Hollywood’s Orphans

How do you make kids and youth to go great things and turn into great people? Apparently according to almost every single movie geared toward younger kids, the first step to greatness is to have your parents die early on, having the youth run away from home in order to pursue his or her destiny, making the parents babbling and annoying buffoons, or to some way or another isolate them from interfering with the youth’s quest to greatness.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, all you need to do is go see enough movies or read enough books that are geared toward engaging a youthful imagination and upon further thought, I believe you will notice a distinct lack of parental involvement in the lives of the youthful protagonist. I have yet to find a movie, or book, or other form of media which portrays an adolescent as the protagonist who actively seeks and involves their parents in their exploits. (I am prepared to share a sampling of the kinds of books I am talking of.) How many stories have you seen, read, or heard in which the young protagonist are orphans, have parents but they are completely uninvolved in the plot, have parents that are portrayed as idiots, or something else that disengages from the picture of their growth to greatness? Way too many for reality, and I honestly have some trouble thinking of movie which portrays a young protagonist who does deliberately involve their parents in their growth. In my eyes, the trend of media is clearly to leave the parents out of the picture of their child’s life.

So who takes the place of the parents in the media? To a large degree, the child-protagonist does. The parents (if even present in the story) do not instruct their child; the child learns about life on their own. The parents do not give wisdom; the child looks to him or herself for answers. The parents do not guide their child; the children make decisions for themselves. Whatever advice the protagonist gets, usually comes from a peer. Either way, the role of the parent is undermined. To whatever degree, media  asserts that children ought to learn and make decisions independently of their parents.

I must admit that many of these movies and books that I have experienced have brought me much enjoyment and I would recommend them highly. However, I think it is important to realize that what is portrayed in this movies is not how reality generally is. Children do not become adults by asserting their independence from their parents. God designed parenthood to be a primary role to play into the growth of their children. Their role does not end in infancy, grade-school, nor adolescence, and honestly the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that I probably never will outgrow my need for my parents. Yet if an alien came and watched our movies and read our books, I wonder if they would think that parents are at all important to the raising of the next generation.

So what does this annoying trend of the media do? I can tell you for certain it certainly will not teach kids how to grow up. I’m not sure exactly what this does to our mentality or how it works into our psyche, but I know for certain that it’s up to no good. The youth of today are already isolated from their parents enough without the encouragement of the media. I predict that this is both contributing to and indicative of a generation which does not recognize the role of parents the way God designed it to be.

The sad truth is, we live in an age of deliberate orphans. Our youth, in their desire to be fiercely independent forsake the God-given responsibility to hold themselves accountable to their parents, and parents neglect their duty to teach, guide, and discipline their children in accordance with God’s design. Hollywood, you have got to stop encouraging this.

Youth ministering to younger youth

One thing that I’ve realized as I am ending my senior year is how important those Christians who are just a few years older than me are and have been in my walk with the Lord. I thank God for their example that they set for me. But more than that, I have a burden that this generation of youth will take an interest in those who are younger than them.

I think it is a temptation for people, especially youth, to think that since someone is younger than them by a few years, that it’s uncool to be with them. I know it’s a temptation for me at times. But I thank God that so many teens, who are now adults, overlooked the age difference and took time to invest in me.

I think generally youth look up to the youth who are older than them to determine what is cool and what is valued. This can have such a powerful effect on the lives of a youth.

When I was growing up (not yet a teen) I had thought that it simply wasn’t cool for kids who are older than me to play with me. But in came Brandon Wyzga, not just watching but playing games of tag, organizing the rules, making judgments fairly sometimes at a cost to himself. But stranger to me than the fact that he was playing the games was the fact that he seemed to be enjoying them and to love being with us. Now this was cool. I remember consciously thinking, “When I’m a teen, I want to be like Brandon. I don’t want to stop playing with 10-year olds just because I’m older.”

At the time, all Brandon had showed me was that being with teens is cool. But in hindsight, I think Brandon showed me what an effect an older youth can have on a younger youth. Now that I’m in a young church of my own, I am surrounded by kids much younger than myself. Many of these kids have thought that teens were all around mean people. When I play with these kids, I try to remember how Brandon played with me at that age so that I can follow his example and thus set an example for the kids I get to be with and play with.

When I had just entered high school, I wasn’t a Christian and I was thrown into a history co-op with some of my current best friends. Among these was Dan Calderone about one or two years older than me. I thought I was a Christian and therefore wanted to look like a Christian, but I still did not want to talk about God. But Dan made it clear that he loved to talk about God. I made it evident in my demeanor that I really wasn’t passionate about God at all. But Dan’s demeanor was ruled by a passion for God. He very often would ask me how my quiet times were, tell me about something cool he learned about God, or some way or another give glory to God with his conduct. He also demonstrated a love for his parents and his eagerness to learn from their wisdom. He so evidently displayed the work of the Holy Spirit that I started to wonder what was so different about him than me. The summer after that school year, I was saved largely as a result of his example.

In hindsight, I see that Dan Calderone emulated Christ to me. Because he was older than me, he merited a position of influence in my life and he was able to influence me toward God or away from God. I thank God that Dan took interest in my soul and that he emulated living life to the glory of God despite my spiritual dryness. I try to emulate Dan when I interact with the youth who don’t appear to be living life to God’s glory. Maybe God will use me in their lives the way He used Dan in mine.

All this to say, I believe that God has given us a portion of influence in the lives of the younger youth. And like any measure of influence comes a measure of responsibility. We can abuse it by not using it at all. We can teach those younger than us to follow the ways of the world. Or like Brandon and Dan, we can steward this influence to God’s glory and show those younger than us something about God.