In Blackworld, church folk have some very strong opinions on who preachers’ kids (PKs) are, who they should be, what they should do with their lives, what they should or shouldn’t be wearing, and all the devious things they must be getting away with simply because they’re PKs.
Well, instead of relying on rumor and conjecture, the Defender asked some local PKs for a breakdown on the good, the bad, and the ugly of that PK life.
THE GOOD
One of the things I loved about being a preacher’s kid was having so many people who were willing to fight for me in some shape, form, or fashion. I can remember going to schools where some of the teachers would be attendees of the church and seeing those teachers step in if they ever saw anything awry with me. I can remember being at restaurants and it looked like things were going to get physical with a little altercation with a fender bender, and watching members come from out of the restaurant to protect me. So, the good is we have a village of people who press into who we become and genuinely love and care for us. (Minister Jeremy Wright, young adult minister @ The Fountain of Praise and Son of pastors Remus and Mia Wright, The Fountain of Praise)
It kind of cuts both ways with regards to being like, let’s say, a pseudo-public figure of sorts. Because there are more eyes on you probably than the regular person in the congregation. Lots of opinions out there . And some people have said some pretty wild things over the years. But, it’s good because you kind of get used to the idea of things that you do matter; like, there’s kind of more than just you and what’s in that moment. So, you kind of get a better grasp of having some discernment and thoughts about things. But at the same time when you’re a young kid, you’re just like, “I just wanna run around and do things on my own,” and not be some potentially judged thing. (Brandon Cofield , lawyer and son of Dr. D.Z. Cofield, pastor, Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church)
For me, there was always a sense that my family was larger than just my family by blood. I had a really phenomenal community of people who I knew cared about me and my family. Being able to grow up for my entire childhood in that environment among that much love, was really powerful for me. The other thing that being a PK helped me learn really by watching, was the sense of gratitude. I often was able to see firsthand just among our congregation, how much I had to be grateful for. Given that a large number of members of our congregation were experiencing homelessness and other similar situations, it was a very keen reminder that I had been fortunate and blessed. (Dr. Ryan Harris, psychiatrist and daughter of Dr. Rudy and Juanita Rasmus, founding pastors of St. John’s Downtown)
THE BAD
Growing up I had a few situations where some people would kind of treat me differently because of who I was or who my parents were. Maybe they felt some type of way about my parents and maybe what their religion was or what they did. Or they may have felt that I may have been a spoiled kid, which is far from the truth. And I had to live with that and I had to fight through those things. I had to fight through those different kinds of expectations that people had upon me that really didn’t have a grasp on who I was, who my parents were, or what we stood for… I had to learn how to fight through that. And I think I did. I fought through everything. My mantra when I was a kid was “never quit;” regardless of anything, going on. (Elliott Wright , lawyer and son of pastors Remus and Mia Wright, The Fountain of Praise)
The tough part might be the fact that you have all those same people with expectations for who you become. And sometimes if we’re not careful, we might lose ourselves in those expectations. More oftentimes than not, that fishbowl effect is a real thing, where sometimes you feel as if you don’t have the opportunity to make mistakes or be a normal kid, especially a pastor’s kid like myself, whose father’s a mega-church pastor. (Jeremy Wright )
There’s quite a few of them misperceptions. One of them that’s kind of interesting is the idea that I’ll know all the scriptures too ; that I’m also a theologian. Look; I read about as much as you read the Bible. I can definitely help you with Proverbs. I’m very familiar. But some of the other ones, it just depends. (Cofield )
People think they could say anything to you. Sometimes people would ask myself or my sister, “Why haven’t your parents returned my calls?” Or they would make commentary to us children about how they thought the sermon went or some decision that was being made. The thing that was most difficult was in 1999, I was in sixth grade at the time, my mom experienced a major depressive episode. During that time she was not at church because she was recovering. So, people would speculate about why she wasn’t at church. Were my parents having marital problems? Was something else going on? And of course, I would hear these speculations. That was really difficult to sort of bear witness to people’s commentary and not really know. They didn’t have any idea what was really going on. (Harris )
THE UGLY
Often people held you to a certain standard that was not human. But, on the other hand, people would often have expectations that I was deviant in some way or up to something that I shouldn’t be up to, which was really strange to me. Like at my sweet 16, someone from church comes up and is like, “I see how you’re dancing. I’m so disappointed in you.” I’m 16. Come on . Meanwhile, their daughter was dancing the same way.” (Harris )
The ugly is when you go through your season, and people have to see your human side be exposed. Not that we are not all human, but sometimes people forget that preachers and their wives and their children, we are flesh and blood and we make mistakes. And when we go through those seasons, sometimes the expectations of the church become burdens to you because you don’t wanna let all these people down. For me, that ugly part was me fleeing from the church because I did not want to bear the burden of the judgment that might be associated with any life decisions that I was making at the time. (Jeremy Wright )
The ugly is, sometimes I was treated very wrong by some people. And I knew where it stemmed from. It was from a place of how they felt about my background, which sucks, because at the end of the day, my parents, they really just try to sow good into this world. (Elliott Wright )
