A Time of Transition

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Many homeschoolers in our area are excited for tonight’s graduation ceremony and a homeschool mom I know was just telling me that her daughter is getting ready for prom.

Grand march at the senior prom in Greenbelt, Maryland, 1942.

My mother on her graduation night

Prom. Graduation. Then what? Around the country homeschool students and students who have been in school are graduating and will soon be in a new stage of life. This is a good time to think about the transition from childhood to adulthood. Some families experience this transition time with great joy. Other families enter the “I am 18 and you can’t tell me what to do anymore!” time. Other families live a combination of the two.

Despite the children we see who are mature beyond their years (and those who think they are, but aren’t) and despite the adults we see who act like children, childhood and adulthood are really different times of life. The apostle Paul said:

When I was a child,
I used to speak like a child,
think like a child,
reason like a child;
when I became a man,
I did away with childish things.
I Corinthians 13:11

So, when is the right time for a person to make the transition from childhood to adulthood? The common answer to that question has changed through the centuries. In America the legal age of adulthood was once 21. Today most people seem to think of 18 as the transition point.

Don’t think me radical, but I think that might be a bit too young. Ray told me about a book he read that stated that the brain continues to develop until age 25. Some of us who are older than 25 or who have had children who are now older than 25 aren’t too surprised about that.

The switch from 21 to 18 as the age of majority came during the Vietnam War in the 1970s. It was not that government leaders changed the age of majority because they made a conscious decision that children start thinking like adults when they turn 18. The change involved guilt (and protests from young adults) due to our government drafting 18-year-olds and sending them to fight in a horrible war when they couldn’t even vote yet.

Doctors know that 18 years old isn’t an automatic indication of adulthood. Children have continued to see their pediatricians until they are 21. Car rental companies have limited car rentals to people 25 and over.

Think about God’s decision about 20-year-olds while the Israelites were traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land.

“None of the men who came up from Egypt,
from twenty years old and upward,
shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob;
for they did not follow Me fully, 
except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite
and Joshua the son of Nun,
for they have followed the Lord fully.”
Numbers 32:11-12

God made this pronouncement after the Israelites arrived at the Promised Land. Since they did not trust Him to take care of them and help them conquer it, God punished them by making them wander in the wilderness until all the men who had been 20 and older when they first reached the border had died. The two exceptions were Joshua and Caleb, who did believe that God would make them successful. The book of Numbers often mentions people who are twenty years old and upward as being “able to go out to war.” I remember myself from 18 to 20, and I’ve been a parent of children who were those ages. I’m not being legalistic about this idea. It’s simply that I understand God setting that benchmark.

So, when you are being careful to preserve your children’s childhoods, look ahead to their transition time to adulthood, too. Relax. You may be able to chill out a little and not feel so much pressure, realizing you can enjoy their childhoods a bit longer than you thought. Maybe you have longer to teach and to instill the values you hold close to your heart. Of course, you must have your children’s hearts long before they turn 18, so they will continue to hear your wisdom when the world tells them they are adults.

God commanded the Israelites,

Every one of you shall reverence his mother and his father . . .
Leviticus 19:3

Honoring our parents is a lifetime commitment. Encouraging, teaching, and supporting our children emotionally is, too. I’m thankful that my parents did that for me as long as they were able.

Give me your heart, my son,
And let your eyes delight in my ways.
Proverbs 23:26

 

 

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