A recent discussion with other member care workers, followed by a discussion with some prospective mission workers who plan to take early retirement and go abroad leaving behind their grown up children, prompts me to draw attention to the plight of YANGs – Young Adults Not Going.
The number of healthy and financially independent adults who are able to bring their working life to a close and use their professional and life skills serving God abroad has been increasing significantly in recent years and they have brought a welcome boost to the teams they are part of. Here at Syzygy we have worked with several couples in this situation over the years and they have been a great blessing to fellow mission workers and nationals alike.
However, their absence from the UK can come at a significant cost to their children. While it may be tempting for these older candidates who are just at the end of the baby boomer generation to think that their 20-something children are grown up and it’s about time they learned to stand on their own feet, this overlooks the fact that millennials are used to having much more support from their parents (helicopter parenting) and can take longer to feel grown up than previous generations. So the departure of a parent to a foreign country can feel very much like a bereavement – particularly if it also means the loss (albeit temporary) of the family home which is rented out to strangers.
Perhaps for the first time in their lives they can’t go ‘home’ for Christmas. A stranger is sleeping in their bedroom. All the belongings that a student wants to keep but can’t take to university are now in storage. Nobody is there to babysit for them. And mum and dad are no longer physically there for them in a crisis. It can feel even worse if on top of their loss they have to take up responsibility for caring for their elderly grandparents or a needy sibling.
That’s not to say that the parents shouldn’t go, but they need think hard about how to support their children from a distance. The Global Connections TCK forum has some useful suggestions for parents considering going abroad in mission – click here to view them.
Sending churches and agencies also need to be aware of the risks to YANGs, and while they may decide that member care for them isn’t directly their responsibility, they do need to find a way of facilitating discussion around these issues so that the YANGS feel supported. Otherwise they may struggle so much that the parents are drawn away from the mission field in order to be there for them.
Without active planning to prevent this eventuality, YANGs could very easily become YINs – youth in need!
