Fifteen-Year-Old-Boys

If you have raised a boy, you will relate to this story. If you have been a single parent of a teenage boy, I hope this comes across as a rallying cry.

I knew my son was gifted early on in his life. At the age of six, he had to write a complete sentence about faith for his Sunday School lesson. My mental giant wrote: Christians only have one wife, and it's called monotony.

When he was in elementary school, I used an improvised technique to teach him about economics. I used his Halloween candy to make a point about taxes. When we got home from trick-or-treating, I confiscated a third of his candy, and justified the theft by saying this is what the government does to my yearly earnings each and every year."

If you have survived an adolescent child, you are familiar with the pitfalls and mine fields embedded in these relationships. And I hope you learned, as I did, that it's risky business to challenge kids with half-baked life lessons. My moment of illumination came when I challenged his outlook on life. It began something like this, right after he complained about the hardships of childhood which usually had to do with his chores: "Son, when Abraham Lincoln was your age, he had a job and he walked five miles to school." I thought I had made a strong and valid point; that is, until he came back with, "When Lincoln was your age, he was President." 

On his thirteenth birthday, his sister made an announcement at the supper table. "Dad, Billy has puberty!" It was as if puberty was a virus that had caused his voice to crack and his sweat to stink. This was also the year that I had one of my father-son talks. I sat him down and said, "Son, you've got to stop eating all the food in the house. Your sister is getting so skinny she could fly away like a balloon in a stiff breeze."

Last summer the start of my son's fifteenth year was a trial for me. It was so trying that I lobbied for year-round school. Every father needs a hobby. Fifteen-year-old boys know everything. They are so well informed, I wonder why we need to send them to school in the first place. What else is there for these brainiacs to learn in school?

My son used to hit me up for money. One day, at the mall, he dragged me into a ritzy shoe store and held up a pair of gym shoes. He said, "Dad, I really want these shoes, and they're only a hundred bucks."

Don't you love it when your dependent son uses the word "only" when he's talking about money? So I figured this would be as good a time as any to teach him the difference between want and need. So I said, "Back up the truck, yard boy. You say you want these shoes, but no one needs a pair of hundred-dollar gym shoes. I have forty bucks for gym shoes, so what you need is sixty bucks."

He rolled his eyes--a facial gesture he had mastered.

Life with my son ratcheted up several notches that year when he made an announcement. "Dad, next year I'll get my driver's license."

His announcement would keep me awake for days on end.

Then he went on. "So I'll need a new truck when I turn sixteen."

I rolled my eyes just for his benefit. "Did you just say you'll need a new truck?"

"Uh-huh."

"What about a used truck?"

"Dad, I don't want to drive junk."

"What's wrong with a junker? I drove many junkers before I owned a new car."

"You did?"

Ah, I thought I'd made some headway, so I dragged out an old family album and showed him the picture of my first car--a 1964 VW faded-yellow Bug with a dented fender.

He looked at it for a spell before he asked, "What did it have under the hood?"

"A tire," I said, and almost laughed before I remembered the cardinal rule when it comes to parenting teenagers: Never laugh at what they say. So I went on with a deadpan expression. "It had a tiny engine in the trunk with just enough power to run through a headwind. If you were able to get it up to fifty-five miles per hour, and you turned on the radio, your speed dropped to forty-five."

"Come on, Dad. Get real."

"I'm serious, and it was a great car. Driving a junker has many advantages. First of all, you don't have to worry about someone stealing your car, and driving a scrapheap makes it easy to merge with traffic. Other drivers will make room for you when they see the bungee cord attached to your bumper. VW Bugs were great cars and unique in many ways, other than their insect appearance. Most cars have a defrosting system. In a Bug you have your breath and a rag. Most cars have central heat. But not those cars. Their heaters would burn the hair off your ankles, and your passenger in the back will freeze to death. Burn victims up front, frostbite casualties in the back."

My son has always been a critical thinker. When he was twelve, we were driving to his baseball practice when he asked me one of those world-shaking questions: "Dad, does God know what I'll be when I get big?"

I said, "Yeah, I believe God has a plan for us all."

My son said, "Okay," and we drove a few blocks before he asked, "Dad, is there paper in Heaven?"

I said, "I guess so, if there's a need, God will provide paper."

He said "Okay," and I continued to drive, but now I'm wondering what in the world is going on in his head. 

"What's on your mind, son?"

"I dunno. I was just thinking, if someone came to my school and killed me, and I went to Heaven, would God be able to write down all the things I would have done if I hadn't been shot?"

I had to pull onto the shoulder of the road. And when I hugged him, I realized I was the only one crying. He had been okay with the conversation.

I apologized for what I perceived as a show of weakness, for a Southern man to cry.

Then he said, "It's okay, Dad. I know you love me."

His words hit me like a ton of bricks, and they exposed one of my major faults. I often get angry and frustrated by what I perceive to be injustices done to me, and by the sickness and disease in my circle of friends and relatives. I still have that fault, and I still get miffed from time to time; but when I do, I remember my son's words--"It's okay, Dad. I know you love me."

And each time my anger raises its ugly head, it highlights one of the great revelations of life. Christianity blows me away by its simplicity, how the Gospel boils down to two words: Love and Faith. I'm constantly amazed that I am forgiven, what with me being an imperfect man--a man whose son forgave him on the side of the road.

My son has always been my rock when it comes to forgiveness. He, like God, doesn't expect me to be perfect. And like God, he just wants me to know that he loves me and forgives my shortcomings. 

© Copyright 2025 Nathan B. Childs. All rights reserved.