Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. (1 Timothy 4:12)
I remember frequently hearing this verse during my years with Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI). It was often quoted to the young people at various conference sessions and during staff meetings. I believe that the intent was to encourage us to continue following the “higher standard” and to continue to share what we were learning even when older people expressed skepticism or contempt. At the time, I took it to heart and figured that those who dismissed my advice and zealous promotion of Mr. Gothard’s teachings were, as he had taught us, blinded by sin and committed to their foolishness. Looking back, I wish someone had sat down with me and set me straight.
I was in my mid-20s. I was unmarried, childless, and had only held down two jobs since graduating from college. I was barely out of childhood. I knew nothing of life, nothing of relationships. Nothing. But I sure thought I knew a lot!
I gave all kinds of advice. Parenting advice, financial advice, family planning advice, discipline advice, career advice, worship advice, household management advice — there was scarcely a topic that I didn’t have advice for.
Mostly, my advice followed the party line: debt is bad (even mortgages), using birth control is rebellion against God, disobedient children should be spanked (time-out is a cop-out)….
But who was I to be dishing out advice to these people?
I gave:
Parenting advice to mothers with eight kids under the age of 12, and husbands who worked two jobs to support them all. What did I know of this kind of semi-single-parenthood and the stresses it inflicts?
Financial advice to large families trying to make it on just one income so that the mother could be home with her children. What did I know of the difficulties of saving to pay cash for a house while trying to provide for a family?
Family planning advice to desperate women whose health was breaking under the strain of back-to-back pregnancies. What did I know of the medical and psychological impact of having a baby every year?
Discipline advice to mothers with rebellious children. What did I know of the agony a parent feels when trying to guide a little soul to walk in the ways of the Lord? What experience did I have in disciplining children — who are so very individual and who need such varying approaches to discipline?
Business advice to families trying to run their own businesses to promote family unity and togetherness. What did I know of business?
I shudder, now, to think of the appallingly inadequate, one-size-fits-all, legalistic advice I dished out in those days when my head was being inflated by those who told me that what I was learning in books and seminars was more than sufficient to qualify me to counsel these desperate people. By those who told me not to let people “despise my youth.”
Someone should have “despised” my youth. Someone should have sat me down and set me straight. Someone should have told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, and that it was foolish for me to address situations that I had no experience in and no insight into.
Because here are some of the lessons I’ve learned since then:
- Trying to buy a house without getting a mortgage is great if you are independently wealthy or if you are a childless couple and can put one spouse’s entire income into savings. For normal people, buying a house with cash is impractical. Better advice would have been for these people to buy a house on which they could easily afford the monthly payments, keeping their housing expenditures to less than a third of their monthly take-home pay.
- Failure to plan your family can be disastrous to both the physical and mental health of everyone in the family, including parents and kids — but especially mom. Far better to use some form of birth control and try to make some reasonable spacing between children. That way mom’s body gets a chance to fully recover from the rigors of pregnancy, and she’s not running herself to death trying to keep up with six pre-schoolers at once. And dad might actually get some sleep.
- Spanking is not the only, or even the best, way to discipline children. All children respond differently to various kinds of discipline, and parents need to know their child. What is a mild reproof to one child may be crushing rejection to another. What makes one child fold into immediate submission may merely infuriate another.
Yes, somebody should have despised my youth enough to remind me that it was the older women who were to teach the younger how to be wives and mothers, and how to live a godly life. The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus that the older members of the congregation should be exhorting the younger members to a holy life — not the younger teaching the older.
Somebody should have reminded me of Proverbs 18:13: “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Because I spoke a lot of folly to a lot of people, and I bear a lot of shame, having answered so many matters before I ever heard them fully.
I don't agree that the problem was your age; in fact, that's one of the problems with the ATI mindset in my opinion: the overemphasis on age. Age isn't proof of maturity, nor is it proof of immaturity, and there is arrogance in both young and old. Plenty of ATI people are giving the same advice you gave, but are much older - yet without any more experience in the issues they are advising about; and some, even with experience, still preach the party line. 1 Timothy 4:12 IS Scripture. The problem isn't "youth" or "age"; it's the arrogance of thinking we know what everyone else should be doing.
So true Ann,
thanks for pointing it out. A higher age does not entail a greater degree of maturity. It ought to, but "is" and "ought" are two very different concepts.
Ann is spot on here. "The arrogance of thinking we know what everyone else should be doing" is not limited to young people. Using the one-size-fits-all approach is a problem whether it is being pushed by a naive teenager or by an older person arrogantly assuming the younger generation needs to do it their way.
While I agree with Ann that the basic problem here was arrogance rather than youth, in my book, there is something especially annoying about arrogant youth.
As a parent, I'm frequently annoyed when people feel the need to tell me how to "best" parent my children, but I am exponentially more annoyed when that person is so young they have yet to have married and had children of their own.
And then my mind goes back to that place where I was a know it all 18 year old ATI student (no wife, no kids, no life experience, really) criticizing my aunt for the way she parented my cousins and all I can do is cringe.
I really appreciate you being so vulnerable and sharing this. Wow.
I remember my mom calling HQ for medical advice. Her medical issues were complex and she needed real help. In her mind, she was making contact with the very best combination of medicine and theology by making that call. She trusted advice from HQ more than she did anything a doctor would say. I think in our minds, we pictured this crack team of "godly experts" waiting for our call, dispensing wise advice. Little did we know...
I could have written that, too, Wendy. I shudder when I think of what a little Know-it-All I was. I'm so grateful that I now know it's ok to say, "I don't know. Why don't you pray about that."
Did I write this? I could have! The advice I now give is, 'don't follow ATI, follow the Lord.' I hope that's sufficient and wise enough. I don't dare give child rearing advice EXCEPT to steer people away from ATI types of practices of the one size fits all approach.. etc.. What a little self righteous dweeb I was!
I think that verse, 'let no man despise thy youth' was to say that no-one ought to dismiss your love for the Lord, or passion to work for the Lord, just because you are a young person. (In a nutshell).
Thank you for sharing this Wendy. It resonates with me. It was my story also. How many people did I alienate because of my know-it-all attitude and advice (delivered with love and humility, of course)? How many friends might I have kept if I had been less interested in telling everyone how to improve their lives? I still cringe with embarassment at the memories of my little know-it-all-self. How many people showed greater graciousness and better social skills than me by not showing me how foolish I was to think I had the answers to all people's circumstances? Thank you, Lord, for showing me the error of my thoughts. When I first stopped handing out free advice I was a little surprised that no one solicited me for counsel (yes, the pride ran deep). Then I looked around and realized that the people around me were doing a fantastic job of managing their lives without me...even better in some areas. I had a lot to learn! Looking back from 20 years, I wonder what those people thought about me, espcially the ones who were older than me? Yea, it is still embarassing to remember.
Wendy, you do recognize that we were "conditioned" to do this, right? At one point, Bill Gothard stood up at a Knoxville conference and outlined the "graduation" requirements from the ATI program. I don't remember all of them, but I do remember that one of them was to "restore ten broken marriages."
Yet, we weren't supposed to get married until we had a vocation (if male) or our husband to be had a vocation (if female) none of which should happen until we graduated from the ATI program.
I often think back to that incident and think, "How delusional."
But as I learned in the years since, Mr. Gothard loved to say such things and the never actually follow up on any of them. I'm not aware of one soul who graduated from ATI having accomplished the restoration of ten broken marriages before graduation (though I really would love to meet one).
Ryan, I did not know about the 'restore 10 broken marriages' directive. I did not attend ATI...my younger sister had that 'privilage.' I cannot imagine telling a young person they have the skills to restore anyone's broken marriage!
I realize my parents were listening to BG when they encouraged me to give counsel when I was so out of my depth (at 18-25 my depth was very shallow). It filled me with pride to think I knew more than other adults (truth: I didn't know more. I just thought I did because I had the 'training').
yes, I was walking around making a fool of myself and I don't even know how I did that when both feet were in my mouth often!
I recently came across my old journals from high school. I shake my head and cringe at what I wrote about other people and how I felt the need to give them advice. *sigh* Thank you Jesus for getting me out of that legalistic mindset!!!
Thank you for your story!!! I was thinking about how we were taught to have a " biblical" answer for everything, even for subjects that adults should have dealt with instead of teenagers. It was a mind set we were taught ( or forced to act as) that we are so above and beyond "worldly youth." The teachings are extremely damaging.
That was very powerful, Wendy, and also very vulnerable of you to share. Thank you.
Oh man, this hits home. I'm so grateful that I was very shy in my younger years and didn't say all the things I thought I knew. I know I alienated several of my friends though, by what I did say.
Yep, this was me, too. I cannot believe the things I advocated as a teen. I was so sheltered, so ignorant of life, so sure I'd been taught "the right answers" that no one else seemed to have figured out. I regurgitated these views because my brain was trained to see "black" and "white", with little sympathy for the complicated grays, much less a prism of color. I just hope no one took my youthful arrogance too seriously at the time.
Well put, Wendy!
Thank-you for sharing this, Wendy. I often wondered why Bill Gothard didn't make use of all the families to help each other. It could have been such a great network of fellowship and learning together. But that would not have been "under his control" like he could do with you young'uns. Restore ten broken marriages!!!! Wow! He WAS/IS delusional! I remember his Grammar Curriculum(forgot what it was called) It was something that I actually had some knowledge in. I have a Master's degree in Linguistics and it was too hard for me to do! And I'm supposed to teach this to my kids?!!!! It continues to amaze me that I still thought BG was the one to follow even with all this craziness that didn't make sense to me.
Wow! I can so relate to this article. Thanks for sharing and thanks for this website. I have been greatly influenced by ATI and Mr. Gothard's teaching for many years and it takes time to sort through all the lies I have internalized. I deeply regret the people I have turned off to the Lord because of my self-righteous, legalistic attitude which was fed through much of the Institute's teaching and policies. Praise God for second chances and for His grace that is greater than all of our sin.
I laughed as I read your article. I'm not a writer and hope I don't offend you as I write this in my blundering way, but you brought a laugh of liberty to me as I read. So many of the false teachings I swallowed growing up still have some control on my life today. Thanks to your writing they now have a little less. Others have said it, but I can't say it better--Thank you for sharing!
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