The Myth of Independence

As my nephew and daughter recently celebrated their independence on their 18 birthdays, with their entry into ‘Adulthood’, I found myself pondering on what independence actually means.

As a parent, I have always believed that our jobs are to train our children up to be independent one day, so they will know how to take care of themselves on their own.

Although at 18 years of age, very few are actually leaving home these days, they still need to be doing a lot more for themselves, with us doing a lot less for them.  Whatever chores your teenager is still delegated to do, these should be useful in preparing them for their future home and living life without you.

It is a sad truth that the South African high school curriculum, whether public or private, teaches very few life-skills that will actually help and benefit a young adult when leaving the nest.

It has become the parent’s job to mentor and train their teenagers on how to budget, how to shop wisely, how to eat healthy, read a recipe and cook for themselves, how to do the laundry, how to stack the dishwasher, how to sew on a button – the list is endless for the kind of essential life skills one needs these days!

Having said that, the very notion of being independent, in terms of the actual definition, is being free from control, influence, support or aid of others, and being allowed to make your own decisions.  

However, when you look at the Bible, our very guidebook and manual for our lives, the only verse with the word independent in it is found in 1 Corinthians 11:11 that says woman is not independent of man and man is not independent of woman.

God never created us to live like hermits, being independent, self-reliant or self-sufficient. He created us to live in unity with others, mutually benefiting, helping each other and being interdependent with our spouse, our family, friends and community. 

As individuals, we will always be governed by someone else, whether it be our teachers or lecturers, our bosses, our Pastor or our government, and we need to be teaching our teens how to respect and submit to someone else’s authority and control. 

In my opinion, becoming an adult is to finally have the common sense, wisdom and maturity to make good decisions, in all the areas that being 18 is now legal to partake of, such as drinking, smoking, driving, buying etc.  The other necessity is to have self-control of themselves and their emotions, which is something we need to be earnestly teaching our teenagers how to master, not only by example, but by correcting and discipling them from the Word of God. And lastly, and most important, we need to be teaching them how to be dependent on God, for everything.

Becoming an adult at 18 is a celebration not only for the teenager, but as parents, it is a wonderful time to reflect and rejoice in our accomplishment in seeing how our child has grown and blossomed into a responsible adult, with their own identity, opinions, their unique character and their own dreams for their future.

For me, it was a time to look back at all the obvious mistakes we had made in raising my daughter, and to share my retrospect wisdom to other mothers to help them avoid making them with their own children. If you missed this, you can read my 18 best parenting tips here, which I hope will enlighten you and help correct you in the way you are raising your teen.

I pray that your parenting roller-coaster journey will also end on a high at age 18!