One of the questions I ask parents at our Power Paren-T-een workshops is, “What are you training your son for?” As you might guess, the answers vary per household. For various reasons many parents are in reaction mode most of the time when it comes to training. What I mean by that is training begins because some situation caused it to. Dating training begins because Mom found condoms in the washing machine. That’s reactionary training. Training your son about girls because he is male and soon will have desires and questions is pro-active training.

One of the trainings that often go untouched until its too late and frustration, complacency and laziness have set in is training our sons that they must leave our homes. Therefore, they must have the proper skill sets to live independent of us. In recent years, because of the emotional or financial co-dependency that many mothers have with their sons, many sons don’t leave the household until pushed out or until they find another woman who will provide for them.

One of the signs of authentic manhood is when a man can either provide for himself or provide for his family. Sadly, due to missed preparation and misunderstood purpose, many of our sons today are not leaving our homes the right way or for the right purpose.

Even worse, some are not leaving at all. In the “The Cosby Show” series Cliff and Clair Huxtable often joked about the kids plotting to wait until they died to get the house. Cosby subtly infused the concept that kids are to be expected to leave the parents’ home and be on their own. Although he never gave us a reason why, I agree with him 100 percent. God gave us one of His reasons — His command that sons leave, in Matthew 19:4-6

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

This says that our sons should be expected, prepped and trained for leaving us and cleaving to their wives. The heavenly expectation is vital if we are to follow the commandment given to us in Genesis to “be fruitful and multiply.” How will our sons be able to fulfill this if we won’t let them leave our bedrooms or basements? How would they be able to survive away from us if we did not prepare them for leaving?

Power Paren-T-een Tip of the Week:

See if you can solve this riddle: “Why would your son desire to leave if he continued to get his clothes washed, food cooked and bills paid at your address?” And “What kind of husbands will our daughters have to chose from if we continue to spoil our sons?”

Carlos Johnson is the founder of the I.M.A.G.E. Personal Success Training Institute and the family director at Evangel Ministries. He conducts Power Paren-T-een seminars for parents and Helping YOU-th Succeed workshops for youth. He may be contacted at www.imageofsuccess.com or 1-(888) IMAGE-24.