One trend that has bugged me for more than a decade is parents, and pastors, encouraging their kids to move away. This is not the same as encouraging them to move out. Yes, raise kids who grow up and take more and more responsibility for themselves, and then commit to a spouse, and start a family, probably in their own house. All that is great. It is the post high school move-away-if-you-can that concerns me.

The end of May/beginning of June is graduation season. Our school will conduct its second evar commencement this coming Sunday evening. It gives occasion for me to look out the window again, stroke my beard, and ruminate in general, where should parents and teachers aim senior arrows?

I don’t think it is sin to go away to college. Other articles have been written, especially for Christian students, about priorities young people need to consider when choosing a college. Those are great. And of course not every high school graduate even needs to go to college, but that is another post.

But is it the best to send our kids away? Why pour into them for seventeen/eighteen years of life, including thirteen years of schooling, and then offer them nothing close to home after that?

We live in a fairly small town. It might be more exciting to move to a larger place and attend an established school. It would be an experience. I went to three different colleges, all of which were at least seven hours from my hometown. But we are raising our kids to love the place God planted our family, teaching them to love their city neighbors, and encouraging them to be salt and light here.

If they want to go away, and have good reasons for doing so, that will be fine. This isn’t about parental grabbiness. Everyone does not need to stay near home. But telling our kids that it is better to get out is counterproductive to generational change and maybe a sign of our own unthankfulness.