One of my regular readers has been trying to incorporate an older teen boy into her home, with varying degrees of success. Recently, this courageous and giving mom posted that her “son” states, “he's having an identity crisis. Who or what does he really want to be?”


This comment falls right on the heels of a conversation I had in the car with Beth just a few days ago. I believe it was actually on her birthday, as she was turning 11 years old. She was sitting in the back seat and she started rattling off all the things she wants to do with her life when she becomes an adult. This lengthy list included: an Olympic swimmer, a veterinarian, a mom, a swim coach, a lady who does nails, and I think there was at least one or two more. We discussed how hard it is to make it to the Olympics in any sport, and how much time Olympic athletes spend every day in training. We discussed the rigors of veterinary school (it was the pits!) We talked about how I worked 2½ days a week after the kids were born … and how they were always healthy on the days I was home and sick on the days I had to work. We talked about how it always fell on me to solve the problem, and the other vets at the office (who were wonderful family dads) were far less tolerant of my family needs when it threw a monkey wrench into the day.


The point I am aiming for here is that Beth has no lack of things she wants to accomplish in her life. No lack of goals at all. Contrast this with Amy, who was unwilling or unable to look ten minutes into the future, much less articulate this many goals at age 11. Like Beth, I have far more interests than I have time to accomplish them. I declared my intent to be a veterinarian at age 5, and my intent to build my family partially through adoption by age 13. What makes Beth and me goal oriented, and Amy unable to see into the future at all? Why is Bipette’s teenage son having an identity crisis?


I think it has everything to do with trusting that you have a future, having some sense of value for yourself, and, perhaps most importantly, being willing to take the reins of your own life. In Amy’s case, she makes no decisions voluntarily, because to do so places some responsibility for the outcome of those decisions upon her shoulders. In Nancy Ashe’s DVD, she states the same thing: she made no decisions. She “worked with what came, worked around it, or cut and run.” There is no room for planning a future in that line of thinking.


I think Bipette’s son is just starting to consider the possibility that he might have a future—and one that has some value. He wouldn’t be the first cancer patient to question the value of working hard for something if he wasn’t even sure he would live to reap the rewards of his hard work. Now he has a “family” to contemplate as well … so not only might he have a life before him (a future) but he has people who care to share that future with him. BUT … what if he doesn’t? What if his cancer returns? What if these people quit on him? What if he quits on them? Just what does he want, anyway?


It is no surprise this young man is having an identity crisis! To some degree, these are all the same questions Dora is asking herself these days … and the answer is yet to be determined.


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