Teen suicide touches everyone, and pastors are often among the first to care for devastated families.
That’s why, when Rep. John Bear recently talked about his son, Tyler, it hit me hard. It had to be difficult to reopen that wound publicly. So, out of respect for the sacrifice of John and Sage, we should talk about this taboo.
Any loss of life leaves a gaping hole in the universe. But teen suicide is especially tragic. One wild mood swing can cut short an entire lifetime filled with the promise of marriage, career, children and grandchildren. They say, “It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” Amen.
Teenagers are famously impulsive. Brain studies consistently show that the “prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for planning, impulse control, and decision-making - doesn’t fully mature until around age 25.” That is one of the reasons for laws that require parental consent before a minor can make life-altering decisions.
But teenagers have always been impulsive. They have not always had the suicide rates that we see in America today. Between 1950 and 1990, the suicide rate among females aged 15-19 doubled. But the rate among their male counterparts, during that same time period, multiplied five-fold! For males aged 15 to 19, a tragedy that happened 3.5 times out of every 10,000 in 1950 rose to 18 by 1990, according to a 2023 article by Dr. Peter Gray.
These numbers are not widely known. I had to dig around to find them because the data that is readily available from the Centers for Disease Control only goes back 25 years - long after the spike brought us to our current levels. Even Dr. Gray had to make his own, hand-drawn chart.
Weird, isn’t it? Every time there is the tiniest hiccup in teen suicide rates, you can bet that there will be another push to throw tax dollars at the problem and to insert some new wokeism into our public schools. And yet, we have had a 500-percent spike in teen suicides that hardly anybody talks about.
What happened? What accounts for such an alarming increase? There are no official answers, and few unofficial ones.
Dr. Gray wrote a follow-up article asking, “Why Did Teen Suicides Increase Sharply from 1950 to 1990?” He could not find any government-funded research to publish. All he could do was discuss five theories that online commenters wrote in response to his handmade chart.
· “The constraints-on-independence theory” evokes the decline of free-range parenting and the increase in hours that kids spend in school.
· “The change-in-death-recording theory” unconvincingly explains the five-fold rise as a statistical confusion.
· “The guns-in-the-home theory” fixates on only one method of suicide.
· “The decline-in-religious-affiliation theory” sees empty pews as part of the problem.
· “The change-in-family-structure theory” ties teen suicide to the exponential rise in divorce.
As a pastor, I am obviously interested in the religious-affiliation theory. Since the Supreme Court’s Everson v. Board of Education opinion (1947), the courts have systematically driven God out of the classroom and replaced Him with random chance, cosmic dust, and a nihilistic worldview. If we are not eternal creatures with purpose and meaning, what’s the point of life?
Rep. Bear also pointed this out: “When I look at the secular effort for suicide prevention within our education system today, it is woefully inadequate, woefully inadequate. The reason is that it's never bringing in that truth that creates hope. Suicide comes from hopelessness.”
While many agree, government decisions should be better researched. We need to roll up our sleeves and ask what happened between 1950 and 1990. Then we need to take remedial action. There is no time to waste.
Throwing money at federally run hot lines, or unproven and ideologically driven “suicide prevention” programs are politicians’ fixes. But they are only wishful thinking. Obviously, they have accomplished nothing to undo the 500-percent explosion.
This much is clear: Teen suicides are a society-wide problem. Therefore, they require a society-wide solution. While we wait for proper research to be conducted, we don’t need to sit on our hands. You can act now on your common sense.
· If you think that kids need more play in the real world, throw out the TV. Don’t buy them a cell phone. Kick them out of the basement, and let them explore.
· If you think that broken families are the cause, keep yours together—and help your fighting neighbors keep theirs together.
· If you think that hopelessness is driving suicides, get your kids to church. Tell them that they are here because God decided specifically and excitedly, “I want to bring that special person to life and love him or her through all eternity.”
That’s a pretty good reason to live.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
