After writing an essay about research indicating that childless people are happier than parents, I began to ponder the modern celebration of endless adolescence. There are websites devoted to deliberate childlessness, for example, as well as organizations that affirm intentional singlehood (and not in the monastic sense, for which, at least, there is some precedent in the early Church). There are websites for adult video gamers, for crying out loud, and of course every professional and college sports team has at least one website haunted by fanatics.

Some time ago I saw survey evidence regarding the milestones of adulthood, which researchers defined as: 1) leaving home, 2) finishing one’s schooling, 3) getting a job, 4) getting married, and 5) having children. Whereas in 1960, 65 percent of American males had passed these milestones by age 30, in 2000 only 31 percent had done so. The data for females was little different. Here we have an immediate casualty of America’s burgeoning inability to grow up — the fact that we have to use the clinical terms “male” and “female” more frequently, because “man” and “woman” must be applied with greater selectivity.

We are, it seems, a nation in regression. At least in the past we might have had the cold comfort of shame, but now it seems that the new mood is to proclaim childishness as a virtue. In general, however, I side with the writer at Happily Childfree, who proclaims: “If you don’t want those kids, it’s better to not have them.” I certainly don’t want to persuade any of that organization’s adherents to change their minds; we have enough self-centered people raising children already.

I have a friend in the Orthodox Church who tells me that the Church will not marry couples who express the desire to remain childless. The communion that yields life is so central to the Christian’s journey to godliness, in other words, that those who are unwilling to commit themselves to striving for it are judged unfit for marriage. It’s an idea that’s old-fashioned and revolutionary at the same time, and I think I like it.

At the core of this embrace of the Culture of Me, as I’ve written elsewhere, is the mistaken notion that individual happiness is the heart of human purpose. Hence the gleeful trotting out of research purporting to show that childless people are happier, or that marriage yields no real gain in happiness. These claims may well be true, but the people who bandy them about fail to discern that happiness is transient and shallow, whereas joy is deep and abiding. Joy is won — and here is the real bummer, for the permanent adolescent — by walking a path of suffering. This is why some people nod when they hear C.S. Lewis’s notion that the Christian life is sorrowful joy and joyful sorrow, while others shake their heads in puzzlement.

Something unusual happened to me this past weekend.  When my wife and I were about to leave the house for dinner on Friday night, the babysitter explained that she had no cell phone.  Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles.  A teenager with no cell phone.  I wanted to hug her, and her parents.  They had managed to stem the technological tide in their home.  The girl looked normal.  She’d never been beaten or abused for not having a cell phone.  She was well socialized and kind and even said Yes, sir and No, sir and Please and Thank you.  That got my wife and me talking about cell phones, and when kids should have them, and why.  I am no technoclast, wanting to flush anything invented in the last ten years.  I am also no technophile, willing to stand in line for it.  So I want to know, when will let our daughter have a phone?  Warren Buckleitner has some thoughts on the issue, but I’m not sure I like all of them.

I think the bigger question is, When will I flush my phone?  I will, one day.  Before I retire, too.  I will do it. 

The modern economy is a gelatinous, fluid beast, and it places families in unconventional situations.  I am not sure how things were in the 5^th century BC, or in 5^th century AD, or even in the 15^th century AD, but in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the agricultural economy meant that a lot of people worked at home, which is to say on the farm.  Men worked all day, women worked all day, and somehow, the kids got mostly fed and mostly educated and became mostly adults.  But now, in the last fifty years or more, the economy demands people work elsewhere.  Men work in an office, and now a lot of women work in an office, and that means somebody’s got to do something about the kids.  It’s not an easy situation.  Sometimes, the kids go to daycare.  Sometimes, the dads and moms decide that the moms will stay home and tend to the kids until school begins.  Sometimes the moms stay home and do school, too.  Sometimes they decide the impossible: that they will both work outside the home and both stay at home.  That’s what Marc and Amy Vachon decided:

After Maia was born, they negotiated part-time schedules, which turned out to be the easy part. Amy worked four days a week, Monday through Thursday; Marc worked three 10-hour days, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

The division of work led naturally to the division of child care. On the days he went to the office, Marc would leave early and bike to work (having only one car, despite two commutes, is one way they are able to afford life on two part-time salaries), while Amy did the entire morning child routine. On Monday and Wednesday, when she worked too, she would take Maia to family day care across the street from their house. On Friday, she and Maia would spend the day together. On Tuesday and Thursday, Amy would sleep a little later and leave Maia in Marc’s care. If Maia got sick on a Monday, they agreed in advance that Marc would take off from work, and Amy would do the same if the sick day was a Wednesday. It was a schedule that continued after Theo was born three years later.

Whew.  I’m exhausted.  The economic concept of the “division of labor” doesn’t mean that everybody divides everything equally.  It means they divide things equitably.  Which is to say that economic creators (e.g., individuals, nations, etc.) specialize in something they do well.  Same goes for the home, I always thought.  But, more power to parents who bypass healthy equity for radical equality.  I couldn’t imagine a worse situation in my home.  But still interesting to see others try it.

I recently heard NPR’s Wade Goodwyn interview Jackie Carter, director of the High Sky Children’s Ranch in Midland, Texas. Her facility served as a two-month foster home to 15 girls taken from families living on the Yearning for Zion ranch in Eldorado, Texas. The latter ranch, you might recall, was raided by Texas authorities after a report of child abuse. Its rulers, adherents to a fundamentalist strain of Mormonism, practice polygamy, and help themselves to girls under the age of 16 as part of the package.

I’m immediately skeptical of any religious deviation which consists of the physical gratification of the men running it. I’m fairly certain these cults whose members kill themselves must have gotten sidetracked in the Bible somewhere around Genesis 1:1, but at least they were earnestly misguided. When a religious leader announces that his interpretation of the Bible requires that he have carnal knowledge of numerous young women, I can’t help but roll my eyes.

While much media attention has focused on the men running this racket, and on the Texas state bureaucrats who increasingly look like incompetent thugs, the aforementioned NPR interview focused on what these girls removed from the Mormon compound were like. The reporter seemed intent on eliciting proof from High Sky director Collins that the girls were backward and ill-educated, but she wouldn’t take the bait. On the contrary, she explained, they were very well-behaved, and highly skilled at cooking and sewing. A state education specialist found them to be well-educated. They don’t watch television, however, Collins explained.

The NPR reporter saw his opening, and began pushing the line that these girls were technologically backward. You could almost read his thoughts: I can tolerate the long dresses and the polygamy stuff, but what kind of freaks don’t watch television? The irony of an NPR radio reporter finding lack of television an oddity was certainly rich. But even this angle didn’t pay off, because the home director explained that each girl has her own Ipod. So much for technological backwardness.

There is the bigger picture, of course, that these girls are being trained to place their faith in a cult. But I couldn’t help but wondering, what sort of impression would a sampling of children from my church, or your church, leave on outsiders? Would they be remembered for their gentle spirits, their literacy, and their various skills, as the home director remembered these girls?

It certainly gives one pause. Of course this needn’t be a thought experiment, because the world does see our children, every day, in schools and stores and on ball fields. I hope we’re leaving a good impression. Or if not that, I hope at the very least we aren’t leaving an impression that makes them think: Whatever church that kid goes to, I don’t want any part of it.

I recently reviewed Hara Estroff Marano’s book, A Nation of Wimps, for The Wall Street Journal. In it, Marano argues that much of the self-destruction we see among teens and twenty-somethings can be attributed to “overparenting,” an obsessive desire to insulate children from negative consequences. The perverse result, Marano says, is that children end up brittle and burdened with anxiety and fear.

There’s something to be said for that argument, but as I read the book, I found myself wondering whether a decline in substantive faith might also have something to do with statistics on teen and twenty-something drinking and drug use, suicide, depression, and hyper-sexualization. I read somewhere that the average American man spends more time watching television than talking, in a meaningful way, to his own children. And more and more, a father isn’t even in the home. When we kick these two supports out from under a child — meaningful relationships with God and father — perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that guidance counselors and after-school programs can’t close the frightfully dark gap.

It’s a gap that looms in the hearts of too many children, and it rends our social fabric as well. We are increasingly two nations, and the significant divide isn’t one of race, or income, but something more essential and less remediable: the heart. We have dwelling among us, on every street, in every school and workplace, a nation of the broken-hearted, of young people who don’t really know, in the deepest part of themselves, that they are loved by a father in heaven or on the earth.

And who is going to set it to rights? Presidential candidates? Public schools? Writers like Marano, who dare not mention the word faith?

How are we going to reach these young people, and stop the next generation of them from being similarly wounded? I wonder what would happen if every church in America took a day to pray, and plan, and then act to close this gap. Some probably wouldn’t change much at all, because they are already devoting significant resources and time to this fight. Others would likely need to transform themselves. But this is the fight, I think — not gas prices or federal tax rates or any of the other things politicians find it easier to talk about than the reality that we are increasingly betraying our own children.

Gone are the days when parent/teen disagreements simply lead to pouting. These days, conflict often ends in murder. I would not dare offer conjecture about the recent killings of parents by upset teens, but we need to seriously discuss the way we teach conflict management. What has been most surprising to those of us who research youth culture is that these kids do not fit the expected profile: These parental murderers are middle-class, suburban “good kids” with good grades.

Last week, Lewin Carlton Powell III, 16, was arrested and charged as an adult first-degree murder with killing Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell, 39, the boy’s mother. Powell III was “straight-forward” with police about killing his mother and, later the next morning, trying to kill his father, Lewin Powell, a police source told the Baltimore Examiner. “He was matter-of-fact” about the killing.

Powell, an honors student at McDonogh School, had argued with his mother about slipping grades, the source said. According to the Examiner the teen hid his mother’s body in the garage. Powell’s father came home from work around midnight and fell asleep on the couch. The next morning the father awoke when his son began beating him with the same bat used to kill his mother. “Thank God you’re here,” the elder Powell told police, according to the Examiner. “My son killed my wife.”

Last February, in the Baltimore area, Nicholas W. Browning, a 16-year-old sophomore, was indicted on murder and handgun charges in the deaths of his parents, John W. Browning and Tamara Browning, and younger brothers 14-year-old Gregory and 11-year-old Benjamin. All four were shot as they slept in their Cockeysville, MD home. Browning, in a dispute with his parents, murdered his entire family and then “hung out” with friends the next day, as if nothing happened.

One wonders what makes teenage boys snap like this in the first place. Does this represent the kind of demon possession that the Bible talks about? Is it simply sin? Or is something else more evil going on? Are there sociological factors, etc.?

The thing about handling story time at church is that you have to establish a credible threat of violence. Those five year-olds may not be able to tie their shoes, but they can spot a pacifist a mile out. Since we’re mostly not allowed to spank other people’s children any more — and often not even our own — you have to be a good bluffer to manage a roomful of unruly children.

Or you can just go ahead and do what my wife did the last time we had story time duty, and swat the behind of the first child to test you. I’ve heard it said that nothing gets the attention of adults like the sound of a pump-action shotgun being chambered. I don’t know if that’s true, but I am fairly certain that nothing gets the attention of a group of youngsters — many of whom are with you because their parents can’t make them behave in church, or anywhere else, for that matter — like the sound of a firm hand slapping a fanny. With two swats my wife adjusted one attitude quite nicely, and served notice to several other hellions that there was a whole pile more where that came from.

And suddenly, there was peace. The newly disciplined child, who doesn’t see much order elsewhere, became my wife’s shadow and new best friend. The usual slappers and toy-stealers decided to keep their hands to themselves. And the sweet children got to play without fear of thuggery. There was a new sheriff in town, and her name was Mrs. Woodlief.

I was, meanwhile, Barney Fife: big talker, comic relief, and generally harmless. But it didn’t matter, because we all knew who the quick draw in the room was.

Some people claim they can do without spanking, and seem to raise their single mild-mannered child fairly well with time-outs. Others beat their children at odd intervals, and call that spanking, and wonder why it doesn’t work. Many spank appropriately, and some have managed to get by with virtually no spankings, often because they were so consistent in the early years. Consistency and appropriateness seem to be key: when those elements are in place in whatever form of discipline a parent chooses, I’m struck by how much happier children are.

I had a guitar teacher many years ago, who was the mother of a toddler. She told me one day that she had been raised by strict parents, and that she wasn’t going to give her child a lot of rules and discipline. She wanted him to be a free spirit. I can only imagine how miserable that boy must have been, never certain of boundaries, and therefore never feeling safe, or certain that there is right and wrong. His mother at least had the consistency part right — she fashioned an artificial world for her child in which sin consistently was without consequences. I wonder how he is finding the real world these days.

It’s hard work, being consistent. I fail at it often enough, especially with four boys, each of whom has his own way of testing the edges. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves about who we’re really going easy on, when we choose to let a lie or disrespect or laziness slide. When we spoil our children in those ways (which is an apt way of phrasing the matter, when you think about it), we are choosing our immediate comfort over their long-term well-being. We are loving ourselves more than them.

And it shows. He who spares the rod, after all, hates his child. So I say, to parents of unruly children: love your children more often. Or bring them to story time, and we’ll love them for you.

Harlan Coben, novelist and sometimes op-ed writer, says he thinks parents should be spying on their children.  Well, kind of.  He says he used to cringe when he’d hear parents talk about using spyware to see what their children were doing on the internet.  Now, after researching the matter, he says he’s all for it. 

One of the most popular arguments against spyware is the claim that you are reading your teenager’s every thought, that in today’s world, a computer is the little key-locked diary of the past. But posting thoughts on the Internet isn’t the same thing as hiding them under your mattress. Maybe you should buy your children one of those little key-locked diaries so that they too can understand the difference.

Coben reminds us that we’re using spyware to take care of them, to protect them.  And he reminds us that protecting children is the crux of a parent’s job.

Parenting has never been for the faint of heart. One friend of mine, using spyware to monitor his college-bound, straight-A daughter, found out that not only was she using drugs but she was sleeping with her dealer. He wisely took a deep breath before confronting her. Then he decided to come clean, to let her know how he had found out, to speak with her about the dangers inherent in her behavior. He’d had these conversations before, of course, but this time he had context. She listened. There was no anger. Things seem better now.

Our knee-jerk reaction as freedom-loving Americans is to be suspicious of anything that hints at invasion of privacy. That’s a good and noble thing. But it’s not an absolute, particularly in the face of the new and evolving challenges presented by the Internet. And particularly when it comes to our children.

So, what do you think?  Does it breed suspicion and distrust to use spyware on your kids, or is it just another way of protecting them, or both, or something else?

I have several friends who are in the midst of trying to discern what they should do for a living next. They are all successful, and many have been on the corporate treadmill. Each is capable of running faster on that treadmill, and earning high six or even seven figures. Yet each has chosen to step off.

I believe God is calling, as He always has, men to turn their hearts homeward. That is what these men are doing. They have determined that training up their children isn’t something they can farm out to other people. They have realized that there is a difference between earning a living, and living to earn. They have abandoned the value system that assesses people according to how much they earn, and how much they are admired by others. These are all very difficult things for men, especially, to do.

I know plenty more men who are scurrying ever harder on the treadmill. They work 70, 80, 90 hours and more per week. They have fancy cars, palatial homes, expensive private schools and sports camps for their kids. They live to work, and they are good at business because they can avoid the self-deceptions that doom many companies. They see business opportunities where others can’t, and so they are well compensated.

These very same men, however, don’t seem to evaluate their own lives with the same perceptiveness they apply to business. They tell themselves that they never see their children because they are working to support them, as if the alternative is that their children starve. They tell themselves that their relentless work is for their families, and not the admiration of other men. They pretend that they are good parents, because they have some occasional “quality time” with their alienated youngsters.

I wonder what would happen if they scrutinized their own lives with the same acumen they apply to a struggling company. What if the “profitability” of the home wasn’t the size of the bank account, but the spiritual strength of the family? Who among us would be rich then, and who poor? I admire my friends who are changing their lives, because it takes courage to go against the world’s standards. And yet the world needs them, and their children, because the world is overfull with the other kind of men, the ones who sacrifice their children on the altar of business success.

Always there is the choice: God or Mammon. Every day, in a thousand ways, we choose one or the other. Which are you choosing? I’d be a liar if I told you I always chose God. Which is why I’m doubly glad I have these friends struggling to find their way, and to do the right thing. They inspire me to be better than I would otherwise be.

Manicures, pedicures and facials are no longer privileges of women and “big girls,” says the New York Times. Cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly market pampering services and beauty products to 6- to 9-year-old girls.

While traditionally young girls had their moms paint their toenails, dabbled with their older sister’s make-up or tagged along to beauty salons, it’s now not unusual for moms to host birthday parties at nail and hair salons. Some salons market specifically to children, with the largest primping party outlet, Club Libby Lu, performing one million makeovers last year in its 90 mall-based stores last year.

Samantha Skey, senior vice president of strategic marketing for Alloy Media and Marketing, told the New York Times that our culture breeds young girls’ desire to grow up faster. Television shows such as “America’s Next Top Model” and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace tell them they need to present themselves in a certain way to the public: “We live in a culture of insta-celebrity. Our little girls now grow up thinking they need to be ready for their close-up, lest the paparazzi arrive.”

Analysts label this behavior as part of a trend called KGOY, “Kids Getting Older Younger,” and link it to parent’s over-indulgence. This hyper-sexualizes young girls and turns them into consumers, according to Rosalind Wiseman, author of “Queen Bees & Wanna-Bes.”

Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, blogged his concerns about this issue recently. He told WoW that Christian parents have a responsibility to teach their children “the difference between pretty and truly beautiful.” Beauty goes deeper than the skin and is, instead, a matter of godly character. While physical beauty is sometimes celebrated in the Bible — as in the Song of Solomon — it is often presented as a snare: “We have got to learn that we are harming girls and young women by falling into the world’s patterns of praising aesthetic and cosmetic beauty alone.”