I’ve often wondered what inspired the oft-quoted, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6)  Perhaps my legal background should instead cause me to comment: “Please define depart.”

What’s happening in today’s society, specifically with today’s youth, is not new — even though it seems to be growing worse by the minute.  Adam and Eve had a wayward child.  Lehi had a couple of them.  Alma the Elder had one.  Alma the Younger had another one.

Some of these wayward kids turned their lives around.  Some didn't.  How does a parent of a wayward child cope with the possibility her child might not work things out in the end?

One of the best comments I’ve gleaned on the topic came from a recent Circle of Sisters column.  One mother aptly stated: “These are crazy times.  If you have a challenge in life, it may be that you were given that challenge because you’re the one who is strong enough to endure it.”

Okay, I’m woman enough to wear that particular crown of thorns with a degree of pride.  I will survive.  My kids will survive.  And that’s what I’ll keep telling myself until the ordeal is done, even if my kids continue to “not depart” from what I’ve taught and laugh at me when they find out I’ve put their names in the temple yet one more time.  I’ve got a positive attitude, and I’ve learned through experience how to lift myself out of the mire.

However, there are times when those who work with my children and even a few well-meaning friends set out stumbling blocks that are difficult to negotiate.  Instead of helping, they unwittingly make my job just a bit harder.  I’ve penned my thoughts not only to hopefully inspire greatness, and also to let others so inflicted know they are not alone and perhaps help them understand that hurtful things said by others may not have evil roots.

After nearly a decade of unwanted childlessness, I adopted two older children, one while I was still married and who was sealed to me and my then-spouse following the adoption, and then a second one as a single parent.  If I could go back and do it over again, I never would have taken in the second child.

I didn’t understand then that my hands were full and that a new challenge could threaten the progress of the existing challenge.  And yet, I know I gave that second child a better home than what was available at the time.  My home was the ninth placement for that child!

Both of these children came with histories suitable for unsavory novel plots and movie scripts.  Any family that takes in neglected, abused children faces unimaginable battles.  Suffice it to say I have a valid excuse for the way my kids turned out. 

Excuses?

And that brings me to the hurdles I encounter among some professionals and a few well-meaning friends.  Why do I need an excuse?  Even prophets are subject to offspring behaviors and personalities that are not always in harmony with their own.

I remember one particular occasion when one of my children had pulled something that absolutely horrified me.  I could not fathom what would cause such behavior, even knowing this child’s background.  I was hurled into a deep and resonating depression.  I did everything I could to try to pull myself out of that selfish and unproductive state, but I was haunted by the possibilities I could see for my child’s future.  How could this happen to one of Heavenly Father’s innocent children?  My children had done nothing to deserve their pasts.

While I was wallowing in this suffocating bog, a member of my ward tried to console me.  Her words symbolize what so many people seem to believe about wayward spirits.

“This may be the best it gets.  You did your part.  This may be as far as he comes.”  In other words, there is no hope.  You might as well stop trying.  I stewed for a while and even wrote a newspaper column about the experience.  But I did not heed the advice.

Then there was the middle school principal who counseled that my children did not belong in public school because there was no hope for them.  I could write volumes about that experience alone, but I’ll try to stay on topic here and save that story for another day.

Challenges

As a single parent of two challenging children, countless prospective dates cancelled as soon as they found out I was raising “someone else’s children.”  I once was counseled not to tell guys about my kids until they got to know me better.  That would spare the heartache of rejection, wouldn’t it?

Some of my friends would invite me to social gatherings, “only if you can find a babysitter,” because my children were such a bad influence on the other kids.  I had a continual parade of day care providers because my children either bullied and intimidated other kids or stole from the day care centers and homes.  I literally dreaded when the phone rang because it almost always meant my “mini monsters” had reached new heights.

In one support group meeting, surrounded by other adoptive parents who also were facing unwelcome and traumatizing challenges, I was informed by a particularly experienced foster parent that my problem was I cared too much.  She told me I’d only be successful when I quit caring how my kids turned out.  I was contracted to provide a bed, a roof and food.  What the kids do is up to them.  She suggested I don’t adopt any more children (as if I was really in the market!) and just foster them from then on.

The most painful barb came when I was at my lowest.  One child had run away, and the other had been hospitalized for a unsuccessful suicide attempt.  I’d previously survived the heart-rending experiences by telling myself things could be worse.  But this was it.  This was bad.  This was grief.  There are no words to describe my devastation.

One of my closest friends, who probably had grown weary of my habitual complaints and whining about what was going on with my kids, cut me to the core.

“The reason your kids get to you is because you don’t accept them for what they are.”

I wish I’d had the insight and spiritual presence to better respond to that comment when it happened.  But I was too buried by my own emotions.  I needed to be lifted up, but instead, I felt as if my heart had been smashed into the mud with a belligerent kick.

Loving the Prodigal

If I’d had the wisdom and unconditional love, the very love I was trying to maintain on behalf of my children, perhaps I could have enlightened my friend with an eternal principal I’m not sure she understood. 

What my children (and others like them) are: 

Even wayward children from good, righteous families are precious to their Heavenly Father.  Even when they commit acts that to us seem unforgivable, they are precious to their Heavenly Father.  Even if they end up being excommunicated, they are lost souls in need of an iron rod.

Hurtful words from inexperienced friends and pagan or agnostic professionals instead provide a slippery slope that leads back to the tar pit.  This is an inappropriate way to welcome back a prodigal child or extend open arms to the parent of a prodigal child.

After being lied to for five years, it is difficult for me to find a thread worth hanging onto, a fragment deep inside the child I thought I knew and once would have given my life for.  When I reach these moments of doubt, as well-deserved as they may be, the last thing I need is to be flung back into the raging storm.  “They deserve it!  They made their choices.  Let them suffer!”

The Role of Onlookers

How do you convince a rebellious child to accompany you to church and strive to be righteous when all around them are judgmental figures who condemn them and pass God’s judgment for Him?  How do you convince non-Christians the truthfulness of the gospel when Christians sometimes are un-Christlike?

Did our Savior take on the sins of just a few — the repentant ones who go to the temple and pay tithing — or did He bleed from every pore because he took on all sins, even the sins of His brothers and sisters who don’t repent or change?  Did He die on the cross for only the obedient children, or did He die for the rebellious and abusive ones, too?

Parents of wayward children often know all too well they cannot save or rescue their children.  They know, sometimes from experience, sometimes from books or classes or specialists, or even from wise and righteous counsel, that their children must find their own way back in order to be strong enough to resist the next tempest. 

The Strength to Believe

Even after she’s been betrayed 117 times, mom must find the courage, the strength and the faith to believe 118 might be the magic number.  She knows she has to protect herself, she knows her friends will think her a fool, and she knows she may be wasting her time.  But she has to believe. 

Heavenly Father trusted her with those very children.  He expects her to honor her responsibility just as He expects those children to honor and obey her.  If He keeps expecting the seemingly impossible, shouldn’t we do the same?  Isn’t that why we’re here, to learn a way to achieve this?

Some of my friends have tired of the games my children play and the hurt they’ve inflicted on me.  My friends often can see more clearly than me because their heartstrings are not attached to my kids.  Sometimes I need my friends to set me straight and keep me from getting my hopes up too high.  But sometimes, I need my friends to pray with me, to remind me to pray, to read scriptures with me, to sing “I Need Thee Every Hour” or “You Melt the Madness” with me, and to remain silent when they see the potential outcome and want only to protect me from more hurt.

I’ve learned over the years it isn’t fair to expect my kids’ teachers, my friends or even my family to be as understanding and compassionate as I try to be with my kids.  They aren’t my kids’ parents, and they’ve witnessed my kids’ hurtful behavior.  Unconditional love isn’t always something we can expect to come naturally or without an object lesson in patience, endurance or courage.  It can be a slow and tortuous process, and each person learns it on their own timeline.  Some learn faster than others.  Some seem to make no progress.

I have been hurt by many of the choices my children have made.  But maybe, as the Meridian letter-writer proclaimed, Heavenly Father knew I thrive on challenge, so He blessed me with this learning opportunity.  I also have been hurt by the words of some very dear people.  But maybe Heavenly Father expected me to rise above it, learn something valuable and pass it on to others.

And maybe, just maybe, depart doesn't mean altogether permanently abandon.