Being a kid is confusing and sometimes there is a whole lot of pressure to be feminine or masculine, and a lot of people have a lot of different ideas what that looks like. But what happens when we just focus on becoming the people that God wants us to be? What happens when we allow God to decide what each and every person should be and what what kinds of lives and jobs He wants them to have?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
Parents, all Scripture this week comes from the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible.
Being a kid is super confusing, right? It always has been, but it seems like you guys all decided to be born at a time when we have so much information and so many choices and so many people pushing you and prodding you to do things their way. It can seem like no matter what you do, someone or a lot of someone’s are going to tell you that it is wrong and so that’s why we are going to have a serious talk today about the only two people who get to decide who you are going to be and what you are going to do with your life and what that should all look like. Those two people are you and God, who isn’t actually a person but let’s not get sidetracked. When God made you He had a specific plan, and He still does. No one else’s opinions can change what He wants for you. God has only made one of you (even if you are an identical twin) and He will never make another one of you. You are the only you who He will ever make. That means that His plans for your life—what you will be good at, who you will know and meet, and how you will think about things—are different than His plans for anyone else in the world. We’ll get back to His plans later because they are important but they also aren’t your job to figure out. I was in my forties before God showed me what He had created me for, but He didn’t want me to know before I was ready. And the same is true for you. We are all on a need-to-know basis and God usually doesn’t think we need to know much of anything!
And right now, you don’t need to know what God’s plans are because He really will steer you in the way He wants you to go, and He will work with you to get you ready for what He wants because He doesn’t want you to fail. You won’t even really need to think about it. When He needs to do something, He will take care of it and tell you what you need to do. Maybe you were born for something you will do on one day of your life, where you need to do something that won’t even seem very important to you but will be very important to God and to many other people. And maybe you think you are such a screw-up that you will mess up God’s plans. Don’t worry, grown-ups think that way too. But when God wants you to do a job, He isn’t teaching you to fail at it. He wants that job done and He really can make you into exactly the person who can do it right! So, I don’t want you stressing out because God works quietly, and a lot of times we don’t even notice because we are too busy thinking that we are just awful, or losers, or hopeless. But we aren’t. You aren’t! It took me so many years to understand and accept that so there is nothing wrong with you if you just find it impossible to believe.
What does concern you right now is probably everyone else’s expectations. Expectations is a really long word but it means “what people expect from you”—how to act, what to do, what you should be interested in, etc. If your grandma wants you to be a doctor because she was a doctor, that’s an expectation. If your uncle wants you to be a musician because he was a musician, that’s an expectation. If the coach wants you to be on the wrestling team, that’s an expectation. If your parents want you to get straight A’s in school, that’s an expectation. If your cousin wants you to like riding on dirt bikes because that is their hobby, that’s an expectation. If your best friend wants you to be on the cheer team because they are, you guessed it, that’s an expectation. And there is a big difference between them hoping that you might do those things (because we always like it when people do the same things we do) and pushing them on you. Just because they like something or they are good at something doesn’t mean that you will be. It also doesn’t mean that you need to be good at it or like it. How terrible would it be if we all had to be good at or like the same exact things? There are a ton of things that would just never get done, things that are important, things that make our lives better. But God, He is wiser than all us adults and our expectations because He made you to be unique. You have gifts that other people don’t have. You are smart in ways that other people aren’t. There has never been anyone like you and there never will be again. I am so glad that you were born. The rest of us need you to be exactly who God created you to be. And I am counting on you to learn to trust Him to know what He is doing, even if you can’t right now. That’s totally okay because God helps us grow to know, understand, and trust Him better. He doesn’t expect us to do it ourselves—how could we?
God made you with talents, and He also made you with things you are not talented at. Maybe you are good at singing, but not at painting. Maybe you get straight As in school, but you are terrible at sports. Maybe you are good at science, but you have two left feet and can’t dance. Maybe you are a terrific writer but are so anxious and shy that you can’t stand to be around people. Maybe you are a great cook, but you kill your houseplants! Maybe you can do all your own home repairs but can’t figure out how to build things. Or maybe you are the opposite of all those things. Or a mishmash! If you are all those things, then you are like me. And maybe some of those surprise you about me. I do all my own yardwork, and I do all my own home improvements. I mow the lawn and cut back the trees and move the heavy rocks in my wheelbarrow. I can replace a toilet, put in tile floors, fix the plumbing, shingle a roof, paint a house from floor to ceiling, change out light fixtures, and tape and texture drywall. And I am also a singer and a writer, and I teach adults and kids about the Bible. I have a college degree in Chemistry, which means I am also really good at math and physics, and I used to be an aerospace researcher and I worked on making fighter jets harder to see and airplanes safer, but I can’t read music or learn new languages. I jog on the treadmill and ride the stationary bike and hike with my husband in the National Parks near our house, but I was awful at sports—just horrible. And the last time I danced with someone, they accidentally hit me in the face because I moved the wrong direction.
And a lot of people might say, “Miss Tyler, why do you do the yard work and home improvements? That’s a job for your husband!” I do those jobs because I am the kind of person who likes to learn and do new things and to be in charge of the project. If I want something done, I am prepared to do it myself unless it is too heavy for me to do alone. Doing those jobs isn’t man’s work. It’s the work of whoever wants to do them or has learned how to do them. I just put on my work clothes and get out my power tools and maybe watch internet videos or buy a book and get to work! So sometimes I am up on very tall ladders and sometimes I am under the sink and sometimes I am cutting down dead trees or burning brush. God made me to be a self-sufficient person, which means if I see something that needs doing, I do it if I can. And when I was younger, some people told me that science and math wasn’t for me because I was a girl. But I just ignored them because I was really good at it and, more than that, I enjoyed it. I was good at it and enjoyed it because that’s how God designed my brain. He did it on purpose so that I would be exactly who I am. And I love to cook in my kitchen, but I am also really good at barbequing things and you haven’t lived until you have eaten my fourteen hour smoked Texas-style brisket. But you know what? My husband is a good cook too—he is a really good cook, and he does the best BBQ I have ever had. But he isn’t allowed to do brisket because what he does with it is a dishonor to the cow. In fact, my husband taught me how to cook when we were first dating and after we got married. Cooking is a job for anyone who wants to eat!
God doesn’t make us all to be the same kinds of people and He doesn’t make certain jobs that are just for men and other jobs that are just for women. Except having babies, obviously, and the Bible does describe men as being able to pee against walls. Wish I could, let me tell you! Even the Bible doesn’t say anything about what it means to be a boy or a girl. We see all kinds of boys in the Bible and all kinds of girls, and all kinds of women and all kinds of men. So, no one can look at a little baby and know what on earth they are going to be like, or good at, or enjoy doing. And definitely no one looks at a baby and knows exactly what God wants them to be or how that will happen. Even Mary had no idea what was going to happen with Jesus—other than the fact that He would save His people. And that could have meant a lot of things!
One of the things we tend to do, and this happens everywhere, is to look at people and judge them according to stereotypes. Another huge word, I know, I am just awful! A stereotype is what happens when people make assumptions about someone else because of how they look, or dress, or where they are from, or whatever. If someone were to say something silly, like, “All boys love sports and getting dirty and fishing and playing with frogs and snakes and hate to sit inside and read,” that would be a stereotype because not all boys like that sort of thing, and if those were the only types of boys there were out there then the world would get really boring. How about, “All girls love to have tea parties, and wear lacy dresses and play with dolls and hate to go hunting,” well that would be just as ridiculous. You can’t just look at a boy or a girl or a woman or a man and decide what it is they like and don’t like without knowing them personally, and when we know people personally, they will always surprise us. I never mind being dirty, but my husband really wants to be clean as much as possible. And people have other stereotypes about people from different countries or even different parts of the same country, or about people with different accents, and did you know that the Apostle Paul said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true.” (Titus 1:12-13)
Dude! Paul, you can’t say that! Just imagine if we supposed that everyone from the Island of Crete, since the beginning of time until now, is a liar, and evil, and lazy, and a glutton? Paul was quoting something from a philosopher named Epimenedes because he was frustrated with what was going on with the Church in Crete, but we can’t assume that is true about everyone. Stereotypes are like that, and they are often used to hurt people. Stereotypes are where we most often get prejudice from, and racism. Not so long ago in the country where I live, there were some scientists who decided that women were more likely to drown than men because they weren’t as evolved, or smart, or as human as men. Of course, we see that as pretty funny now because every man who has ever been born came from a woman, right? And around the same time, someone did some experiments that weren’t even experiments at all that said that certain types of people are naturally inferior to others. But they tested people who were very educated versus people who didn’t have the chance to get educated at all! Sometimes, people want to prove something so bad that they are dishonest about how they do it. And so, for many years, people believed that being white made you naturally better, and being a man made you smarter than everyone who wasn’t. Nowadays, we know that was a silly thing to believe. Especially since we know that Jesus wasn’t white! He was brown!
So, how do stereotypes and expectations hurt kids? And they hurt adults too, actually. Let’s talk about the words masculine and feminine for a minute. I want you to know, first of all, that the Bible doesn’t say anything about this sort of thing—it doesn’t say anything about what you have to like or do in order to be masculine or feminine. Masculine can mean two things and they are extremely different. The first meaning is that someone is a man and not a woman, or a boy and not a girl and that’s all about being able to have babies and peeing against walls. That’s the simple meaning. The other meaning of masculine is trickier because it means different things to different people based on where you come from. It means different things because this kind of being masculine is about traditions and culture. It wasn’t so long ago that people in America believed that pink was a color for baby boys and blue was a color for baby girls. When I was a teenager, very few boys would wear pink because they would get teased for it but now pink is normal for everyone to wear. The tradition changed. And a tradition is just the word we use to describe the way things are normally done, even when we don’t know why or don’t really understand. And you will find different opinions on what it means to be masculine in different cultures all over the world. And the word feminine is the same—it can mean that you are a woman and not a man or a girl and not a boy. Or it can mean something more traditional. I am going to recite you a little poem that I grew up with to explain it:
What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? Snips and snails And puppy-dogs’ tails, That’s what little boys are made of. What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice And everything nice, That’s what little girls are made of.
I heard that a lot growing up. It was written about two hundred years ago when things were very much about tradition and they believed that men were better than women, and that white men were better than anybody. And women did need protection from other men because women weren’t respected. In many ways, women were treated as not much better than children. But what about this idea that you can say that boys are made of snails and dog parts and that girls are made from sugar and spice? Poems like that told children how they were expected to act and behave. That poem was telling girls that they needed to be neat and tidy and quiet but that boys were expected to be loud and gross and active. And everyone tried to make sure that children did act that way, according to those expectations. Girls were expected to be one way and boys were expected to be another, and when they weren’t naturally acting that way, people made them act that way. But what if you see a girl who is made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails, and loves tramping through the woods, playing in the mud, or splitting fishing worms with her fingernails? Is she still feminine? Is she still a girl? Of course! There is nothing wrong with liking any of that—if God made her like that, then it must be important. We don’t have to know why, but she is still 100% as much of a girl as the lady who won the Miss America pageant.
And what about boys that are more sugar, spice, and everything nice? Is there something wrong with them? Absolutely not! There is nothing wrong with being kind and shy, and quiet and artistic, or maybe wanting to read more than being on your bike. Boys like that are still 100% boys and no one can say otherwise because if that’s the way God made someone, then telling them to be something else is telling God that He got it wrong and did a bad job. You can be a boy and care about hair and fashion. You can be a girl and play rugby. Or you can be a more traditional boy and lift weights and go hunting or do karate and be a lumberjack. Or you can be a girl who wants to be more traditional and wear dresses and makeup and be a stay-at-home mom or a schoolteacher. Tradition is just a word that means the way things were normally done in the past–tradition doesn’t mean right or wrong for everyone.
Before Julia Child and Marie Curie, the well-known cooks and scientists of the world were pretty much all men. And they became the best of the best. And there was also a time when a woman wasn’t allowed to teach the Bible or to even go to Bible college, but here I am teaching the Bible, and even a lot of men listen to me and read my books. And what about men? There was a time when men weren’t allowed to deliver babies! And men were almost never nurses until just a few decades ago and now they are everywhere! One of the wonderful things that is happening now is that people are looking at traditions and realizing that they aren’t always a good guide for what God wants to do with us. A man that God made to be a nurse would be a terrible waste working in a factory, and a woman who knows her way around machinery would be better in a factory than in a hospital. God makes men and women who should be nurses, and women and men who should be working with machines. What God does isn’t about tradition, it’s about who He wants us to be.
Did you know that not everyone in the Bible follows the “traditional” rules of how men and women are “supposed to behave”? When you follow God, you often find yourself doing things that no one thinks you can do! When Samuel came to have dinner with the family of Jesse and he asked for all the sons of the family so that he could anoint one the new King of Israel, they didn’t even bother inviting David, the youngest. While they were feasting and having a good time, they left him out with the sheep. Because he was the youngest, they thought he was the least important–but he was still God’s choice. He wasn’t going to be ready to be king for many years—he didn’t have the first idea how to be a warrior or a King. What he was really good at was music and watching sheep. So, he became a musician at the palace. And then God began to mold him into what he would need to be in order to be a good king—and he usually was a good king but no one is perfect. He never stopped being a musician and writing and singing songs though. Deborah was one of the most famous judges Israel ever had. While most women were at home caring for their husbands and children, Deborah was listening to people who had legal problems and she would tell them what to do because she was also a prophet. Because she was a prophet and a judge, she was able to order Barak, the leader of the army, to go and attack the Canaanites and she was so respected that he refused to go fight unless she came with them. And God gave them an amazing victory because a woman named Yael killed their leader Sisera! One more and maybe this is the most important one of all—have you ever heard anyone say, “real men don’t cry?” Do you know that the shortest verse in the Bible is?–“Jesus wept.” That’s right, it’s John 11:35 and you want to know who else cried?—Jacob, Joseph, David (he cries A LOT), Peter—and even a whole army once. They cried for the same reason we all cry, because we are sad. Crying is normal and natural for boys and girls both.
If you follow God, and trust God, and respect Him, and if the people in your life do the same, then you will all allow God to decide what He needs you to be doing. Maybe in your job or maybe at home! Maybe it is in your neighborhood or as a volunteer. You just never know exactly why God created you with all your special gifts and talents—even if you think you don’t have any right now. That’s just how people are, right? They think that everyone else has better and more impressive stuff that they can do. But what good is it to be a singer or a famous actress or an Olympic athlete if the only reason you are doing that is because other people wanted that for you and made you do it? Or if you feel like God wants you to be one of those things but people are telling you no just because it isn’t what people “like you” normally do? I will never be a dancer, and I can’t read music, and I am terrible with learning foreign languages, and art, and I can’t bake a scratch cake that turns out well no matter how hard I try and even when I can make things that are more complicated! And I know myself so I can say, “Sure, I would like to think of myself in those kinds of jobs but there are just some talents that I don’t have, and that’s okay!” Just because you or I can’t do everything doesn’t mean the stuff that we can do is less important or cool.
Being successful as a human being is all about saying yes to who God made you to be and not worrying about who you aren’t. It isn’t about money because if you aren’t happy then you will never have enough. It isn’t about being married and having a family. It isn’t about where you live or who you know. It isn’t about people clapping and asking for your autograph when they see you because that would get old and really annoying pretty quick. And it isn’t about everyone knowing who you are, because people forget who you are just as easily. But if you are who God made you to be and who He wants you to be, doing what He made you for and ignoring all those people who say, “Girls can’t do that!” or “A real guy would rather die than do that!” well, that’s the very best thing in the world. And only two people can make those decisions and know what is right for you to do and be, and that is mostly God but it is also you because He can’t make you into that person unless you cooperate. And sometimes it is hard to know how to cooperate but that’s okay too, when it is important, you will definitely know.
I love you, and I am praying for you, and I hope you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you. And I do so much more than just pray for you. I thank God for you because there is only one you and so you are very important to God’s plans.