by Steve Gerali
One of the girls in our youth ministry introduced me to Jason. She told him she thought it might be a good idea for him to talk with me. Jason seemed to be a typical all-American kid. He was a junior at the local high school where he got good grades, he was involved in school leadership, and he’d just secured a starting spot as the quarterback on the varsity football team. Jason was a good-looking, relationally engaging guy. But he was a little nervous when he started our conversation.
“I’m trying to find a place to stay,” he began. “My dad kicked me out of the house a week ago, and I’ve been staying with different friends.” Jason acknowledged that he thought this was a temporary thing and that his dad would eventually let him return home, but he wasn’t sure how long it would take. Every evening he faced living on the street unless he mobilized resources and found a place to stay. He was totally on his own, yet he still managed to get to school every day and on time, to complete his homework, and to be at football practice until 7 p.m. I could tell he was in agony over his home situation. He was alone.
Jason’s mother walked out on her marriage and family when he was about seven, leaving Jason and his younger sister with his father. Jason’s dad immediately married a woman who had very little time for Jason, although she connected with his sister. As the years went on, Jason’s dad became less interested in him and more influenced by his wife’s dislike for the now-teenage boy living in her home.
Jason got attention by overachieving. While he gained the recognition he craved from school authorities, his dad labeled his achievements a “con job.” His stepmom was convinced that a teenage guy couldn’t be as good as Jason seemed to be, so he must be cheating and lying. The tension escalated into shouting matches that only further entrenched his parents’ opinions and gave his stepmom more ammunition to fabricate the theory that she might be in danger if Jason ever got angry.
Jason was at the end of his rope. Everything he did was viewed with contempt by his dad and stepmom. There was nothing he could do to satisfy or please them. Jason wanted so desperately to connect with his father. But his dad’s loyalty to his wife—and her utter contempt for Jason—blinded him. Short of his little sister, Jason felt as though he had no family. He felt the pain of emotional abandonment.
I knew Jason needed to experience the love of a heavenly Father, but I recall wondering how that would ever happen, given the scars and woundedness this teenager carried. “God, how can I lead him to a loving, ever-present, never-abandoning, gracious, healing, compassionate Father when his concept of a father, or any parent for that matter, is so twisted?”
You probably have a student like Jason in your youth ministry. High national divorce rates, economic instability that forces parents to be absent physically and emotionally, parental incompetence, and family dysfunction will ensure that more guys experience emotional abandonment and aloneness. What complicates the issue is that teenage guys are conditioned to prove themselves. They learn not to ask for help because that would make them appear weak or “less than masculine.”
Like Jason, they display the bravado of independence and only seek help for an immediate problem. They would never disclose the internal agony they face. Sometimes a guy can be surrounded by men and still feel abandoned because he believes he must be a lone ranger. He may get messages from his father or other close males that he should be tough and relationally independent. He’ll usually feel a compulsion or a competition to prove his masculinity, and that can put him in a lonely and unsupported place.
The cultural mores that generate a guy’s need to prove himself as a male are largely shaped by the discrepancy that exists between traits associated with being young (such as dependence, fear, and anxiety) and traits that are associated with being male (such as strength, courage, competence, and independence). His father may not be present—physically or emotionally—to help him navigate through this difficult transition. Or he may isolate himself, creating a self-induced abandonment for fear of being viewed as a wimp—or worse, not finding favor with other men. This lone-ranger mentality, whether induced by abandonment or isolation, must be combated in order to produce relationally healthy, emotionally stable men. Other men need to parent young guys through this turmoil.
From Teenage Guys: Exploring Issues Adolescent Guys Face and Strategies to Help Them by Steve Gerali
