It seems so condescending to me (and always has) that teenage problems and teenage issues are often considered to be "childish" or "minor" within the Christian community. It almost seems like conservative Christians aren't willing to face the fact that while they see teenagers as "kids," teenagers see themselves (and rightly so, I think) as budding adults, with very adult issues.

For example, take the PSA I heard on the one Christian radio station in Fort Worth I will still listen to (89.7 on the FM dial :)). The first thing this PSA mentioned (as if it were a conclusive statement) was that, according to a "recent study," 60% of cases involving teenage depression and suicide are related to "drugs and promiscuous sex" (I believe I quoted their words exactly).

First of all . . . they never bothered to mention the exact study itself (and I was listening for that), so I don't know if it was conducted by a reputable research team, or if it was conducted by some conservative thinktank with its own agenda and point of view.

Second of all . . . anyone who is (or remembers being) a teenager knows, intimately, that teen depression and suicidal tendencies are more likely to cause hyperactive sexual activity and drug abuse than they are to be a side-effect or by-product. I think of many teenagers I knew (and have known) who without the aid of escapes like narcotics or random hook-ups would either have gone insane from the emotional turmoil inside them or commited suicide.

Adolescence is a horrifying time of life for everyone who goes through it. It involves massive physical and psychological changes, and it involves massive shifts in social alignments as a result of those changes. The human body, to say nothing of the human soul, can only take so much without reacting in some way to these pressures--in many cases, this involves depression and thoughts of suicide. (To some extent, I think these feelings are a normal and healthy reaction of the body and soul to a degree of rapid physical, emotional, and social change they have not been prepared to handle.)

These are not "kid" issues--they are very adult issues. Sexuality is an adult issue. Physical change is an adult issue. Social relations are adult issues.

So why are teenagers treated so often like kids in Christian media? Why is it that conservative Christians are not willing (or often do not seem willing) to talk about these issues in a meaningful, adult manner, and recognize that "little Johnny and Sue" aren't so little anymore?

Why is it that when I hear PSA's aimed at "youth" (God help us all), I almost always hear an injunction not to do something--or a corrective statement (like the kind one would expect to be given to children)?

In my opinion, teenagers go through way too much--emotionally, spiritually, and physically--to be given short shrift, or to be dismissed as "whiny little kids". Let's be honest, ladies and gentlemen--if you suddenly started going through changes in your voice and your body, and you suddenly found yourself being constantly evaluated (and sometimes dismissed) by former friends on the basis of your appearance, and you had (along with all of these things) become overwhelmed with an array of powerful emotional and sexual drives you were unprepared for . . . you probably wouldn't be the easiest person to get along with either, would you?

And this assumes that you come from a functional, caring family environment . . . which, sadly, is not the case for a lot of teens in our society. Teens who were abused as children, teens from broken homes, teens whose parents couldn't give a damn if they lived or died . . . this is a phenomenon I became painfully familiar with growing up (to the point that I was almost ashamed to have come from such a stable home environment), and it is a phenomenon which, as evidenced in the college papers I have read, is a common undercurrent of heartache within our culture.

Just once, instead of talking about the Bible and how cool God is, I would love to see a church youth group talk about real things--like the hell of watching your parents divorce, or the emotional pain that colors a lot of teen relationships, or suicidal tendencies.

Hell, for a lot of youth groups, even talking about sex would be a start.:)

I remember (quite painfully, in fact) a lot of my church youth group experiences.

We had several youth group members who were sexually active, several who endured difficult family situations (one was adopted), and several who were engaged in one form of self-hatred or another--and all of us, without exception, were engaged in a desperate struggle to figure out who we were.

Our best, most meaningful conversations, occurred when the youth group sponsors were gone (or out of hearing range). They wanted us to talk about God and about missions, but we wanted to talk about the hell we were undergoing and the very deep (and very real) issues we were dealing with.

I remember in particular a missions/service trip to Mississippi, during which all of us (including myself) broke the rules of traditional Christian etiquette--it has always been one of my most treasured memories, in fact. We slept in large rooms, without our sponsors there, and we talked about life and about the issues we were dealing with, and it was the first time I really felt connected to a meaningful group of fellow adolescents who cared about me.

However, it was followed up by a lecture from the group sponsors on how we weren't "setting a good example" as Christians--because we cussed, because we talked and joked about sex, and because we [insert your favorite Christian conversational sin here].

We didn't listen. (We never did.)

We kept doing what we were doing--and they tried to impose controls on us . . . which only forced us to rebel even further from an establishment we saw as uncaring, unfair, and ridiculously authoritarian.

Their God--and their beliefs--became a joke to us.

And I suspect this is something that happens quite frequently in church youth groups.

I wish they would have listened--I wish they all would listen. Because as far as I'm concerned, the conversations adolescents want to have (then and now) are much more interesting.