clean out the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry (but not the dishwasher). Then they look at the dog dish and think, Hey how bad can that be?

  When our children were small, we used to send them off on their bikes, praying they wouldn’t hit a tree. We’re still praying, because now they’re driving our cars.

  My daughter loves to drive. She jangles the keys in front of me like a hypnotist. “Come on, Dad, you are feeling generous. And there are stores open somewhere.” If she loves anything more than driving, it’s shopping. In fact, Rachael loves shopping so much that she signed up for shop class last year. I kid you not. And when she arrived, she discovered she was the only girl there, surrounded by teenage boys. Not a single one of the boys minded. Nor did she.

  When our children were small, we used to pray, “Lord, please help them sleep through the night.” Now that they’re teenagers, we can’t get them to wake up. They are in their prime sleeping years. Jeff recently returned from a week at Bible camp, and he slept a full twenty-three hours in a row, weary from memorizing Scripture. “That’s not sleeping,” I told Ramona. “That’s a coma.”

  Girls began e-mailing. I told him to give out his new e-mail address: [email protected].

  The other day he came through the door and said, “Dad, I’m thinking of getting an earring. Maybe some tattoos.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence,” I said, slowly hiking the cuffs of my pants. “I was thinking of having all my pants hemmed just below the knees. And getting a T-shirt that says, ‘I’m Jeff Callaway’s dad.’“

  He laughed so hard he forgot about the earring.

  Somewhere within this illustration lies the key to retaining your sanity during the Middle Ages. Five keys, actually. But before we get to them, let me explain that I suffer from ADD and have always written short chapters. So feel free to set the book down and put on a pot of coffee before you turn the page.

  Or you may want to find a teenager to read the list at the beginning of this chapter aloud to you. Just remember to take your heart medication first.

  If you want to recapture your youth,

  just cut off his allowance.

  AL BERNSTEIN

  People ask if I really have ADD, and I say, “Sorry, could you repeat that? I got distracted.” The truth is, I’ve always had trouble paying attention. Except when our children’s friends come over. I pay very close attention when they take to looting and pillaging our pantry like locusts. “Hey!” I ask, “What do you think this is? A buffet?”

  They smile and laugh and help themselves to more cereal.

  That’s the trouble with making a living as a funny guy. They think I’m kidding.

  I smelled something out of the ordinary one night about 11:30 p.m., slipped on my housecoat, and found a neighbor boy in our kitchen frying up a steak I had paid good money for. My son had fallen asleep on the sofa. I asked the neighbor boy if he wanted my wallet, seeing as we were out of potatoes and he might need some. He said, “Sure.” Expecting a teenager to limit himself to six meals a day is as naive as listening for something original in an echo.

  But all in all, it’s not so bad. The squinty-eyed prophets in the grocery store programmed me to believe that the worst is yet to come. That amid the rebellion and horror of the teen years, I will lose my sense of humor, my dignity, my wallet, and my hair. They were wrong about the first two. Oh sure, we’ve had our moments of fear and uncertainty. We’ve shed some tears, bought some Tylenol, and lost some sleep.

  But five keys keep us thriving in a period of life when so many are just surviving. I’ll lay them out over the next two chapters, using the acronym TEENS to tell you what they are.

  1. Try Laughter

  Everyday life can be deadly serious for a teenager. Take, for instance, the following scenario:

  Monday. A gorgeous girl named Madison winks at you, and your heart goes ka-blam! She says she is thinking of marriage, but you may not be ready for such a commitment. Not before Saturday.

  Tuesday You realize that Madison was really winking at your best friend, and you want to plunge off a cliff in despair.

  Wednesday You score a touchdown in front of a thousand screaming peers! Madison is there! Too bad you were running the wrong way!

  Thursday. You start talking to Olivia—the girl who was standing behind Madison when she winked at your best friend—and after a deep conversation that lasts six or seven minutes, things appear to be getting serious. So serious she wants you as a friend on Facebook, and you decide to buy a ring on eBay.

  Friday. Your mother tells you that Olivia is your first cousin, and your best friend asks you to be his best man when he marries Madison tomorrow. Your only consolation is that he agrees to buy the ring you purchased on eBay.

  The American novelist Jessamyn West once wrote, “At fourteen you don’t need sickness or death for tragedy.” She was right. It’s surprising that teens pay good money to ride roller coasters; they’re already on one. They can move from elation to depression in the space of about four seconds. Each zit is leprosy. Each magazine cover mocks them with what they’ll never be. When Rachael was sixteen and had no boyfriend, Valentine’s Day was like tin foil on a filling. “It should be renamed SAD—Singles’ Awareness Day,” she joked.

  To complicate things, teenagers wonder whose rules to respect, whose lifestyle to adopt, and who on earth kidnapped their body and began performing experiments on it.

  How I thank God for the stability of the home where I grew up, a home where laughter was never far away. I know of few assets more valuable in unpredictable and difficult times than a tantalizing haven where contagious laughter is present. Wholesome laughter is a testimony to our children that everything’s gonna be okay, that God is big enough to see us through the next exam, the next relational hiccup, the next bout with acne.

  2. Exercise Flexibility

  Last summer my wife and I were standing on a beach far from home when someone interrupted our conversation. “Phil? It’s Gerry. How you doing?” Though we had grown up a few blocks apart, I hadn’t seen Gerry in years. (Note: If you think that’s his real name, I have Enron stocks I’d love to sell you.)

  Immediately Gerry launched into memories of his hometown, memories you wouldn’t want in your scrapbook. He told us how his father had crushed his spirit and his tape collection, verbally stiff-arming his son in almost every conversation while quoting Scripture to defend his actions. His was formula parenting, with control being point number one. Sadly, Gerry hadn’t been home in years.

  Chuck Swindoll wrote, “When it comes to rearing teenagers, rigidity is lethal. Parents who refuse to flex, who insist on everything remaining exactly as it was in earlier years, can expect their kids to rebel.”7 Wise words, those.

  I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I’m learning that good parents change and adapt and listen more than they lecture. That suppertime and bedtime can be more significant in a child’s upbringing than school and sports—or even church.

  My wife is a morning person. Our teenagers don’t want to go to bed until morning. Thankfully, Ramona has the foresight to know that a sturdy cup of tea will keep her awake long enough to watch them eat us out of house and home.

  Flexibility is gold when it comes to investing in teens. Last month our younger son turned our basement into a teenage hangout, complete with a 680-volt drum set, three electric guitar amplifiers with volume controls so small no one can find them, a sofa that was at its best before the 1970s, and a stereo system with surround sound and things called “woofers” and “tweeters.” But we’re okay. We figure if our kids are gonna party, we’d like it to happen about twenty feet away. The music may be annoying, but we’re getting to the age where we can’t hear it anyway.

  The old believe everything; the m
iddle aged suspect everything;

  the young know everything.

  OSCAR WILDE

  If life were fair, we’d be born at about ninety-three and slowly grow toward our teenage years, where we would have enough money to really enjoy our good health. But life isn’t fair, and the teenage years move fast—unless you’re parenting your way through them. I told someone recently that I think Sundays are a particularly difficult day for raising teenagers. Also, Monday morning through Saturday night.

  But when hasn’t this thing called parenting been difficult? When have you heard the mother of two toddlers say, “You know, we have such peace and harmony now. The house is so clean, and I’m feeling overly rested”?

  We’ve covered the T and the first E. Let’s look at the last three keys:

  3. Encourage Discernment

  We taught our children, from the time they were small, with question marks. We challenged them when they spouted cliches. We asked questions they would be asked in the big bad world, and we did it in a way that was fun and challenging. To this day, their friends will sit in our living room a few feet from a dormant television and discuss everything from politics to alcohol to evolution. I believe there is no safer place to think through difficult issues than under the guidance of godly parents who love Gods Word and think teenagers are the coolest things since Brylcreem.

  Never in history has a generation had more bad choices so close by. As parents, we’d find it easier to run than to reason. It would be easier to unplug than teach understanding. But model discernment we must, unless we want them to float through life with the crowd that’s heading toward the waterfall.

  Teenagers have their baloney detectors set on high. They can smell a fake from clear across the church. They don’t expect us to be cool—to know who Tom Cruise’s latest wife is, for example. But they do need us to be real. To say we’re sorry. To be vulnerable.

  When a friend of mine discovered that his son had left curious footprints on the Internet, he was devastated but not surprised. “I knew enough about my own wicked heart,” he told me. “So I sat down with him and talked of the difficulty I’ve had making the right choices, but how, with God’s help, I’ve taken steps to make them—steps that have likely saved my marriage.”

  Child-Rearing for Dummies

  It takes a village to raise a child, claims the old African proverb. But it takes only ten steps to raise the village idiot. Here they are:

  Avoid laughter at all costs. Raise your eyebrows a lot. Glower, grimace, scowl, and frown. Don’t celebrate the good times. Make your home a miserable place to be. Show them that the fruit of the Spirit is dried-up prunes.

  Spoon-feed them religion. Tell them the answers, don’t ask questions. Don’t talk about your faith. Hang nothing on your wall to indicate your beliefs. Stick with real nice wall hangings you won from vacuum-cleaner salespeople.

  Rarely support your spouse in decisions or discipline. Criticize each other in front of the kids. Never let them catch you necking.

  Watch so much TV that your eyes get square. Make it the central object in your home. Use the TV as a baby-sitter. Place at least one in each child’s bedroom at an early age. Wouldn’t want him or her reading books.

  Buy everything on credit, and lunge at anything that says, “No payments until March.”

  Gossip habitually. Have roast preacher for lunch each Sunday. Stew your boss. Chew on your mother-in-law. Talk about other people’s problems, but don’t admit to any of your own. And whatever you do, don’t pray for others.

  Value your children for what they do, not who they are. Compare your children to their siblings. Comment often on their looks. Fixate on the negative. See all that’s wrong with your children and nothing that’s right.

  Show them they are less important than your work, your car, and your golf game. Show them that sports are more important than church attendance.

  Avoid reading the Bible and praying together. Turn them loose without a road map, road signs, guardrails, or a center line, and supply them with bald tires and faulty brakes, then be surprised when they crash.

  When tough times come, run.

  Our teens need to know that we were teenagers once, even if it was back before the invention of electricity.

  4. Nurture Through Affirmation

  Teenagers aren’t too old to hear how wonderful they are or how much they are loved. There are enough voices out there telling them they aren’t cool enough, thin enough, tall enough, or rich enough. So affirm them every chance you get.

  My teenagers have doubted my sanity at times, but never my love for them. They know there is no hour of the day or night during which they are forbidden to flop on my bed and tell me their problems. I may keep right on sleeping, but at least they can talk. Sure, there are times I’d rather lecture than listen. I’d rather watch The Amazing Race than take them out for a greasy basket of fries. But in this kick-you-while-you’re-down world, our teens are starving for a pat on the back, a listening ear, and to hear those three magic words: “Hey, waytago! Youdabest!”

  I once asked Bill Hybels, teaching pastor of the fifteen-thousand-member Willow Creek Church in suburban Chicago, what he would like his children to say about him when he’s gone. He replied, “That I was their biggest cheerleader.”

  When I leave on a trip without my kids, I sometimes leave them notes pasted to their mirrors or placed atop their pillows. I always sign them with, Your Biggest Fan—Dad. They do not greet me at the airport with a hug and a kiss anymore, but I have yet to hear a complaint about one of those notes. In fact, I often find them propped up beside their beds.

  Sprinkled throughout the diaries of atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair were these words: “Please, somebody, somewhere, love me.”8 We are never too old to be told how much we are loved.

  5. Stay Connected

  Do whatever it takes to keep the lines of communication open. We Callaways are not an extravagant bunch, but through the years we’ve invested in season passes at the golf course and dropped almost everything at the possibility of a family vacation. After our family returned from traveling across an ocean (thanks to Ol’ Uncle Air Miles), someone squinted oddly at me and asked, “You took your kids?” You bet we did. I have yet to meet someone in a nursing home who ever regretted such an investment. Besides, our children talk often of continuing this tradition after they have families of their own. They’re in…if I pay.

  Those who are wise enough to allow their teens room to breathe, who listen more than lecture, and who remain calm when screaming seems like the better option will find that the teenage years are invigorating, adventuresome, and even—particularly when you least expect it—rewarding.

  And for those who are afraid of seeing the teenage years come to an end, don’t worry. There isn’t a teenager I know who hasn’t gone out into the brave new world without eventually returning home starved. And carrying a bundle of dirty laundry.

  I took my mother-in-law to Madame Tussaud’s

  Chamber of Horrors and one of the attendants said,

  “Keep her moving, sir, we’re stock-taking.”

  LES DAWSON

  Men past forty

  Get up nights,

  Look out at city lights

  And wonder

  Where they made the wrong turn

  And why life is so long.

  ED SISSMAN

  In my thirties I was an unbeliever regarding the Midlife Crisis. In my forties, I flew through various stages in rapid succession: skeptic, agnostic, and the one at which I have now arrived—convert. Nothing about my childhood prepared me for getting older. For one thing, I thought my schoolteachers would kill me. I was thirteen when I realized my name wasn’t Smarten Up. But somehow those frazzled teachers restrained themselves and here I am, waking up each morning gazing into the mirror at a middle-aged balding guy who looks exactly like my dad, and thinking to myself, You have two options: Shave and keep moving, or break the mirror.

  A friend of mine says yo
u officially enter middle age when your age starts to show around your middle. Another reassuring soul claims it arrives when both your parents and your children start telling you what’s best for you.

  For some of us, the Middle Ages is an emotional state of anxiety in which we realize that the expiration date on our bodies is rapidly approaching, causing us to reflect on the fact that we have accomplished little since placing third in the eighth grade science fair for our research on firecrackers.

  The German word for midlife crisis, Torschlusspanik, literally means “the panic of closing doors.” (The Russian word is Vuttzadealwithmyhairs-cavich.) Somewhere between the ages of thirty-eight and fifty-three, most of us enter a life stage where our children begin staying up late after tucking us into bed. Who knows what they’re doing? They could be writing their names on the back of our expensive knickknacks.

  The following questions may help you determine whether or not you are in the midst of such a crisis. Then again, these questions may not help at all. But I hope they’ll be good for a smile or two.

  The Midlife Quiz

  When I stand in front of the mirror, I:

  Thank God for His awesome handiwork.

  Close my eyes and grind my teeth.

  Can see my rear end without turning around.

  My hair is:

  A wavy, natural blond.

  Hair? Yes, I remember hair.

  Like a struggling oil company. Good production, poor distribution.