It is Wednesday! Just in case you didn't know that. Before I post about the book I have chosen for this week, I have to tell you something funny that Graham just did. I got up early (8:00) - I know that's pathetic - and decided to go ahead and get my blogging out of the way, so we could concentrate on what we need to be doing today. This means that not only do I need to post the Wednesday Book Review, but I need to read the newest entries on the blogs I follow. I only follow closely about 6, and I am not actively looking for anymore right now, because, well, then it would take me longer in the mornings to read them all. I'm kidding, I love blogging and I would love to read yours, so if you are reading mine and I don't have yours on my list of favorites, please leave a comment and I will add it.
So, I come back to the computer room and log on. I read a couple of posts, I cry over the one on Angie Smith's blog - Bring the Rain. If you don't read that one, you really should check it out, she brings me to tears from either laughing or "real" tears with each and every post. Then, just as I begin to type the Book Review, Graham calls from the other room, "Mom, you have to come see what I made!" He had been playing by himself with Legos, which is really a rare thing for him - the whole sitting still thing, in another room from me doesn't happen often. So, I thought I should do the "good mom" thing and actually get up and go see the creation, rather than yelling from the back of the house to "hang on" and then forget to look later. I went. He sat in the floor surrounded by four plastic creations. Of course, they could have been just about anything, but the look on his face told me that he knew exactly what they were and thought that I should as well. I did not want to mess this up, after all, I got up and walked all the way from the back of the house to see this. Very enthusiastically, I said, "Wow! Tell me about what you made!" Great mom response, right? He complied. First, he held up two identical pieces, made with different shades of blue blocks. These, he said proudly, are guns. Of course, this is Graham. Then, he held up something made of all orange blocks. This, is a cross. Ok. And this, he said, referring to the last piece, which consisted of a number of colored blocks, is the statue in the cave on Indiana Jones. Somehow, the guns, the cross, and the false god struck me as funny this morning. I decided to just let it go, but I am going to tell myself that it means that he will spend his life fighting evil, in the name of Jesus.
Which brings me to the book review. I promise I had already decided what book to write about when he called me away from the computer. Do Hard Things is written by Alex and Brett Harris, with the forward written by none other than Chuck Norris. (Graham's hero, if you have read any previous posts). This book is subtitled, "a teenage rebellion against low expectations." I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this, but I am now the mom of two teenagers. We have always homeschooled, so there are a lot of things we have thankfully never had to deal with, a lot of issues they have not been faced with personally, like drugs, alcohol, and sex. Things that teenagers in schools are faced with every single day. I know it, because I was one. However, the fact of the matter is that most people in our world today would call the teenage years a success if they escape without any permanent damage from those three big things. If they are not pregnant or diseased or addicted to something when they graduate from high school, people would call that a successful passage to adulthood. I disagree. Of course, I don't want my kids affected by these things, but I also don't want their passage to adulthood stated in terms of what they didn't do. They didn't get drunk every Friday night, they didn't have pre-marital sex, they didn't experiment with drugs and alcohol. What about what the did do? Did they spend their teenage years in something productive and useful to their family and society or did they spend it in front of the Wii or the television? Did they spend their years preparing for life and maturing into adults with a purpose or did they waste it on vain pursuits, like the best brand of clothes or the most popular friends? Did they spend these years growing in their faith and learning to follow God's leading or did they block out the voice of God and simply attend church on Sundays because their parents made them?
In the book Do Hard Things, the Harris twins, challenge the teenagers of their day (they are 19), to do the hard thing and be different. They challenge them not to even refer to themselves as teenagers because it truly has a negative connotation in our society, not to mention that it was a term invented in the 1940s. Throughout history, you have been either a child or an adult. When you ceased to be a child, you were an adult. Now, we use these "teen" years as excuses for bad behavior and laziness. Our society assumes that teenagers are not good for anything except goofing off and playing video games, yet as soon as they hit 18 or 19, they are expected to go off to college and act like adults. How are they supposed to learn to be adults when nothing is expected of them? I truly believe that this is the reason we have such an epidemic in our country of 30 or 40 year olds who still live with their parents and spend their nights playing online video games.
This book is written in a format that is easy to read and understand. The concept is hard, and putting it into practice is hard, but it can be easily read. It is full of stories of teens, excuse me, young adults, who are doing hard things all over the world. It tells of 16 year olds volunteering on political campaigns or serving as interns in the offices of governors or senators, and rising into leadership positions. It tells of young people starting outreach programs that develop into huge ministries. It tells of speaking engagements, book publishings, inventions. It is full of proof that the group of young men and women that our society calls teenagers are not only capable, they are eager to be useful. They are tired of being shoved to the side and tired of people assuming that they are good for nothing. They want to be adults. Their God given craving is to grow up. We are stunting their growth by not expecting more of them than to NOT do something. We need to expect them to DO something - and you know what, I believe they will do what we expect them to do.
This book can be read to a very young child and I would recommend that every child old enough to read it, and every adult to read it as well. It is the battle cry of this generation - to matter, to do something hard, not for a material reward, but for the shear satisfaction of knowing that you contributed something important. Around our house, now when we don't want to do something that needs to be done or when we are embarrassed about an upcoming speaking engagement, we just simply say to each other, "do hard things." Somehow, it gets done. Adults need this message as well as children.
In our family, and many of our friend's families as well, people are often amazed at what our children are capable of doing. They are an integral part of our family, I literally could not run this household, with all of us here 24/7, without their help. I need them, and they know it. This makes them feel like they are useful, instead of in the way. Yes, when they are younger it makes things a little messier, to have a little shadow when I cook or do the laundry - but, now, they can do all of these things themselves and they have the satisfaction of knowing that they are going to know how to run their own households. They are going to transition from children to adults. The way God intended.
I know I did not give you many details from this book, you truly need to read it yourselves. It is good and it is practical. The boys also have a message board type website that my older ones really enjoy. There are some discussions there about purity and such that may not be appropriate for younger children, so parents, be sure and look at it first. It is called The Rebelution, which is a word coined by the twins that means a rebellion against rebellion. The address is: http://therebelution.com/
Enjoy!
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