Thinking About Our 12-Year-Old

Our 16-year-old asks his 12-year-old brother if he’s a Christian. The 12-year-old answers quickly, almost without thinking, “Yes no I don’t know.”




This really pisses me off, because I want our 12-year-old to say what he means, and he hasn’t done that since his father yelled in his face a couple of years ago when our 12-year-old wanted to talk with his father about spending the night at his mother’s house. At that time, father got in his face, pointed a finger at his down-turned eyes, and raised his voice to a yelling level, saying, “This isn’t a discussion. Now, you’re coming with me, and we’re going to have a good night, okay?!” At which point, our 12-year-old nodded his head in agreement.



He’s been nodding his head in agreement ever since.



I can’t say as I blame him.



If I do what dad says, he won’t yell at me. I can say whatever I want at mom’s, and she doesn’t yell, so it doesn’t really matter what I do there. As long as I do whatever dad wants, I’ll be fine.



I don’t know if that’s what he’s thinking, but those words line up with his actions ever since that evening on our porch.



And since that time, our 12-year-old has not said what he means. Almost 100% of the time.



I don’t want to give too much weight to the Father Yelling Incident, as our 12-year-old had a severe habit of Not Rocking The Boat even before he was yelled at for thinking for himself. He would say or do whatever he needed to in order to not cause waves. If he was with dad and dad thought it was a good thing to bad mouth our 12-year-old’s friends, then, by golly, our 12-year-old would bad-mouth his own friends. After all, what are they gonna do, especially since there is little chance that it will get back to them that he’s not speaking favorably about them? They’re not gonna do anything, so he might as well agree with his dad and say that his friends really shouldn’t be playing football because they don’t have the athletic abilities to make them successful, especially this late in their lives.



At this point in his life, I worry about the old parental query, “If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?” I believe that he would jump off that cliff if it was likely that he would get yelled at by his father if he did not.



Which brings me back to our 16-year-old questioning our 12-year-old’s faith and religion. Our 16-year-old asked what he liked about going to church, and our 12-year-old said that it was fun.



I bought that at the time.



But as I have been sitting here about 24 hours away from that answer, I wonder why he never wants to go to church when he’s with his mother and me. I can really only come up with two feasible answers:

1. He doesn’t want to rock the boat with us, and so he says what he thinks will get the least amount of resistance from us, again doing whatever he needs to do to avoid rocking the boat. Or…

2. It’s not fun enough to make him want to go.

And as I sit here and think about it a little more, I remember times when he told his father that he wanted to play Warhammer, a game which his father continued to say was evil because it had demons and magic involved in it. A game which his father continued to gift supplies for, even though he was saying it was evil. But our 12-year-old said that he wanted to play, and his father continued to supply the Evil Game Pieces so his son could play the Evil Game.



As I type this, I wonder if our 12-year-old was saying what he needed to say in order to not make waves with his brother. Maybe he doesn’t have feelings one way or the other about church and religion. Maybe he doesn’t really want to get up on Sunday mornings, and maybe that’s why he says that he doesn’t want to go to church. And maybe he enjoys the time with his father when they go to church together. He mentioned that his father gets free food, and while that doesn’t mean one little thing to him personally, I wonder if free food makes his father a little less abusive. He’s been mollified by the free food and time with his son becomes more bearable. And maybe that’s all our 12-year-old is looking for: a good time. And maybe his answer of “it’s fun” isn’t in reference to the activities associated with church or Christianity at all. Maybe it’s fun to not have dad angry just for a moment. And maybe it’s fun to see dad in a way that isn’t really difficult to understand or like.



I really would like our 12-year-old to say what he means. And at the same time, I don’t wish our 12-year-old any discomfort or pain that comes from any part of his life. Especially the part of his life that I’m not allowed to be in. That part of his life where I can’t protect him.



Being a parent really fucking blows sometimes.