Family and Sexual Identities
Scott and Jennifer were on their first date since meeting two weeks before when they arrived at college. Trying to make small talk to get acquainted, Scott asked, “Jennifer, where does your dad work?”
Hesitating a bit, Jennifer said, “Which one?” Her parents had divorced, and her mother had remarried.
A few minutes later Jennifer asked Scott, “Where do your parents live?”
“New York and Florida,” he replied. His parents had divorced and lived in different states. Questions about an adolescent’s family are no longer small talk. They often strike painfully at the teenager’s struggle with identity. Not only have we removed cultural and community identity, but we have also removed family identity.
Roots?
In the past, teenagers had strong family identities as well as cultural and community identities. In New Testament times the father’s name became a part of the son’s. “Then he brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas’ (which, when translated, is Peter)” (John 1:42). Even later, when Jesus knew him well, He still addressed him using a variation of his father’s name. “Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven’” (Matt. 16:17).
Sometimes we know the father’s name, but not the child’s. “Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and His disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is the son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging” (Mark 10:46). All we know about the identity of “Blind Bartimaeus” is that he was the son of a man named Timaeus.
The family identity was not limited to the immediate family, but tied in with the cultural and community identity. When Philip first told Nathanael about Jesus, he called Him, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Bartimaeus also tied these identities together. “When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (Mark 10:47) Jesus was from Nazareth, and He was the son of David.
We often skip rapidly over the genealogies in Scripture such as those found in Genesis 5, 10, and 11, Matthew 1, and Luke 3. We may think it odd that the book of Ruth ends with a genealogy. However, genealogies similar to these could be given by most Hebrews in Jesus’ day. They were a vital part of a person’s family identity.
Jews referred to themselves as children of their father Abraham (John 8:31-41). Their family identities were also tied in with their national and religious identities. God was not only an infinite, all-powerful being who had saved them, but He had also said, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (Acts 7:32). The Apostle Paul said, “I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom. 11:1). His family identity was tied into his national identity. Every Hebrew could tell you the tribe (family) from which he or she had descended.
Today, with our emphasis on individuality and making it on our own, we look at these family identities as being rather odd. Even the nineteenth-century feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys in our own country seems rather quaint. We cannot imagine doing something, especially hurting someone, just because they have a particular last name. Most adolescents receive little family identity and know little about their families before their grandparents or great- grandparents. Let us consider some of the factors which have led to this loss of family identity.
Divorce is common and many adolescents do not even want to claim one side of their families. At the turn of the century there was one divorce for every thirteen marriages. Although the marriage rate stayed about the same, divorce increased so that by the mid 1970s there was one divorce for every two marriages. In earlier times even when there was discord, parents often waited until their children left home to divorce, if they divorced at all. That may have done other damage to teenagers, but at least they had a better chance to develop family identities.
Today’s typical divorce leaves the mother with the children, and she usually remarries. This further adds to the identity problems of adolescents because then they are not even sure of their names. Their last names become different from those of their parents (mother and stepfather). Having the stepfather legally adopt them is of little help in achieving a family identity, because then they have to change even their name, their whole identity. I know of several homes where the children have three different last names and are struggling with their identities.
During the last few years more women have been keeping their maiden names when they marry. Their children have to struggle with their family name when they become adolescents because our society does not tell them which name to use. As more unmarried couples live together and have children, their adolescents face the same problem, lack of a family name.
As illegitimacy rises, more adolescents face identity problems. More unmarried women are becoming pregnant, and more of them are refusing to marry the father of the child. By 1983 one child in five born in the United States had no legal father. In some large cities more than half the children born have none. We refer to these as “illegitimate children.” but it is really the parents who are illegitimate. Illegitimate literally means “not lawful,” and it is the parents who are not legally married. When these children become adolescents, they face identity problems.
Today about one person in five under eighteen years of age lives in a single-parent home at any one time. That may seem like a small percentage, but we are talking about nearly thirteen million people who are struggling with an added problem in their search for identity. In fact, before they leave home, about three out of five will live for a while in a single-parent home. Adolescents who had their cultural identity removed with the invention of adolescence and their community identity removed with the move to the cities are now having their family identities removed with the breakdown of the family.
Some teens try to find family identity by creating it themselves. Some, dissatisfied with their own families, marry to become someone’s husband or wife. They marry to escape, but usually end up creating a new family much like the one they left. Others have a baby to answer their identity problem. They become somebody’s mother. Of course, these are not adequate solutions.
What Is a Woman? A Man?
At one time men and women were culturally distinctly different. The Apostle Paul said, “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For long hair is given to her as a covering” (1 Cor. 11: 14-15). Although we may argue that these differences are not instinctive, at least hair length once served as an indicator of sexual identity.
Paul insisted on men and women dressing differently for worship. “Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved” (1 Cor. 11:4-5). Men and women dressed differently as well as cut their hair differently.
Such distinctions have gradually disappeared. In most races after puberty hair grows on men’s faces, but not on women’s. Beards distinguish men from boys—and men from women. In our culture, men usually shave off their beards, making them look more like women. Of course, a beard itself does not make a person a man, but it is one natural way men are different from women.
Men and women in our socie1y used to dress differently. Today most adolescents dress alike. Both male and female teenagers wear blue jeans, a shirt, and tennis shoes. Teachers may have difficulty telling whether students are men or women. I know a sixth grade teacher who has finally found a good method for making that distinction at school during those first few days before he learns who is who. He watches which rest room they use!
In high school women were once expected to take home economics and think about becoming homemakers, nurses, or teachers. Men took shop and thought about becoming truck drivers, coal miners, and business executives. Today a woman who chooses to be a homemaker may be criticized by other women for settling for tradition. Men are told to consider being nurses, telephone operators, and, househusbands (while their wives work outside the home).
By the mid 1970s, we were told that androgyny was best. That is, an individual was to have both masculine (andro) and feminine (gyn) qualities. Psychologist Sandra Bem concluded that the androgynous were healthiest psychologically, and the others had problems. The ones with the worst problems were the feminine females.
After removing the adolescents’ cultural, community, family, and sexual identities, our culture tells them, “Be yourselves.” Or it says, “Do your own thing.” Unfortunately, adolescents do not know who they are or what “their thing” is. They are confused and have little identity.
I Won’t!
Some teens try to find their identities by doing the opposite of what their parents and others in authority want them to do. This rejection of authority becomes a new, negative identity.
If parents ask adolescents to wear their hair short, they wear it long. If parents favor long hair, adolescents cut it short. They become atheists, agnostics, or members of another religion if their parents want them to be Christians. They become Methodists if the parents are Baptists, or Baptists if the parents are Methodists. Young men grow beards when parents want them to shave, and shave when parents want them to grow beards.
If the school administration has a dress code, these adolescents want to wear something else. If there is no dress code, they all dress alike. Blue jeans have almost become a high school uniform, but if the administration said that all students had to wear denim, those adolescents with a negative identity would insist on wearing something else. Since teachers want them to study, they refuse to do it, even if the material interests them.
In the late 1960s the college where I was teaching passed a rule that students could not wear blue jeans in the dining room. Anyone who came to the door in them would not be admitted, but would have to eat a sack lunch outside. Students suddenly started showing up at the dining hall in blue jeans and sat around the door singing “We Shall Overcome” and other freedom songs. That it was a negative identity for some was evident from the fact that they had to buy blue jeans to wear because they did not have any when the rule was passed.
The problem with a negative identity, like that with conformity, is that it is not a lasting identity. This identity also comes only from others. When adolescents leave home and school, they have no identity. Though they would not admit it, their identity has come from parents and school administrators.
Furthermore, a negative identity simply does not work in adult life. If an employer requires employees to wear suits or dresses and the employees insist on blue jeans, they lose their jobs. Adolescents can use a negative identity because we do not expect them to act like adults. They do not have to worry about losing their jobs or being arrested. They do not have to work, and juvenile courts take care of them if they become delinquent. Other adults cannot live in our society using only a negative identity.
I Will!
Other teens try to find their identities by doing the opposite, by being very obedient to authorities. They try to please the authority and will do almost anything. They may obey their parents, their teachers—or their gang leaders. They may worship, study, or steal, each because they are obeying some authority.
Although we may not think of adolescents as obedient, the fact is that many of them, like other adults, are very obedient to authority. Psychologist Stanley Milgram did a long series of experiments in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the studies, college students were asked to help “conduct experiments” on the effect of punishment on learning. When the “learner” made an error, the student was to give him an electric shock. The shocks grew stronger each time the learner erred.
The apparatus showed the shocks as becoming more and more dangerous. The “learner” never actually received any shocks, but acted as if they were becoming more and more painful. The object of the experiments was to see how far the student would go in obeying the experimenter, even when the learner was screaming in pain (Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority, Harper & Row).
He found that about three out of five college students would obey the experimenter to the end, even when they thought that they were really hurting someone else. Notice that he did his experiments during the days when college students were anything but docile. At that time in our history they were rioting on college campuses, and people thought they were very disobedient.
Two other psychologists asked students (one at a time) at Princeton Theological Seminary to give a speech about the Good Samaritan. Some were told that they were early for their talk. Others were told they were late, so they would have to hurry. As students entered the building where they were to give the speech, they found someone slumped in the doorway asking for help. About two-thirds of those who were early stopped to help, but only one in ten who was late stopped. In their obedience to the experimenter, those seminary students literally stepped over someone in need while on their way to talk about the Good Samaritan (John Darley and Daniel Batson, “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 27, pp. 100-108).
The problem with obedience, like that of conformity and negative identity, is that it is no identity at all. Identity comes from others because all the adolescent is doing is what those others say. Obedience is usually more socially acceptable than conformity or a negative identity. In fact, obedience will allow even adults to get along in society, but it does not bring satisfaction. Such obedient people are frustrated because they cannot please everyone all the time.
What Can Parents Do?
Just as you can take steps to give your teenagers a community identity and take advantage of pressures toward conformity, so you can do something about family and sexual identities.
Develop a family identity. If anyone is going to give adolescents a strong sense of family identity, it will have to be you as parents. However, you first need to be sure of your own sense of family identity. You cannot give your teenagers an identity you do not have. The most important things you can do are to maintain a strong marriage and to show your adolescents where they fit into your immediate family.
As parents you have the responsibility for family stability. Strong marriages take effort on the part of both husband and wife. Separation and divorce can be avoided only if both really work to make the marriage succeed. Arguing brings fear to adolescents, even in strong families. They see their friends’ parents divorcing and think that is what is going to happen in their own families. This does not mean that parents can never disagree, but when they do, it must always be clear to the teenager that divorce is not even an option.
Although the situation is not ideal, single parents can do much to give their adolescents family identities. Divorce and remarriage make the problem more difficult, but they do not make identity impossible. The following suggestions can be used by single parents as well as by two-parent families.
If you do not already know your roots, trace your family tree. The records in your county courthouse may yield many surprises. Find the origin of your family name. Ask grandparents and great-grandparents to remember everything they can about the family history and write it down. It will be valuable to pass on to your grandchildren in a few years.
Get together with living relatives. If possible see that your adolescents spend time with their grandparents and great-grandparents. If they are far away, have them write or phone. Attend family reunions. I remember many annual picnic reunions under the trees on July 4 with scores of aunts, uncles, and cousins I hardly knew. If you have given family names as middle names or as first names, make sure your teens realize it. Point out characteristics of their grandparents, aunts, and uncles in your adolescents. Help them see that they are part of a larger family.
Pass on family traditions, or begin them if the family has few. Family devotions, holiday activities, vacations, and annual weekends are all examples of family activities that become traditions. Reading the Christmas story from the Bible is a tradition in many homes. Hand down family heirlooms. I slept in the same crib as my father, then a few years ago our infants slept in it, and we hope our grandchildren will do the same. Teenagers should see their names appearing in a family Bible handed down from generation to generation to give them a sense of where they belong in the family. If one was not given to you, start one. Take a family picture every year. Since I have moved from my childhood home, last summer we took our teens back to visit places important to me as I grew up.
Take time to be a family. You cannot develop a family identity if you are never together. Norton and Celeste both went to work every day, and in the evening they were too tired to spend time doing things with their children and adolescents. They finally decided that Saturday was to be their family day and refused all other Saturday activities for several years.
Doug and Gail were so involved in church and community activities that they were building no family identity. Although their friends were quite critical, they resigned from several organizations and committees to spend time with their families. We often hear that the quantity of time is not important, but the quality is. Both are important—no one can build a strong family identity on only ten minutes a day together.
Parents can also give adolescents a real role in the family. Teenagers were expected to work as a part of the family before adolescence was invented. They still need to wash, cook, clean, rake, mow, weed, and do any other necessary tasks at home. Too often they feel unneeded at home, not really part of the family. Rather than being boarders or guests, they should participation as members of the family group. Family meetings with everyone participating, one meal a day with every member of the family present, and everyone going to concerts or plays in which a member of the family is involved are good. Family nights once a week are effective too. However, these activities become more difficult as adolescents grow older.
Develop a sexual identity. To help your teens develop sexual identities, the first thing you need is to be sure of your own sexuality. You cannot help your teens define their sexual identity if you are not confident of your own. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27). Your very sexuality is part of the image of God in you. Although our society today wants to make men and women the same, they are different. From birth boys and girls have differences in their brains, their activity levels, and so forth. As we saw in chapter 1, men reach puberty later than women.
The Bible talks about being fathers and mothers, another part of our sexual identity. Of course, as you read these passages, you must remember that the Bible is talking about being mothers and fathers to children, not adolescents (Eph. 6:1-4; Deut. 6). People in Bible times treated their teenagers as adults, and I believe we should too. Of course, we do need to be fathers and mothers to children in the home, and make a distinction in our behavior toward children and adolescents.
The Bible also talks about being husbands and wives, another aspect of our sexual identity. Parents need to be role models for their adolescents this way too. The New Testament gives clear instructions from husbands, wives, and children. Husbands and wives need to read these, considering entire passages, not just looking at isolated verses.
Ralph had always quoted Ephesians 5:22 to Crystal, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” While in a Bible study on Ephesians, he outlined the whole book He outlined the end of chapter 5 and beginning of chapter 6 as follows:
I. Submit to one another (5:21-6:9)
A. How wives submit (5:22-24)
B. How husbands submit (5:25-33)
C. How children submit (6:1-3)
D. How fathers submit (6:4)
E. How slaves submit (6:5-8)
F. How masters submit (6:9)
Then he compared the passage with 1 Peter 3:1-7. Finally, he made practical application to his own life. He realized that as a husband and father he had fallen short, and he began to live his life the way Peter and Paul suggested. Even his teenagers noticed the change in his life.
Compliment adolescents on being “young men” and “young women.” Even if you wanted a child of the opposite sex, do not try to remake the one you have. Attend father-son and mother-daughter events. Discuss television shows, especially the situation comedies that give a false impression of our sexual identities. Many current television shows portray parents as fools, markedly different from the days of “Father Knows Best.” Do not make sarcastic remarks or jokes putting down the opposite sex. Popular “women driver” jokes and “mother-in-law” jokes usually do that.
Warn your teenagers about their tendency to develop a negative identity and their tendency to obey. Simply being aware of these tendencies can help all of us avoid them. Encourage your teens to think things through, rather than simply obeying or refusing to obey. Remind them that they have a new capacity for thinking and help them use it.
Let us not simply turn our adolescents loose in a world that gives them little identity. As parents, we can at least give them a family identity and a sexual identity, along with their community identity. This identity came easily and naturally in normal life before the creation of adolescence. Today we have to consciously work at developing it.
2005 Update
Some of the statistics cited in this chapter are obviously dated, and one has changed. I mentioned that by 1983 one child in five born in the United States had no legal father. Fortunately today anyone with Internet access can find the most up-to-date statistics available there. The best source of such statistics is the Statistical Abstract of the United States published annually by the U. S. Census Bureau and available free at www.census.gov/statab/www. The 2004-2005 edition currently available shows that by 1990 more than one child in four born in the United States had no legal father, and by 2001 more than one child in three had no legal father. To be exact, 33.0% of the children born in 1999 were to unmarried women, 33.2 % born in 2000 were to unmarried women, 33.5% born in 2001 were to unmarried women, and 34.0% born in 2002 were to unmarried women. This continuing trend means that today’s adolescents are even less likely to have a family identity than those born 20 years ago.
Other statistics are dated, but the current ones have not changed. I mentioned that by the 1970s there was one divorce for every two marriages, and this has not changed in the last 30 years. The data from the Statistical Abstract of the United States shows that in 1990 it was one divorce for every 2.06 marriages in 1990, and it was one for every 2.00 marriages in 2000. That factor relating to family identity is about the same as it was 30 years ago.