It was not the response to a blog post I expected. Back in June of 2013, I wrote a post speaking on behalf of pastors for their kids. I summarized seven major things pastors wanted you to know about their children. The article had a big response when it was first posted. But, for reasons I have not completely fathomed, the post went viral a few weeks ago. Now almost 200,000 views and hundreds of comments later, we can see a pretty clear picture.
You see, the majority of those who responded were pastors’ kids. So, instead of hearing from pastors about their children, we heard directly from the children themselves. Some were teenagers still living with their parents. Others were adults who grew up as PKs. All of them had pretty strong opinions.
As I read again through the plethora of comments, I developed seven major themes from these PKs. Not all of their comments were negative, but a majority did communicate some level of pain. Here is what they said:
- The glass house is a reality. People are always looking at the PKs. They have trouble saying or doing anything without someone, usually a church member, making a comment. Most of these PKs (and former PKs) felt a great deal of discomfort living in the glass house. Some even expressed bitterness.
- Some church members made a positive and lasting impression on PKs. One of the more frequent positive comments we heard were about the church members who loved and cared for the PKs. Many of them took the children under the wings and made a positive difference in their lives.
- Some church members were jerks to the PKs. Many of the stories are heartbreaking. It is really hard to imagine some of the awful words that were said to the PKs. Some still feel the sting of those words decades later.
- Many PKs resent the interrupted meals and vacations. They felt like their pastor parent put the church before the family. One PK, now an adult, lamented that every vacation his family took was interrupted; and many times the vacation was truncated.
- Some of the PKs have very positive memories when their parents included them in the ministry. I read comments about hospital visits, nursing home visits, and ministry in the community. These PKs absolutely loved doing ministry with mom and dad. They felt like the church ministry was something the whole family did.
- A key cry from the PKs was: “Let me be a regular kid.” A number of the PKs expressed pain from the high expectations placed upon them by both their parents and church members. Others said that some church members expected them to behave badly because that’s just what PKs do.
- Some PKs left the church for good because of their negative experiences. They viewed local congregations as a place for judgmental Christians who are the worst of hypocrites. They have no desire ever to return. You can feel the resentment and pain in their comments. Their hurt is palpable.
On the one hand, I feel badly for the opening of wounds that blog post caused. On the other hand, I am grateful for the forum it allowed for many of the PKs to express themselves.
If you are a PK, do you identify with these comments? How do the rest of you react to their hopes and hurts?
photo credit: Joe Thorn via photopin cc
Posted on January 8, 2014
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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170 Comments
I’m 18 years old and I’ve been a pastor’s daughter my whole entire life! Number 6 really sticks out to me. I’ve always felt like people see me as “the pastor’s daughter” rather than Taylor. There’s no “regular” in a pastor’s family life. Everything is different yet, this is all I’ve known. There’s most definitely a blessing and a curse about it.
As a PK who had a wonderful experience growing up, and as a Pastor with two awesome kids, this subject is very important to me. I agree with all except the “Regular Kid” part. Fellow PK’s, face it, we can’t be regular kids, especially in the life of the Church. My key was to enjoy being the PK. Take advantage of all the perks, and there are some! I was immensely proud of my parents and as a result I was happy to be identified with them. Pastor’s can’t be regular people and neither can their kids. But we can try to limit the negatives and accent the positive! PK’s rule!!
I have been a Pastor’s Kid for my whole 16 years, and my dad has been the pastor of the same church for 27 years. We’ve had the regular ups and downs that every church in the world goes through, then we’ve had the big church splits, where half of the families in the church leave. There have been weeks where my dad didn’t get a paycheck because the church split had such an effect on the financial status of the church. No one really understood what we were going through as a family, nor did we tell anyone. PKs always have a stereotype pinned on them… We’re either gonna be in full time ministry, or we quit altogether… I’m not gonna lie, when I was little I threw around the “because I’m the Pastor’s kid” excuse a whole lot!!! But as I’ve gotten older, the stress and the emotional part of being a PK has began to catch up with me… Sometimes I feel like I don’t have “parents” and that I just have a pastor and a pastors wife, but it’s not their fault at all… It’s really not anyone’s fault… It just comes with the territory I guess… But when I see the situations others are going through and what they’ve had to grow up in, a realize how blessed I truly am… I have a dad that loves God most importantly, and that loves my mom, me, my three brothers and sisters, and our church… I don’t even think anyone will read this, but it’s nice to get it out!!! 🙂 PKs just need to be treated like any other kids in the church, but a word or two of incouragement definitely doesn’t hurt… EVER!!!
Pastoring is the only job or career I can think of i which your 3 year old child can be blamed for the loss of the family income..My parents ministered in SBC churches for over 50 years. People wooed them, loved them, then proceeded to campaign against him and kick them out. They were faith filled loving, compassionate generous…with everyo e except their own children. My father once made the statement from the pulpit, “The reason the bars are more full than the churches are sadly because there is often more fellowship in the bars” Mybrothers and I learned the truth of that statement personally. None of us attend church. We could do no right. Two of us are sociophobic..always fearing the humiliation we were shamed into expecting..raised with bitterness and criticism in the home, watching the ki nd gentle loving others recieved from them..assuming there must be some horrible flaw with us that could turn such godly parents away from us in scorn or upon us in wrath. We were on display, always disappointing in big and small and all ways..never nurtured, cherished,cuddled, never a proud word,never an approving glance..my father died this year.. Leaving us un prepared in all ways. Today I came upon a small notebook, one of many, filled with outlines for a sermon I heard over the years. Filled with clippings, quotes, illustrations, jokes, he was a remarkable speaker, funny, i ntelligent, wise. My boyfriend asked how a man I felt so unloved by,( 10 min. Visits brought on weeklong depressions) suddenly reached hero status..he was admirable loved and respected, his counsel sought out by so many..still critical and bitter with me and any belonging to me(my precious children felt his rejection as well, while all their friends told them how lucky they were to have such a wo nderful grandfather). Next to the booklet of sermons that warmed my heart with pride and nostalgia was a manila envelope. I pulled it out and poured the contents out. My elderly father who could never show his children warmth or love had yet another passion other than evangelism, apparently. He had no computer, did not mail order, so apparently the contents were worth a road trip or several. I sat on the floor, devastated, offended, once again..hurt so deeply and rejected. Once again,feeling the need to protect, cover for, defend. I’m done. He is gone. I am working myself around to forgiveness, been a long day. His weakness draws compassion and disgust, alternately. I have realized 3 things..1) I am stronger than him. 2) He may have seen me as a flawed disappointment to him, but he may have been ore flawed than I and just much less hon est about it. 3) Ah Ha! Moment…maybe God was not shunning and snubbing me everytime my dad (his buddy) did..
I definitely hear where you are coming from jean, I grew up as a PK and it was really tough. I attended a Christian school growing up and I was always involved with church stuff. I think my parents loved me and cared for me, but I think what really hurt both of them and their relationship with their kids was that, I am convinced they had other idols in their minds that really stumped not only their family relationship, but also their ministry. My parents did alot of good things for the church, but sometimes I think they were doing it for the wrong reasons. My dad was kind of Pharisaical, (if there is such a word) in the way he interacted with our family and so could my mother. I remember they always had this attitude where if you or anyone else didn’t agree with them, do things the way that they did, or think the way they did, they had a very arrogant and condescending demeanor towards other people who were not like them. I remember them being very strict with all of us kids and as I grew older and started going to public school, I really deeply felt like I could not trust them when I was going through any kind of personal stuff because I was so used to them throwing it in my face whenever I would try to approach them with some issue that I felt was important and I would usually get a condescending response in return. You can’t bring those kind of attitudes into the world and expect the world to listen to you. I remember seeing over the years at their church where the congregation seemed like it was declining. I think there was way too heavy of an emphasis placed on entertainment service and not enough on spiritual development. My family went through some really tough times because of alot of this stuff and I feel like it could have been avoided if we fixed the heart attitudes first and then worked on the ministry and family relationships.
I have read several of your thoughts, and appreciate and can relate to many of you. What has really helped you in processing this and recovering? I have felt stuck in perfectionism, and wanting to still always be seen as good….I am seriously questioning my salvation for the 4th time.
A little background. My dad was a pastor of at least 4 different churches. My mom didn’t become a Christian until after I was born. She really didn’t get a chance to grow up, but was flung right into pastor’s wife mode. My dad is a very reserved man, but gets really intense when he preaches. I don’t know how much to go into on this….but it has been a very difficult road for all six of us. My brother was diagnosed schizophrenic. My mother was severly depressed, and accused my dad of having an affair. Which I know is not true, but it was unfortunately the fabricated story she believed. She would ask if we were going to see the other family many times when we would go see friends. We did not really sit down and discuss how we were doing as a family….It was just keep on this happy face, and die on the inside. As a senior in HS, I got to a breaking point. I was severly depressed. I wanted so badly to keep it together, but I couldn’t……I had no stability at home, but I had to try and keep up this Christian act.
It has felt so much like acting over the years… I just cry out to God that he will genuinely save and regenerate my heart, and so many others.
We could all use lots of prayer…I was encouraged to hear that a pastor friend of the family who we knew from years ago has prayed faithfully for each one of us kids.
To all of you PK’s out there: you are not alone in the craziness.
Thanks to you all for sharing. Maybe a compiled book of stories as well as ideas about a road to recovery for a PK would be helpful to many.
Nice post. I also made a blog post sharing my experience of my struggle as a pk
http://journalofapk.blogspot.com/2014/08/struggles-of-pastors-kid.html
I have only come across this blog today. I will tell you, all seven points are real to me, to the point where the Work has been a wedge dividing the family asunder. A personal sentiment is that family should come first. In as much as Adam ate the fruit Eve took a bite of, knowing he’d suffer much as her, choose your family. You only live once. So does your family. You’ll have an eternity to be with God, but maybe only a lifetime to be with the people that matter to you. Make it count.
If you do go into the ministry with them, then set the tone inside the church. Teach the congregation to mind their own business. We are humans just as much, subject to much flaws and failures.
I am bitter to the bone. And I resent it. However, I still cannot let it go. I am still am here, inside the walls of the great white hall, dressed as a sheep, but with the heart of a wolf. Every single time I let my guard down, the congregation comes to bite me in the ass when all I wanted to be was one of them. Them that had regular lives. Them who my father had more time for. Them who were not judged for their mistakes and were loved nonetheless. Them..
I have grown up as a PK, there were 3 years that I was an MK, but other than that I have been a PK my whole life (I am now 20). There is both bad and good in being a PK. It’s great knowing so many great strong people in the church and having the mentorship for the other staff and their families. You also have a feather that you knows loves God and does his best to show you Christ through him. It’s also hard though. Everyone in the church knows you and watches you. They, generally the seniors, will Facebook stalk all of your photos and if they think one of them should not be on the internet your dad will hear about it and ultimately you will have to take it down. Everyone knows who you’re dating and what’s going on in your life, there is no privacy. You have to be perfect, you are the pastors daughter, and therefore should have been raised right. So you’re perfect right? The hardest thing for me in my life right now is the constant pressure to be at church every Sunday. There can be no sleep in because people expect the pastors kid to be there and your father feels the pressure of the people in the church and his reputation. I get why some PKs leave the church because of seeing church goers and hypercritical and judgmental. It’s a hard thing to get past, but for me i just have to remember that every religion is going to have that, you just have to find the ones that a true christian. I thank my dad for showing me God’s love, for loving me and being the best father he could. I have a lot of bitter feelings towards being a PK, it’s not the easiest family to be a part of, but it wasn’t all bad, it just has it’s hard times.
The thing that’s struck me most over the years was that as a pastor’s child I never believed anyone ever really knew me, and that those who liked me, liked me because I was a PK, and those who disliked me, disliked me because I was a PK. I cannot, even as an adult, count on one hand those genuine relationships that I believe crossed the threshold.
Anon –
I know exactly how you feel – literally…exactly. That is a hard place to be in. You have to learn to trust (speaking to myself too). You have to learn to open yourself up to people AND accept the fact that they want to be a part of your life because of you and not because of your parents or your being a PK.
IF you believe it is hard for someone to like you for you, than it makes this mental battle even more difficult.
Let me leave you with this: God made you uniquely you. And did that for a reason. Other people see that and want to be a part of your life. You MAY and probably WILL get hurt by opening yourself, but that is a part of life more than just being a PK. Love people as genuinely as you know how and trust the Lord to bring the right people into your life who could give a rip what your parents do vocationally, but simply care about you :).
A year later I read your reply. Thank you.
I grew up as a preachers kid, and while I wouldn’t live my life any other way there were hardships as well. The preacher is often times looked at similar to a sports coach. When they’re doing well, everyone loves them. When things are a little rough, every part of the preachers life is criticized, including us kids. Often times I was told that I didn’t know enough about the Bible, I was told I needed to pay attention more if I didn’t know every single event happening at the church, and once was even griped at because my dad’s new project might “completely destroy the church financially” even though at the time I had no clue what that really meant. So the “please just let me be a kid” sentiment I did agree with. I will say after my dad’s project was successful, I made sure that church member who griped at me knew that the plan worked just fine.
I just ran across this today (its great BTW!) after I read a scathing post about my dads church on FB. Now take into account I am 33 and I moved away from my home state over ten years ago. The post almost brought me to tears and to top it off it was from one of dads best friends and someone that helped raise me. I was just looking through online posts about the effects of being a PK long term because you never stop being a PK and I think people forget that. Everything in this post and your previous post from last year are true, I didn’t personally deal with all of them because my folks are amazing but I know kids that did. I have found one the hardest parts for me to this day is feeling the same hurt as my dad. Watching congregants, many times my dads friends, bash the church, a specific sermon, or leave and seeing the pain in his eyes, he was always supportive and prayed with them or tried to talk it out in love. Even though it hurt he never showed it to the church. And money… don’t get me started on tithe and knowing every week as people put money in the plate some of that was going to my dinner plate at home. Worrying if there would be enough after our church tithed out to ministries and missions (always the first priority), paid the building and maintenance expenses, and paid the staff… my dad always took his salary last. Now I admit I was a worrier and one of the ways satan tests me to this day but from the moment I was able to understand the concept of my dads salary it was always scary. Our church never dwelled on tithing, the tithe was prayed for and that was about it. Sometimes I wanted to say hello I eat based on what you give!!! Now I know God will always provide for my family and that was a big lesson to learn but it was a scary one to learn as PK of a small church body. After the FB post today I can’t image how hard it is for kids to hear things that are said about their parents. My folks were able to shield me but I bet social media opens PKs up to a lot more than they should have to see.
There can’t really be a defined outline in terms of what to watch out for in PKs – I grew up to 7 in a church with cameras all over the place recording services, huge ass sound booth with TV broadcasting/telecomm stuff I can’t even describe if I wanted to because I know nothing about it – ran about 2,000 on a packed Sunday. All kinds of debauchery and corruption was going on, my dad (music director) got treated like shit, so we bounced from church to church in the area and finally stuck somewhere. That was my second home church until I graduated high school and quickly vacated my home state for schooling (but really to just get away from home). I am forever grateful for the gift of music and the fact I grew up submersed in it constantly, however being (sometimes*) forced to play drums for main service on Sundays every week from my 7th grade year on did put a bitter taste in my mouth at times.
There were many occurrences in which I found myself ridiculing my father for the (seemingly to me) act he’d put on at church, then come home throughout the week bent out of shape, terrible temper, raised-voice and yelling all the time. My parents’ marriage hollowed more and more throughout my childhood to the point of inevitable notice by the time I was about to graduate HS.
I can’t say being a PK is a “bad” thing. It’s just another thing. Another way of life. I could’ve been a starving Cambodian child under political oppression, but I’m not for whatever reason. I’m 24 in July and haven’t regularly attended church for more than a month or two since I left the house at 18. I have a concise, clean, clear-cut no questions asked resentment for my father and his dedication to ministry. It ended up (with many other factors, obviously) driving my mom to divorce him a little over a year ago, which has now crushed him – and he’s lost, I can see it.
The biggest “pain” I have recently realized is that I lack, or may not even have much if any, respect for my father as a man. Sure, he dedicated his life to ministry and saving souls and that’s all fine and dandy – but even after me being molested at 8 by a family friend – not once did he sit down with me and counsel me or even ask if it still affected me or anything along those lines. He didn’t teach me how to manage my finances, how to use power tools etc, he wasn’t a “man’s man”, so I merged into the real world being overly-naive and prude, realizing so many lessons of “what it truly means to be a man” the hard way.
I could aimlessly ramble off so many more things that come to mind and delve much further into detail – but just as Mr. Rainer stated, re-opening those wounds are something that I have an extremely difficult time with. Extremely difficult.
The most comforting thing of this article and it’s following responses and thoughts is that there are SO many PKs out there who deal with the exact same issues. That’s about the only thing that keeps my head just above water when swimming in this sea of emotion and unanswered questions.