Elisabeth Elliot: There were no teenagers before World War II. Instead of teenagers, there were youths. Youths were young people who wanted to become adults. They planned to grow up, leave childhood behind and become adults. They were aware that life is more than youth.

Lisa Barry: Did you know that the term teenager is a relatively new concept in the 20th century and although someone, somewhere must have thought it necessary to section off a new group of people, I wonder if it was wise? Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot dives into this issue and reveals what has happened in society since the introduction of the teenager. Let's get started.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love"(Jer. 31:3). That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:7). This is your friend, Elisabeth Elliot, continuing my talk today on growing in Christ.

On Monday we talked about the importance of hymns and Bible readings and family devotions. I talked a little bit about the possible loss of a pet, which can be a very devastating thing for a family. It's got something to do with growing in Christ.

Then I told yesterday about my little black dog, MacDuff, and read a passage from Romans 8:18-22, which raises the whole mysterious matter of all creatures somehow finding a place in the redemption according to that passage in Romans.

Now today I have an article. I wish I could read all of it. It's called "The Myth of the Teenager." Did you remember that when Jesus was twelve years old, He was found confounding the experts in the Jewish law as He sat in the temple and answered their questions? Jesus recognized the watershed between childhood and adulthood. There was no such thing as a teenager in Jesus' time. Can you believe this? There was no such thing as a teenager in my time. I was born in 1926. The word "teenager" was not invented until about 1950.

It was sort of taken for granted that children were expected to behave in a relatively civilized manner by the time they reached the age of twelve because of course children do know the rules of the house by the time they're twelve. If they don't, whose fault is it? You know the answer to that one.

We certainly were fully expected to behave in a responsible manner. When I wrote my book on The Shaping of a Christian Family, I had to call up my four brothers and my sister to ask if any of them could remember any punishments that we received when we were in our teens. Christian parents write to ask me for suggestions about punishments to teenagers. Well, you can think about taking the car keys away; but we didn't even have a car at all, let alone be given car keys.

But we all racked our brains and we could not think of any occasion when we needed to be disciplined after we were twelve because our parents had done a faithful job before we got there. It's tragic that there seems to be so little clear understanding of the parents' responsibility in growing their children in Christ.

Here's this interesting article from the magazine, Practical Homeschooling, called "The Myth of the Teenager":

"'We have two teenagers,' I sometimes hear parents say. 'Oh, I'm so sorry,' I sometimes reply. Although I say it with a smile, the truth is sad. While the growing up process is inevitable, natural and God-given, the process of children turning into teenagers is not. The teenager was invented, fashioned, permitted, let loose, you might say, by the generation of our parents and grandparents. Discovering that may help us to raise our children differently.

"There were no teenagers before World War II. Ask those still living who raised their children before then or spend a rainy Saturday in the basement of your library comparing old Life magazines from before the war and after. Instead of teenagers, there were youths. Youths were young people who wanted to become adults. However confused, wayward or silly they acted, however many mistakes they made, they looked to the future. They knew that adult life was different from a child's life. They planned to grow up, leave childhood behind and become adults. They were aware that life is more than youth.

"The teenager has no such horizon today. Beyond the teeny world, there is no adult life, no past with heroes, no future with goals. When parents today say, 'We have two teenagers,' the reason why I can reply, 'I'm so sorry,' is that they say this with a sigh. Indeed, there is a world of difference between having youths in your home and having teenagers.

"Youths associated with other youths, sometimes dressed alike, talked alike, but never separated entirely from their teachers and parents. Youths chose presidents, inventors, scientists, explorers, warriors, saints, teachers and parents for their heroes. In American history, they looked to the likes of Washington and Jefferson, Boone and Crockett, Lincoln, Lee and Grant, etc. Above these, they looked to Abraham, Moses, Paul and Christ.

"The teenager today has no such heroes. He may be miserable. He may not like himself, but his heroes are no more happy or worthy than himself. The highest desire of a teenager is to become a more perfect teenager, a rock or movie star--certainly not a man or a woman.

"A youth wants to be trusted. A youth is willing to take responsibility. Teenagers are youths orphaned by their own parents. The day the teenager was created was a sad day for every youth in America.

"Imagine yourself young again, unsure of yourself, swayed by strong passions; by turns, ashamed and proud, sometimes shy, sometimes assertive, always awkward, filled with new desires and hard on yourself for having them. What a teenager most fears is having a child of his own."

I can't imagine that such a notion ever crossed our minds when I passed the age of twelve, certainly not before that either. But nowadays, teenagers are having babies. It's not a happy piece of news when a young man is called to the telephone and told, "You're going to be a daddy."

"His second greatest fear is death, and his third greatest fear is solitude. The teenager craves a melody that will rock him around the clock forever, seeks an experience so intense that he will forget what time it is and so absorbing that it will blot out all eternity.

"Never does one see a smile on the faces of those enjoying these pleasures. The teenager is the most free and the least happy of beings. Thoreau said, 'Most people lead lives of quiet desperation.' The desperation of the teenager is not quiet. With the Rolling Stones, they shout, 'I can't get no satisfaction.'

"We are now into the third-generation of teenagers. This means most people have had considerable experience of things that made the teenager. In truth, many parents today are not much different from teenagers. To disapprove of the teenager then, they would have to disapprove of much in their past and much that still exists in their lives. The truth is that modern parents are often mixed beings.

"The most potent impediment to modern parents acknowledging their negligence is the doctrine of choice. Yes, we see rock music as bad. We don't like it ourselves. Yes, we see TV as shallow. Yes, we see that loose money is not good for our children. They have so much more than we had. Yes, they are not better off for it, but what can you do? The kids have to have some responsibility. You have to give them some choice.

"Thus runs the pro-choice excuse for negligence. Its plausibility derives from two sources. In our political life, it is often good to tolerate deeds we would not commit and listen to opinions we do not hold. Of course, there are limits to this tolerance. Still, in a republic, many points of view deserve toleration, and consent is one principle of good government.

"Fortunately, third-generation teenagers are not the only parents in America nowadays. Having experienced the emptiness of the material advantages their negligent parents gave them, many parents have resolved to give their children something truly good and education in the virtues." I trust you've seen William Bennett's book on virtues.

"Nothing should make us more happy about our children and more confident about our future public life than the number of parents who have chosen to educate their own children at home. In order to teach, you must know. In order to know, you must learn. Thus, both generations grow up at once. Parents leave their own teenage years behind and become true adults; children never have to become teenagers at all.

"The benefits last unto the third generation and beyond. A generation of parents whose good children could declare, 'You set us on the good path you first trod,' would constitute a mighty nation and might reconstitute this once almost-chosen one and would surely please God. Few parents exhort their children, anyway. The advantage of welfare for them is that you don't have to exhort your children. You don't risk a stormy argument. You can just forget the children and get on with your own life.

"To justify this negligence, parents who welfare their children say, 'We're tired.' Recognize a right to be tired, and you can justify anything."

Well, there's a whole lot more to that article, but I'm so glad to see that the article was written, and I trust is being listened to by many homeschoolers.

If you feel that you yourself have fallen down in your job in raising a child over twelve, my suggestion would be that you call a family confab, you explain to the child that you have made some serious mistakes. "Now that you are twelve-years-old, we are going to expect you to do what we tell you to do. We are going to expect you to take responsibility." You know, it's amazing that when expectations are high, how often children are willing to rise to meet them.

May God help you as you grow your children in Christ.

Lisa Barry: As we close today, I want to take just a minute to express my gratitude for all of you who listen so thankfully each week. Your letters of encouragement really put wind in our sails. From time to time we ask you to write and tell us how this program has impacted your life. Maybe you've made a change in your life as a result of something you heard Elisabeth say. Would you write and tell us about it? You'd be amazed at how much other women are helped by hearing real life examples of change and growth.

The other thing that I would like to ask you to consider is your prayerful support of this program. The simple truth is that people like you who offer your faithful prayer support keep this program on the cutting edge. I think we all feel more a part of a program that we invest in, so keep that in mind as you write your letter today. And we thank you in advance for your faithful and generous support.

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Tomorrow Elisabeth talks about the end of courtship. Find out what that's all about next time on Gateway To Joy.