You may house their bodies
but not their souls...
which you cannot visit
even in your dreams.
- Kahlil Gibran

It is no small thing to bring up even one child - to clear the shallows of childhood, to navigate the rocky passages of adolescence, and to steer him safely down river into the harbor of adulthood. But the journey does not end there: after raising our children and setting them on their feet, we must let them go. In any case - and most of us wouldn't have it any other way - children do grow up to lead lives of their own. Our primary task, then, must be to raise them in such a way that when they go out into what Pestalozzi calls "the stream of the world," they are strong enough to make their own decisions, and to hold to them. Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz best known for his book 'Man's Search for Meaning', writes:

"Research on heredity has shown how high is the degree of human freedom in the face of predisposition. As for environment, we know that it does not make a person, but that everything depends on what he makes of it, on his attitude toward it. But there is another element: decision. We ultimately decide for ourselves! And in the end, education must always be education toward the ability to decide."

While inspiring, Frankl's advice is easier to reflect on than to actually practice. Because if there's anything almost every one of us succumbs to again and again, it is the temptation to make decisions for our children rather than guiding them to decide for themselves. And it is no help that adolescence, during which this parenting skill is needed most, is also the time we're most concerned about their ability to stand on their own.

A young adult's world consists of a jumble of tensions: an insistence on being left alone and a need to be included, a longing for freedom and a readiness for responsibility, a feeling of invincibility and a fear of failure, a distaste for conformity and a desire to fit in. Aside from all this there are the continual frictions that arise from peer pressure on the one hand and parental authority on the other. Is it any wonder that so few teenagers escape from the battle unscathed at least in some way, and that more are not wounded for life? It is certainly the reason that many parents are so reluctant to see how they might fare on their own.

A friend who's always e-mailing me things sent me a riddle the other day about the difference between a mother and a Rottweiler (answer: the dog eventually lets go). As a joke, it's momentarily funny; as a fact of life, it is less so. For one thing, to clamp down on a child is to crush him, and even if he comes away looking unscathed, the bruises will show up sooner or later. Good intentions make no difference. Most teens I know, while receptive enough to the idea of boundaries, submit to them primarily to avoid the consequences. They resist the very thought that they are there because they need protection.

Ed, a guidance counselor I know, says that among the teens he has worked with, the one who slid farthest and fastest from their parents' values were the ones who were overprotected and never given the slightest chance to try out their wings:

"One young man, Nick, played along with his parents as long as he was in high school: he was a model kid - polite and kind. But you should have seen him once he left home - hard drinking, sex-crazed, and totally unable to control himself...

Another student, Cara, felt her parents didn't care about her as a person, but just how she reflected on them as parents. She kept her rebellion under wraps most of the time, but even then she seethed. She was convinced she'd never match her father's ideal of a "nice" girl, and the stricter they got with her, the more she lashed out at them. In the end, she ran off to relatives in California..."

Surely neither of these teenagers was any worse than their peers. But in both situations, because their parents denied them the opportunity to make mistakes, their most strenuous efforts to bring them up successfully ended miserably. In Nick's case, the pattern was classic: the carefully groomed child submitted as long as he had to, but once circumstances pulled him from the control of his parents, there was nothing they could do - and nothing he could, either, since he didn't have a leg to stand on. With Cara the problem was familiar too: in forgetting that their child was an individual in her own right, her parents seemed to act less out of genuine concern than possessiveness, and ended up having to battle with the justifiable protests of a daughter who refused to be owned.

But what is the alternative? According to my grandfather, freedom: "It is not the over-protection of anxious adults, but trust in a watchful care beyond our power that gives a child a sure instinct in dangerous situations. In freedom lies the best protection for a child."

Freedom, of course, does not mean license to do whatever one wants. The youthful desire for independence is natural enough, yet children must be taught that it always comes with corresponding responsibilities. To give even the most mature adolescent free rein is to ask for trouble. As the following anecdote from Jean, a neighbor, shows, it is also a disservice:

"I was raised in a very permissive home. This was intentional on my parents' part. They didn't agree with what they felt was repressive in the way my mother was brought up, and decided it would be quite different for their children.

My father wanted me to know that there is "no such thing as absolute truth," and he abhorred people who were so narrow-minded. Once he illustrated his point this way: If a new bridge is being built connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan, it's great for the people who drive over the bridge but terrible for those who have to give up their family homes to make it possible. Everything is relative, good for some people, bad for others...

The way it worked in my life was that I could do whatever I wanted to. My father said, "When you touch the stove, you find out what heat is. You will learn about life from your own experiences."

I wasn't expected to do anything around the house. My mother often complained about how messy my room was, but nothing was ever done to change it. I remember one time when I announced that I was leaving home and my father said, "OK, I'll help you pack."

I'm sure I did have some wonderful childhood experiences; it's just that the idea of childlike innocence wasn't regarded very highly in our home. Instead, my parents taught me about drinking - the different kinds of whisky and liquor, etc. - and how to smoke. We always had the latest copy of Playboy magazine in the bathroom. If I stayed out late or didn't want to come home at night, that was also okay...By the time I was a young adult I had experimented with just about everything that came my way."

While many teenagers might regard such a lenient setting as the ideal home, Jean says it wasn't. Already timid and painfully shy, the complete absence of limits or boundaries only heightened her feelings of insecurity and made her more unhappy and even depressed:

True joy was unknown to me. I was empty inside, and desperate to find something to hold on to... Now, as a mother of teenagers myself, I have great difficulty helping them. I don't want the same void for them. I feel their need of clear guidelines, yet I am often simply unable to provide them. I'm still searching for that bottom line or ground myself. It's like I am permanently on shifting sand.

Clearly, parenting is often somewhat of a balancing act, and it is as easy to err on the side of permissiveness as on the side of authoritarianism. Yet there is a third way, described by the father below, who has a definite sense of the goals he has set for his children yet is still open to growing with them and learning from them:

The older my children get, the more plainly I see the futility of merely trying to keep them on the "right" track, rather than guiding them in such a way that they can hone their own inner sense of direction. If I am always nudging them as soon as they stray the slightest bit, they will never know what it is to recognize their errors on their own...Of course, that always takes a lot of patience - not to mention trust in the power of their own consciences.

Speaking from my own experience as a teen, I do not know what I would have done without the trust my parents showed in me and my siblings, even though I know there were plenty of times when we frustrated or disappointed them. And rather than distancing themselves from us over those incidents or taking them personally, my parents used them as occasions for deepening our relationship as a family. My father used to tell us - and this has always stayed with me - "I would rather be betrayed a dozen times than live in mistrust." There is nothing that draws parent and child so close as such loyalty.

Obviously we must have confidence in our goals, quite apart from what our children think. We must know what we want and do not want for them. But it is one thing to be confident and another to be overbearing. Therefore it is vital, whenever things come to a head, not only to set things back on track, but also (once that has been done) to trust in the good intentions of our children, to forgive them, and to move on. Every one of us was a teenager once, and each of us has made poor choices or done things we regret - and just as often defended them. Why should we insist on holding our sons and daughters to a higher standard?

Perhaps too many of us react rather than respond to the challenges our children present us with. Jumping angrily into the fray on one occasion and turning a blind eye on the next, we sigh defensively about how times have changed. Blumhardt writes:

"Too many parents demand excessive submission from their adolescent children; they put pressure on them even in the most trifling matters and treat them as if they were still young. They are intolerant; they correct, punish, and find fault with everything...But there is never an atmosphere of friendliness. Such parents are constantly after their children and give them no independence. Is it any wonder that their children's greatest desire is to escape the house?"

In my experience, this problem is more common than one might think. It arises from the unhealthy emotionalism that is so often mistaken for love. Again and again I have seen how parents hang on to their adolescent children with possessive affection - that is, with hopes of being loved in return - and when their efforts are resisted or spurned, their feelings are hurt. The results are almost always disastrous. If only these parents were able to put themselves in their children's shoes, rather than complaining about how unreachable they are, they might find the perspective necessary for arriving at a common understanding. To quote my grandfather:

"Some children are brought up in an unbelievably free way and are, by my standards, awfully cheeky and naughty. But I think that too much freedom is better than the slavish fear that makes a child's parents the last ones he'll turn to...Happy those children who have a mother to whom they can pour out their hearts and always count on her understanding, and a father in whose strength and loyalty they are so confident that they seek his advice and help all their lives. Many people long to be such parents to their children, and could be, if only they possessed enough wisdom and love."

It is rare that a child cannot be reached at some level - if not by listening to him and trying to understand the reason for his silence, his rebellion, or his distress, then at least by acknowledging his hurt. Flat rules and prohibitions, of course, are seldom a help. Neither are long talks, probing questions, and attempts to make a child "open up." Respect, however, is always in order, because it almost always inspires respect in turn. Barbara, a British friend, remembers:

"One time when I was really down and tied up in knots, Dad took a day off from work and took me on a long walk through the woods, after which we had a late lunch at a country inn. He didn't try to make me talk and certainly did not attempt to give me any kind of advice. We just spent the day together. But I will never forget that day. It really made me feel special inside.

Some time later I went through a period of real depression, and he bought two tickets for a play at a London theater. It was just me and him...Looking back after all these years I'm sure he never really knew how or why I was hurting so much inside. I'm also sure that he never knew how much both gestures still mean to me."

For children and teens in general, this love is the greatest security we can provide. And as Barbara's recollection shows, it need not even be verbalized. When the chips are down, it is always our deeds, not our words, that prove how much another person means to us.

It is the same with respect to a child's future. As we have already seen, possessive attempts at controlling a child will always backfire, while the lack of any guidance at all may leave him feeling that neither his goals, nor he himself, really matter. But when a child feels that his future is important to us, not just because we are his parents, but because we care for him on his own terms, even the most difficult situation can be addressed. Love will always find a way.

At one level or another, every one of us wants our children to follow in our footsteps, at least as far as our basic values are concerned. When they lack direction, we feel the need to channel their energies toward a positive end; when they are confused or insecure, we want to offer guidance and support. When, as young adults, they finally cut the apron strings, we are tempted to tell them that they must simultaneously tie themselves to new obligations. All that is perfectly natural.

Yet if we love our children, we will never coerce them or make claims on them. We will see ourselves not as their owners or masters, but as their guardians. Finally, guided by the spirit of reverence that sees in each human being a unique creature that possesses his own innate worth, we will never forget that every child is (to borrow from my grandfather again) a "thought in the mind of God." And following that, we will always keep in mind the vital necessity of his finding the specific and personal meaning that life has for him, and him alone.

While such an understanding of children might seem conventional enough, it carries a deep responsibility. And this is especially true in our time, when for all the talk about the importance of the individual, the homogenization of the culture has leveled society as never before, and made us all far more similar than we might like to admit. Choose the circle you like: everyone is wearing the same clothes, eating at the same chains, reading the same books and magazines, watching the same shows, talking about the same celebrity scandals, the same disasters, the same political events. We have been made to feel we are our own masters, yet we cannot even think for ourselves. Foerster suggests why this is so:

"Without an ideal of personal character to fortify us, we fall prey only too easily to our social instincts; that is, to our fear of men, our ambition, our social desire to please, and all other herd instincts. Group life, the traffic of people, collective organization, and the strength and expression of public opinion, have become greater and greater, while the organization of the personal inner life has become weaker and weaker, and the true individual is smothered in the midst of all the individualism."

If we are truly committed to bringing up our children as individuals - to raising young women and men who have strength to defy the largest crowd - we will not only change the way we treat them but also start believing in them. Instead of worrying about whether they feel comfortable and well-adjusted or overburdened and stressed-out, we will rouse them to become more responsible, persevering, and selfless. Instead of just "being there" for them in a passive sort of way and hoping that, somewhere along the way, they'll grow up and "find themselves," we will stimulate them and set them challenges and goals.

Finally, even if we recognize that what our children do with their lives is their decision, we will love them enough to nudge them from the cozy nest we have feathered for them. In short, we will help them to see that there is more to life than finding a "good" job and leading the "good" life - and that true fulfillment is found only when we begin to look further than our own comfort.

Too many young people today are suffocating in bottomless heaps of material wealth, in boredom, in isolation, and in artificial environments that purport to give them happiness but deaden them by shielding them from the real world. And it is no wonder. Young people don't want comfort and security. They want self-sacrifice and risks. And when they don't want that, they at very least want to give. Dave, a friend and pastor in Littleton, Colorado, who regularly involves his youth group in volunteer activities, says:

"Kids are so hungry to contribute, to do something creative, to give...and once you can get them to start looking out for others, they survive. Service isn't comfort. But it gives you a purpose in life, and it forces you to stop thinking about yourself...

If you don't live for others, you end up being consumed with yourself. Once you start giving, though, your emotional needs will eventually take care of themselves."

As it is, children and young adults are often made to feel they have little or nothing to offer. Yet if we would give them sufficient opportunities, I am convinced that, like Dave, we would find out how much they yearn to do more than look out for their own skins. No matter the attitudes and concerns they exhibit on the surface, young adults everywhere long to contribute to their fellow human beings, to make a difference, and to change the world.

It is precisely these opportunities - the chances we offer our children to give of themselves and to grow beyond themselves - that will provide them with the knowledge that they do indeed have something to give, and that it is their duty to give it. And from this knowledge they will eventually gain the sense, as Frankl puts it, that the question they ought to be asking is not, "What is the meaning of my life?" but "What is life asking of me?" Frankl continues:

"It may also be put this way...Life is putting its problems to us, and it is up to us to respond to these questions by being responsible; we can only answer to life by answering for our life."

Raising children conscientiously, yet letting them go; protecting them, yet encouraging self-sacrifice; guiding them, yet preparing them to swim against the stream - all these paradoxical dimensions of parenting are touched on in the following story.

When Uwe Holmer was fourteen, in 1943, the patriotic teen was an energetic member of the local Hitler Youth. One day his mother found a copy of The Black Corps, the magazine of the SS, in his room. When Uwe came home, she took time to talk with him and begged him never to join the SS. "But, Mama, they are the toughest soldiers. They fight to the bitter end." "Yes," she answered, "and they are the ones who shoot prisoners and Jews. Is that the sort of organization you want to live and die for?" Uwe never forgot her question, or the look on her face.

A year later, as Germany grew desperate to hold off defeat, the army began accepting fifteen-year-olds for military service. All one hundred boys in Uwe's chapter of the Hitler Youth volunteered for the SS. Uwe refused. The leader of the group called him in and ordered him to join; his papers were filled out and ready to sign. Still Uwe refused. Next he was humiliated in front of the entire chapter, and all his privileges revoked, but he stood his ground. As he said later: "I am thankful to my mother...her courage in confronting me strengthened my conviction to live for what I knew was right."

After the war, in East Germany, Uwe married, became a pastor, and founded a Christian community for epileptics and mentally disabled adults. Over the years, the Holmers suffered repeated harassment on account of their pastoral activities, especially under the government of Erich Honecker. Yet after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, when Honecker fled office as one of Europe's most hated men, it was Uwe and his wife who took the ailing despot in - despite death threats and constant loud protests outside their house.

To me, the most striking thing about Uwe's story is its matter-of-factness. Yes, he had the guts to defy authority in a time and place where disobedience often cost a man his life. Years later, misunderstood and ridiculed, he withstood public opinion in defense of a broken fugitive who had nowhere to go. But Uwe's actions say as much about the power of his upbringing as they do about his heroism.

For whatever else a childhood is, one thing is constant: it is the hearth, the gathering place of life's first and most indelible memories - the unalterable frame for all the experiences that accompany us through life. And thus in the end, the task of bringing up our children is not only a question of effective parenting, and even less one of educational insights, theories, or ideals. Perhaps it is mostly a matter of the love we give them, and the memories engendered by that love, which has power to awaken the same even years down the road. As Dostoyevsky reminds us in the final pages of 'The Brothers Karamazov':

"You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about education. But some good, sacred memory preserved from childhood - that is perhaps the best education. For if a man has only one good memory left in his heart, even that may keep him from evil...And if he carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe for the end of his days."

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