Christmas Gift of
Parents
or Why Your Parents Aren’t as Dumb as You Think They Are
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” - Mark Twain
H I G H E R
T H I N G S __ 26
here are few things in life more annoying than parents, especially when you’re between the ages of about thirteen and eighteen. They are intrusive, ask too many questions, have all of the rules down, and more than anything, they just don’t get what you’re going through.
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Mark Twain was right. To the fourteen-year-old, parents just don’t understand what life in high school is like. They are awkward and embarrassing to be around. So, what are you to do? Live in a box under the highway? Pretend you’re adopted and that you don’t really know them? Make every conversation into a battle zone where you pick the rules? You can do all these things and probably have. Well, maybe not the living in a box part. But high school is hard enough without having to face a war every time you go home. So, how do we understand parents as a gift from God and not as a trial to undergo each time we see them? Here are a few tips for the teenager who wishes his parents would be less seen and heard. Parents don’t understand what high school life is like today. They can’t. If they could, they wouldn’t be your parents. It’s not their job. Do you really want your parents talking like you, acting like you, and being a part of your social life? Blech! You don’t understand what a parent’s life is like. In just the same way, there is no way you can understand the responsibility and plain work being a father or mother is day after day. They sacrifice, they worry, they pray, they hope, plan, dream, and hurt for you every day. Usually, you don’t know about these things until much later, but every once in a while there may be a glimpse.
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By Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn
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