What’s Behind the ‘Pastor’s Kid’ Stereotypes
PLUS - 7 Questions for Every Pastor With Kids to Ask Themselves
As I sit here writing this, I’m struck by how I can’t think of a single other profession that has stereotypes about their children the way pastor’s do.
Anyone else?
Doctors' children? Lawyers' children? Firefighters children? I’m not coming up with anything…
As someone who leads worship in the church, I’ve never heard any Contemporary Worship Leader’s Children stereotypes…maybe that’s because the role of worship leader has only existed in churches for like 2 generations?
If you know of any other stereotypes let me know in the comments!
So what may be behind these Pastor’s Kid stereotypes from a Family System perspective?
In short - an emotionally fused system.
Let's talk more about it:
Bowen Family Systems and the Church
This is Part III in a Series on Togetherness/Individuality and Bowen’s Family Systems Theory and the Church.
If you’re not familiar with Bowen or Family Systems Theory, you can start with Part I here.
Part one includes:
8 Questions to Ask About the Emotional Health of Your Church
And
Emotionally Healthy Questions to Ask Yourself as a Member of Leader of Your Church
Part II includes
2 Images for Healthy Christian Community
PLUS -
Why Weirdos are Great for Your Churches Emotional Health
You can read Part II here.
Both posts center around the theme of togetherness/individuality in the church.
Okay, now that we’re all on the same page - let's get to it:
Togetherness/Individuality
Bowen’s theory talks about how within any member of a group (family, church, etc), there are two forces that pull on the individual:
The force for togetherness
The force for individuality
In a situation in which a member of the family is Self-differentiated (a Bowen term I’ll talk about more in other posts), they are able to recognize their sense of dependence upon one another and how they fit into the family (togetherness).
They also have a sense of their uniqueness and individuality, and how they may differ from other family members.
Here’s a picture of a ‘healthy’ family:
That’s a picture of Murray Bowen. This comes from Bowen’s own lectures that you can find here (they’re really interesting…if you have 5-6 hours to kill some time)
The squares represent males and the circles represent females in the family.
This picture is of a husband and wife (the bottom square connected to the bottom circle). Above each of them is another row of squares and circles - those are the husband and wife’s parents.
As you can see in this picture, each family member is connected through the lines. These lines represent a sense of togetherness. However, there is also space between them, indicating a sense of individuality as well.
This is a picture of a more or less well functioning family.
Emotional Fusion
Compare that previous picture to this picture that Murray Bowen draws of a family:
Notice that all the squares and circles are on top of each other.
They are inseparable and indistinguishable from one another.
It’s impossible to tell where one shape ends and where another one begins.
This is a diagram of what Bowen calls Emotional Fusion.
Emotional Fusion is too much togetherness in the family system.
There’s no room to think for yourself, or be yourself, or discover who you are or what you like or what you value apart from the thoughts, values, and likes of the rest of the family.
If you do your own thing…the entire system reacts and tries to force you back into the old way of interacting.
The pastor is under an incredible amount of scrutiny from the congregation. There’s often this sense within the congregation - maybe consciously or unconsciously - that Jesus is perfect, the pastor is leading us closer to Jesus, so the pastor should be the closest thing to perfection there is.
There’s often the unspoken (or sometimes spoken!) idea that if the pastor’s family isn’t functioning well (which means the children acting like little angels in church every Sunday), then the pastor can’t lead their family. The thinking goes: if the pastor can’t lead their family (in the way the congregation idealizes), how can they be expected to lead the church?!?!?
The pastor often internalizes this idea and applies pressure to the spouse and children in subtle and not so subtle ways that they present themselves according to their community's ideal of what a “good Christian family” looks like.
One way of thinking of it is in terms of a triangle (which we’ll talk about in the coming weeks)...there is a relational triangle created between the congregation, the pastor, and the pastor’s family/children. The congregation, in a variety of ways, creates the expectation that the family/children should behave a certain way and makes that expectation known to the pastor. The pastor often gives into this pressure, and attempts to exert control over their children, pressuring them to conform to certain behavior to make the pastor look better, thus easing the pastor's own anxiety in the situation.
The result is that the pastor, the pastor’s family, and the church end up looking a lot like Bowen’s drawing above with all the circles and squares on top of one another.
Everyone is pressuring each other, and the children, to act accordingly.
In this survey released by Barna, the number one reason pastors felt their children struggled with faith was “unrealistic expectations others place on them”.
Togetherness and the “Pastor’s Kid”
There are two popular stereotypes of the Pastor’s Kid…that they either grow up to be pastor’s themselves, or, they ‘rebel’ and leave the church and find themselves drawn towards all kinds of debauchery.
The interesting thing is - according to Family Systems Theory - both the child who becomes a pastor (without proper individuation and authentic self-reflection) , and the one who rebels, may suffer from emotional fusion.
While the pastor’s kid who becomes a pastor themselves is often praised within the family, and within the church community as well, they may not have done the work to have developed a healthy sense of individuality.
Many times the child that is the most obedient and well mannered may be complying out of an underlying anxiety at how they would be received if they did not conform to the wishes of the system.
The question has to be asked if this pastor’s kid who becomes a pastor themselves has come to their decision out of careful consideration and introspection, or, whether the emotional system of the family and church where the child grew up put such an emphasis on togetherness and sameness, that they were never allowed to fully explore and discover who they truly are.
What originally looks like a picture of health for the pastor’s kid (obeying the supposed will of God, honoring their father/mother, etc), may actually be a sign that they have not been allowed to do the work of discovering their own true self and true calling, and have instead ingested the desires of the family/church instead of realizing their own.
Sometimes, this pastor’s kid may have a mid-life crisis later in life when they begin to realize, for the first time, that they did not in fact feel called to pastoral ministry…they were merely being obedient within the dysfunctional system they were raised in at the expense of honoring their own authentic self.
The family and church can often see this as a tragedy and a loss of faith, or a rebelling against who God called them to be…but the reality for the pastor’s kid is that for the first half of their life they were not acting out of a sense of individuality and with a recognition of who God truly called them to be…they were trying to make others happy at expense of their own sense of self.
As Bowen says,
“It’s far more comfortable to believe what you’re ‘supposed’ to believe, then to believe what you really believe”
If the pastor’s kid is leading out of a sense of misplaced duty, shame, and anxiety, they are likely to preach, and encourage others, to operate their own lives from that same place.
Can a pastor’s kid grow up to have an authentic call to pastoral ministry? Absolutely! But that takes a healthy family system and healthy pastor to allow the child to come to that realization on their own, instead of merely ingesting and mirroring the goals of the pastor at the expense of their true selves, and God-given calling.
The Rebel
But what about ‘The Rebel’?
The other side of the pastor’s kid stereotype is the one that rejects the faith and runs away from the church all together.
Is that a more emotionally healthy response to an emotionally fused environment?
Bowen says…
Maybe not…
When family members have too much togetherness, along with a sense of anxiety and tension, oftentimes one family member will physically cut themselves off from the family all together in an effort to distance themselves emotionally.
This process is known as emotional cutoff.
Here’s Bowen’s diagram of emotional cutoff:
Notice the circle away from the emotionally fused family? That circle symbolizes a member that has physically distanced themselves and cut themselves off from the family.
However, the line encircling the family member going back to the family is a sign that, in reality, although the family member is physically separated from the family, they are still emotionally fused.
Your emotional system operates the same way if you still live in the same house as your family, or if you have moved 1,000 miles away.
If someone’s emotional system is wrapped up around reacting against their family or church, they’re still bound up in the same system and emotionally fused.
Self-differentiation comes when we can do the work of discerning who we are and what we believe, while being calm, curious, and open about others (more posts on that in the future!)
Distancing from the church, or engaging in behaviors the church and family do not condone (rebelliousness) are both acts of emotional reaction, and signs they are still controlled and influenced by the system.
Does that mean a pastor’s kid has to be a Christian to be emotionally healthy? Again, the question is whether there is a healthy family system and healthy pastor that allows the child to come to their realization on their own, instead of merely rejecting the goals of the pastor at the expense of the child’s true selves.
Emotionally healthy people can express their individuality from the group, while still remaining calm, connected, and curious with others.
Simba and the Hero's Journey
Simba’s story in the Lion King has an important distinction to it from the Pastor’s Kid trope we’ve discussed.
Simba is also raised with the idea that he will fulfill a leadership role both in the family and in the community.
Scar forces Simba from the Pride Lands where he is raised by Timon and Pumba. Eventually, Nala finds Simba and pleads with him to come back and claim his place as king.
Initially, however, Simba refuses.
It is after an earnest struggle and introspection (where Simba is, importantly, given the space and freedom to decide for himself whether he is called to go back to the Pride Lands or not), that Simba realizes that he is in fact called to take up the mantle of his father.
The difference here is that Simba had the freedom, time, and agency to come to that conclusion on his own, and realized that it was, in fact, his calling…whereas the Pastor’s Kid who is not allowed that freedom to work out their calling in their own time and manner, may not be coming to it from an emotionally healthy place.
Most healthy coming-of-age journeys lead away from home. Jesus for example, had to leave his village and express a sense of separateness from his family. Some journeys do lead back home of course, but only after having the space (either physically or metaphorically) to come to the conclusion that that is where God is leading them on their own.
They can not be coerced, forced, pressured, or manipulated to come to this conclusion…or it is not healthy self-differentiation.
Again, Pastor’s Kids absolutely can be called to pastoral ministry.
The hope, both for the Pastor’s Kid and the church they serve, is that they come to that sense of calling after genuine discernment and self-differentiation.
The best life is one in which we fully live out our own calling, not the calling of someone else.
Any effort to force a child into a particular mold risks creating submissive inauthentic compliance, or, rebellion.
The same applies to other careers as well as matters of spirituality - you may be able to strong arm your child to comply to your ‘best intentions’ for them to become a lawyer or doctor in the first half of their life…but if it’s not authentic to who they are…you are setting them up for a lot of mental health issues and emotional work in the second half of life.
If you are a pastor yourself and have children, here are several questions that I think could be really beneficial for introspection.
Don’t rush through them…
Allow yourself to sit with them, and, notice what and where feelings arise as you read through them:
7 Questions for Every Pastor With Kids to Ask Themselves
What messages are you receiving from your congregation about your children’s participation in the church community?
Who is consciously or subconsciously pressuring your family or children to act a certain way in the church community?
What expectations do you have for yourself about attending church events even when, if you’re honest, you don’t want to go? Where did those come from? What is the relationship between the expectations you have for yourself and those you have for your children?
What emotions do you feel when your children do not want to engage in a church activity? (check out this feelings wheel to give you some more emotions to name)
What do you feel in your body when your children do not want to engage in a church activity?
This is going to sound like really out there woo-woo stuff…but…sit and listen to that part of your body and notice what comes up. Are there any images or memories coming up? Does that part of your body have anything to say if you listen to it?
What expectations did you have around church in your own family growing up? How does that impact the expectations you have for your children?
Listen…the church has been an incredibly important and formative part of my life…and that’s to say nothing of the incredible gratitude I feel for how my relationship with and understanding of Jesus has and continues to shape me every day.
Yes - I do want that for my daughter…more than anything…
And, I know I have to walk a fine line of ‘raising her in the faith’, and also in age appropriate ways, allowing her to come to her own understanding of how church and Jesus will fit into her life.
This is the tension I believe Paul is trying to get at when he says in Ephesians 6:4
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord”
If I push too hard, and create emotional fusion, my daughter is likely to react in anger out of a need for individuality - through rebelliousness, power struggles, or distancing - both from me and the church.
By the way, it’s worth noting the word for ‘discipline’ in Greek in Ephesians 6:4 is paideía - which can mean discipline or chastise…but it also can mean to nurture or educate, which has a very different vibe to it.
It may be something for all parents to consider - are we trying to chastise children into faith, or are we trying to nurture it. I think there’s a big difference between the two.
Keep Reading: Triangulation and the Church
Continuing on with exploring Bowen Family Systems and the church, the next series explores Bowen’s concept of Triangles and Triangulation and how it applies to church life.
It looks at:
Healthy and unhealthy triangles in relationships
Common examples of triangles in churches
Biblical examples of triangulation
How to deal with toxic triangulation effectively
Click here for the first post in the Triangulation series.
Thanks for Reading!
Note: New content now being published at www.travisjeffords.com/blog
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About the Author
Travis Jeffords is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary. Travis writes on the intersection of faith, spirituality, the church, and mental health.