Last fall, there was a big hullaballoo regarding a talk given by President Boyd K. Packer, where he touched on “same sex attraction”. It was a big deal, lots of people shouting about it.
I love President Packer. I have tremendous respect for him. Let the naysayers say nay. They can account for it later.
Lost in the scuffle was a wonderful teaching about agency. I believe that the concept of agency is one of the more poorly understood concepts in the church.
Here is what he said; “Agency is precious. We can foolishly, blindly give it away, but it cannot be forcibly taken from us.”
Did you catch that? Agency cannot be taken away from us – we can only give it away. So why is that a big deal? Because it has dramatic impact on the way we parent. How so? I’ll give you an example:
I had a friend (who I’ll call Rex) who had a teenage son that wouldn’t get up to go to church – he would just sleep in. Here is a paraphrasing of the conversation:
Me: Do you wake him up for church?
Rex: No, I leave that responsibility up to him.
Me: Do you wake him up for school.
Rex: Yes.
Me: What’s the difference?
Rex: Well, he has to go to school.
Me: So you make him go to school, but you won’t even wake him up for church?
Rex: I don’t want to take away his agency when it comes to religion.
There! Did you see that? Rex had bought into the false idea that a parent can actually take away a child’s agency. Nonsense. It can’t be done.
Rex continued: I truly believe that a child should have complete agency.
Me: So, if your three-year-old chooses to play on the freeway, then you’ll let him?
Rex: Of course not.
Me: Then drop the whole “a child should have complete agency” nonsense – because you don’t believe it either.
Rex: Then you and I must see agency differently.
Me: Yeah buddy.
– That’s all for now – but there is a lot more. If you would like me to continue sharing my untold wisdom about agency, and how it applies to parenting, let me know. There’s more – much, much more. Enough to make your brain hurt. (But it’s a good kinda hurt)
Here is the link to the talk by President Packard.
Here is the reference to the General Conference talk by President Packard last October:
http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/cleansing-the-inner-vessel?lang=eng
The next segment of this discussion is here.
A very late comment, but since I’m a new follower, I’m trying to catch up on all the reading!
Our oldest daughter gave us all kinds of grief about going to church when she was 13-15 years old. We would simply say, “If you’re not where you’re supposed to be, you won’t be where you want to be.” Many meanings, I know, but to her, it meant she couldn’t go with friends that week if she wasn’t in church.
We made it through and now she’s looking at a temple marriage. She has even thanked us for pushing her and not giving up.
Yes, I’d love to hear more of your thoughts! Love your blog.
The teenager and I just had a conversation about this. I told him that he chose to give me his free agency when he decided to get Fs in school.
I would love to hear more.
oh yes, more please! I have an almost 14 and almost 12 and the coming years scare the crap out of me, so when someone has children who’ve made it to adulthood relatively unscarred, I like to know what they did. or didn’t do. Feel free to share all you dare. 🙂
Love this kind of discussion!! Words of Wisdom on these subject matters come in handy. Please continue. I try to teache my kids about Agency and their choices everyday..Especially when I hear, “So and So makes me soo mad!”
That poor talk totally got overshadowed by one point in it. Free agency and parenting gets so misused way too often and then suddenly parents are wondering why their daughter is pregnant or they find drugs in their child’s room. Not that I’m an expert on it with my young kids.
Yes! I would love to read more of your thought on this topic. Church attendance is something that my EC and I have agreed is mandatory as long as our kids live in our house. Granted our oldest are about to turn 8, but we still have one that fights us most Sundays and I don’t see him getting any easier as he becomes a teenager.
Wowee. Wowee. What’s wrong with letting a 3-year-old play on the freeway? 🙂 i kid. But that is a big subject to tackle, and lots of different opinions out there! My poor kids are forced to do lots of stuff they don’t want to…I am a mean mama.
More Please!