I’ve seen — and heard from others — that kids of pastors and church leaders often end up rebelling hard against their upbringing, sometimes even becoming very wild or promiscuous.
From what I’ve noticed around church life, it seems like the daughters especially sometimes turn against their parents’ values. Maybe it’s just what I’ve seen personally, though. Is there real truth to this stereotype, or is it just an exaggeration? Curious to hear your experiences and thoughts!
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In my experience having known a few, absolutely. It seems mainly due to the expectation they’re perfect role models at all times. They’re held to the same standards as their grown parents while they’re going through the very tumultuous process of going through adolescence, which is silly.
My ex girlfriend is a pastors daughter and is basically a survivor of an insanely repressive upbringing. She is riddled with insecurities and has required years of therapy, and I feel so very awful for her. She was also a freaking wildcat in bed. But that also came with an insane amount of guilt that manifested in a lot of relationship drama
Edit: Also to add, if I showed even the slightest hint that I was similar to her dad or any of the other men in her community in any way, I was branded as being just like them. It was dizzying and frustrating and sad. I just couldn’t be the Man^TM that she dreamed of – unflappably perfect. Both a gentleman and a beast. A rock and a pillow
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It’s an anecdote, but…
My uncle was a pastor and two of his boys definitely rebelled. One has spent most of his adult life in jail. The dad was very strict when they were kids.
There is an element of truth to the stereotype in my experience.
And it’s not kids of actual pastors/clergy.
I’ve known kids growing up with very strict, repressive parents in other environments who also then rebelled hard.
I grew up adjacent to a lot of families who at that time we called “hippies” but now would be called “crunchy moms” etc. Basically no sugar, no artificial or processed food, not allowed to watch TV or films, not allowed to play with modern plastic toys, isolated from modern life, antivax, told that WiFi would give them cancer, etc etc, all in the name of “natural living” or “wellness” etc.
Virtually all the kids I know from that community went off the rails. Many became drug addicts. The one kid who had the most strict parents on this level ended up with a heroin problem.
Basically, when you grow up with extremely strict parents who try to enforce some kind of arbitrary and usually fairly baseless code on you, you’ll soon realise that it’s mostly bullshit, and you’ll rebel, but because you’ve had no opportunity as a child to learn moderation and experiment with what works and what doesn’t, you’ll go off the deep end with whatever was forbidden, and you’ll have a fucked up shame/guilt/fascination with whatever was forbidden, instead of a normal healthy relationship with it, where you can do things, but understand what’s too much, or not right for you.
I am a pastors kid. I went no contact with my parents. I’m a practicing occultist.
Hard to believe that raising kids in a cult could have negative outcomes.
Who could have guessed.
I have also noticed this from observing the kids of deacons and bishops, chances of their kids going wild are so much higher than everyone else.
But most likely it’s how society treats them, they are expected to be better than everyone else and constantly reminded about their parents’ reputation whenever they do something wrong growing up and yet they know more than anyone else that their parents aren’t perfect people.
Imagine doing something wrong and society wonders aloud why you act that way when your parents are perfect and exemplery and yet you are the one who gets to see them cuss and talk sht at home. I believe that’s why they are most likely to end up lashing out against society.
Been true for the ones I’ve known.
Once they get off the leash, they go hard at it.
We had a Prime Minister here who was a borderline alcoholic who was a ministers son (Bob Hawke). Went crazy drinking the moment he got off the leash.
One I knew spent so much time in pubs he became a bartender.
So I’ve seen it where the children follow their parents, my friends dad and uncle grew up and one lead a structured life in the military while the uncle became a felon, tattoo artist and then born again once he got clean and opened his own tattoo shop. Then there was a Pentecostal girl who was giving bjs and having sex with strangers. Then a Catholic girl I met was the complete opposite of that. It is going to be hit or miss.
Yes but it’s not relegated to the leaders but any overly religious household.
Both boys and girls do it they just do it in different ways. Every guy I ever met who was a wannabe Satanist in high school came from an overly religious household. Not talking about the Church of Satan people cause I had one of those friends too and he was cool. I am talking about cosplaying Satanism like you see in movies sans the sacrificing people or animals. They usually grow out of it sometime in college.
Some do, some don’t. I think there is a tinge of truth to this stereotype – as there is for most stereotypes – but having grown up attending snd being heavily involved in churches, I’ve known a lot of pastors and in turn, pastor’s kids and a majority of them have grown up normally and lead very usual lives. A few examples of “rebellion” but no different than non-pastor’s kids.
Anecdotally yeah. Son of a pastor man. Black family strict dad; I know race shouldn’t matter but I feel like saying his dad was a black minister gives a certain background.
He was closet gay or bisexual. He would try to say he liked girls but he was so metro you can’t believe he didn’t like the dick. Just the mannerism in which he spoke. I think he was also caught making out with some dude. No one cared he was gay btw. It was just kind of funny how he tried to hide it.
He also bought bad drugs at a rave once and had a meltdown. Called out everyone he knew for perceived imperfections. Locked himself in his room (and his roommate out) then climbed out the window in his underwear. Paranoid people were trying to catch him or something. Ended up calling his parents to come save him. They came at like 4am.
I married a PK. Her parents weren’t particularly strict and her father became a pastor when she was a teen. She definitely was not wild one… maybe a little wild when we got together when she was 19.
They either rebel , or they become a “goodie girl” where they marry a pastor and live in a rose-colored glasses world. I’ve seen more goodie girls than rebels, but I have seen a few rebels too. On the male side, I knew a preacher’s son who raped young boys at 16, was openly homosexual, and his partner killed him because of the abuse in his 20’s. I grew up with insanely strict religious parents, not pastors but elders, who quoted the children obey your parents verse to me a million times, spanked me pretty much weekly, sometimes to bruises. I learned to avoid them most of my life. Now I’m 60 and take care of my 85 year old mother and she asks why I don’t visit and spend more time with her. We live in the same town and I help her a couple of hours a week with groceries and chores. But I can’t really spend more time with her, and don’t tell her parts of my life, like my wife just lost her job. If she knew that, my mother would have her over every day to do stuff for her, even though she’s a 30 minute drive away. I have my own religion and church, my God is a loving father who does not abuse his children. I tried to model that in my parenthood and my sons are doing awesome. We decided not to spank our children, partially because of my upbringing.
I’ve seen the opposite. All the pastors kids I know personally (except one) grew up to be pastors or music ministers or wives of pastors or at least very involved in church, strong in their faith and ministering in some way. Probably a dozen or so examples of kids that followed that path. These were all mainline protestant denominations so none of the denominations that people would consider really out there, which I think makes a big difference. And some of these kids did go through a phase in their highschool/college years, but then came back.
The one that found out he was gay moved across the country and went no contact.
> it seems like the daughters especially sometimes turn against their parents’ values
That’s not surprising given that churches generally push much more stifling rules and norms on women than on men.
It happens often, but not inevitably, of course. There is a tendency among pastors to think of family members as accessories, and that weighs heavily.
My ex wife was a pastor’s kid. Pastors are broken, imperfect people, like everyone else. A kid seeing their parents be horrible at home while being praised and put on a pedestal in public is maddening. It makes these kids resent their parents. They’re (the kids) held to such a high standard by everyone, including their parents, while being told by everyone that they’re so lucky to have such great parents. It’s an absolute mindfuck, because these kids know who their parents really are.
My ex-wife was a drunken, pot-smoking slut. Her daddy was a Pentacostal [sic] prescher. He was a horrible, racist person. He and his wife were the most two-faced people. I didn’t immediately see it, but once I did, Ijust stopped going to church.