Teenage wasteland? We're ALL wasted (johnlindh/teenagewasteland) 1.25.02

Marilyn Walker, mother of American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh told reporters Thursday, "My love for him is unconditional ... I am grateful to God that he's been brought back to his family and his home."
I pray to God that if I ever take up with vicious extremists either in this country or a dirty little backwater like Afghanistan that my mother WILL stop loving me. There have to be some limits for criminey sake.
Love should not be unconditional unless you are a dog and even then some might argue that what dogs feel is not so much unconditional love as it is gratitude for kibble and the sincere hope of seeing more kibble soon.
The case of John Walker Lindh has given pundits fuel for their bipartisan arguments. Raised in "liberal" Marin County in "liberal" northern California, Lindh's sojourn from curious high school boy to Taliban soldier and potential terrorist could only have happened under the auspices of insufficiently strict "liberal" parenting.
What that says about Timothy McVeigh's good conservative Christian upbringing, however, is usually viewed as off point by conservative pundits uninterested in viewing McVeigh as their doing. So it goes.
Lindh is not the poster boy for failed "liberal" parenting practices and neither side of the political spectrum should be using him for their purposes.
I find the middle ground is where the truth often resides amidst the briars and brambles of half-truths wildly spun by the politically ambitious. It is tricky ground.
I have no political ambitions beyond possibly running for school board or maybe mayor of Council Bluffs, but that is in the way far future and only if I do not have to compete against the unstoppable political juggernaut that is Tom Hanafan.
Since I have no political career to be destroyed, I can still tell the truth as I see it. As Joey Ramone said, "Hey! Ho! Let's go!"
If John Walker Lindh should be used for anything, it is as an example of how regardless a parent's personal political, religious or moral beliefs, they should be teaching them to their children. The one thing Lindh seems to have been lacking was direction of any kind. His parents encouraged him to do whatever he wanted and even when they started to wonder about his choices, they said nothing.
Kids just want to figure things out and they will test your boundaries to find out what flies and what doesn't. This is why kids spend so much time pretending they already know everything and telling adults "you just don't understand" even though most adults certainly understand that when they were kids, they were largely clueless.
Most of us remember all too well what it was like to be a kid trying to get a handle on the world and, boy, didn't we hate it when adults told us what was what?
It is hard to admit that when I was a child I not only spoke as a child and did childish things, I was not competent to find my own way unguided and I think I was more qualified than most.
Encouraging children to get out and explore their world and figure out their place in it is one thing, taking off their training wheels before they even get out of the gate is another.
Many of us need a sounding board to bounce ideas off of. Many more of us are sheep who must be herded unerringly toward the right goals because unattended we would likely walk around in circles until bad men used us for their own ends.
When it comes to religion, it is especially important to guide children even if you aren't interested in just making them whatever you are because your parents and grandparents were one and you want them to be one too.
It is too hard to distinguish between an established philosophy with good street cred and your average fly-by-night scam. That's how cults make their money off of people looking for answers.
When your children have questions, are you ready with answers? What is our religion? What do we believe? Is there a God? How can I tell the difference between right and wrong?
Questions will come up and when they do, you might want to have something prepared because in the teen-age wasteland we call America, Baba O'Reilly, your kids are going to find answers somewhere and if it isn't with you, it will be with people who do drugs, experiment with sex, belong to extremist religious/political groups or work for Enron. The pitfalls are many and treacherous.
Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain that is the directionless teenage American life, Lindh wandered through the desert with only blind encouragement for guidance.
Even First Lady Laura Bush expressed her sympathy for Lindh's parents as if kids do the darnedest things and no matter how hard one might try, sometimes they just grow up to be bad seeds. I guess she feels compelled to reserve judgment since her own kid was caught drinking underage. Apples and oranges or just different spots along the same road? You be the judge.
-Greg Jerrett is a Nonpareil staff writer. He may be contacted at 328-1811 ext. 279 or by e-mail at gjerrett@nonpareilonline.com.