May 18, 2003: Enabler Parents

Columnist John Kass ("Teen stupidity brings a lesson never forgotten" - Chicago Tribune, May 16) talks about the time in high school when he bought liquor with a fake I.D. and sped off with friends to smoke pot, drink and party. The police caught him and Kass's parents had to go bail him out.

Kass's father did not speak to him for weeks. Finally when Kass begged his dad to talk, he said, "You bought whiskey. You had pot. You want to talk?"

"Yes."

"OK. First, do something for me."

"What?"

"Take this glass."

Kass took the glass from his father.

"Now smash it to pieces. Then put it back together, all the pieces together, so it looks brand-new, so it was never broken. Then you talk to me, OK?" And he walked off.

The next day he approached his son, and at long last they talked “about deceit, about consequence, obligation and shame. About drugs and alcohol, and how they rob you of control." When they were done, Kass's father said, "I love you, boy." Kass said, "I know. I love you, Dad." The shattered glass of broken trust was restored, but "slowly, piece by piece, not by talking but by doing."

Kass contrasted his father with the Northbrook enablers who are busy filing lawsuits to overturn the suspensions from school their daughters received for a liquor-fueled hazing incident. Some of these parents are using every resource available to try to shield their daughters from the consequences of wickedness. Apparently an effort is even being made to host an “alternate prom” so that the little malefactors, barred from their school prom, can still party in style. Makes me sick.

These Northbrook parents do not love their daughters. Kass's dad, however - silent, angry, full of stern wrath - knew how to love his son. The Bible explains the difference in Proverbs 13:24: "He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him."

A pastor friend of mine said that when he was involved in student ministry at the University of Illinois, he noticed a recurring theme among students who had kept their virginity and sober lifestyles in the midst of an atmosphere hostile to Christian virtue. When he asked what motivated them, they tended to say things like, "How could I disappoint my parents like that?" or "My dad would kill me!" Those are good answers. If my sons are ever tempted to vice when their will is weak and their faith is foggy, I want this one thought to sound a siren-wail in their heads: "What would Dad think of me if I did that?"