Pastor laments, 'My son won't raise hell'

Dateline October 12, 2008
From Lark News

LOUISVILLE — Pastor Sean Welch and his wife Eleanor are concerned that their 16-year-old son isn't turning into the hellraiser they thought he'd be.

"We've always heard how much trouble PK's are, so we spent years reading parenting books and attending seminars," said Eleanor. "It looks like all that preparation is wasted."

The boy, Adam, is admittedly mild-mannered, even annoyingly so. He likes to sit in his room and strum his guitar and play computer games with his friends. He wants to be an orthodontist. His teachers say he's a good student, if lacking in creativity.

"Dad sat me down a few weeks ago and told me it was time I start causing trouble," Adam said, clearly uncomfortable with the subject. Pastor Welch handed him the keys to the car, a fifth of whisky and a baseball bat and shooed him out of the house, then waited by the phone for the police or an angry parent to call. That call never came.

"I went out and hit a few mailboxes with the bat, but it didn't feel good, so I poured out the whiskey and came home," says Adam. "If I have a police record, dentistry schools won't take me."

Welch faces humiliation at pastors' conferences, where other men confide in each other about their troubled teenagers.

"I've started lying and telling them Adam is having problems, too," Welch says. "I make up drug use, promiscuity, all sorts of stuff. Then I go back to my room and cry. I'm missing the whole father-of-a-PK experience."

The Welches fret that Adam's testosterone level may be low, though he tested normal. Sean and Eleanor sit at home most evenings, their boy upstairs playing worship songs, and stew.

"I've lost some respect for the kid," says Sean with a sigh. "I've tried to be the model pastor, and I'd hoped he would be the model PK. I feel I've failed somehow."