Being a member of the infamous "PK" club is a job in itself, especially within the black church. Everyone has something to say about us, everyone has expectations and everyone thinks they have us figured out. Despite the fact that we are most times kids growing up in the church, the expectations of us can carry into adulthood. It can be annoying for a number of reasons. I just ask that before you're so quick to judge, you remember that I didn't choose this life, this life chose me. I feel like we need a support group after all this. Let's start from the top, shall we?

Being forced to be apart of every ministry. 

I was on the junior usher board, in the choir, on the courtesy committee, a junior missionary, a Sunday school secretary, on the kitchen committee, YOU NAME IT! All of which meet throughout the week to rehearse and have meetings. I had to go to Bible Study and prayer meeting with my parents. I was at church more days out of the week than not. As a PK, you have to be as involved and visible as possible. Which, when I was younger, I didn't mind so much. However, as you get older and you're trying to figure out who you are, the visibility is annoying. Furthermore, everything is not my ministry. I can't even sing for real, so why would you think I want to go to choir rehearsal twice a week. My goodness. 

You're always the standard.

Because of the hypervisibility of being a PK, you may often times become a figure head — an extension of your parent. Because I was so involved at church, the bar ended up being set high for me in other areas of my life as well. School, extracurricular activities, volunteer work, etc. Soon, you find yourself as the standard. You have to be the "model young Christian," which is a hat I never wanted to wear, and honestly is a lot of pressure. Then, I find other young people (and their parents) in the church trying to compete with me. For what? I'm just trying to live if we're being honest. 

People are looking for you to fail.

Even though I never asked to be the standard for you or your child's life, it seems people are constantly waiting for you to prove that you aren't as good as the pedestal that people put you on. I remember I got smart with my mother once after service during my teenage years (like many teenagers do), and someone jumped at the chance to say to her "Oh, I guess she isn't so perfect after all." Perfect? Girl, I never knew I was Jesus! Of course I'm not perfect, I'm human. Instead of looking for me to fail ask yourself why you are pressed like a panini. 

Your parents, along with everyone else, think that you're going to follow in their footsteps and go into ministry.

If there's a calling on my life, I'll follow it. However what I won't do is be called to Ministry by my parents and the congregation, rather than by God. Don't you think there are enough false prophets out there already? That's all I'm going to say about that one.

You often times feel forced into the church, period.

While I am extremely thankful that my parents raised me up in the way that I should go, I can't lie and say I didn't often feel like the church was shoved down my throat. I've always had a relationship with God, but the structure of the church often made me question if it was something that I  truly wanted to be a part of. My curiosity was peaked as to what else was out there. Whenever you feel forced into something, the need to rebel arises. Unfortunately, it makes the forbidden fruit look that much more appealing.

Your parent's status is constantly used against you. 

"Isn't your dad a preacher?" 

Yes, yes he is. And I get it, as his child, I'm a reflection of him. However, we are two different people. I'm my own person. My parents did their job and raised me right, and if I happen to go against that, that's on me. Worry about yourself, thanks.

Everyone has expectations of you, good or bad. 

We all know the stereotypes when it comes to preacher's kids. People either think we're super holy, or super wild. "Oh, you a preacher's kid? I heard about y'all." Whether any stereotype plays out to be true or false, you don't know me. I'm an individual just like every other preacher's kid is an individual. We all have different journeys. I know fellow preacher's kids who do live double lives and are out here wildin', I know preacher's kids who never left the church and are fulfilled in that, and I know some who are somewhere in between. The point is, stop projecting things onto me. 

You always have to play nice and be on your best behavior at church.

From a young age, you have to be on your best behavior in church. People are either going to snitch on you, or your parent is going to call you out from the pulpit. So while everyone else is passing notes and "keekee"-ing during service, sneaking out of the sanctuary, and going to the multipurpose room to kick it, you must grin and bear it. Because if you're gone for more than 10 minutes, you already know what it is. 

You can never completely be yourself.

CHILE, I'm just going to sip my tea because this is self explanatory. 

It's almost impossible to have a completely transparent relationship with your parents.

My parents were pretty good about being transparent with me in an attempt to tell me what not to do…the things that they had already done. And I get it, you want better for your child than you had. However, it's hard to be transparent back because you know they might freak out. No, not all preachers are super strict, but a lot of them are. And a lot of them care about image. So, many times you just have to be a different person, or keep secrets. Things that other people come to my father for prayer about, I couldn't have him knowing I needed prayer about that too. Even though I needed his spiritual guidance, I was so programmed to trying to be perfect, I was scared to let even my parents know that I wasn't. Even now as an adult, there are still things I'm scared to say to them, LOL.

People always mind your business. 

Again, why worry about me when you can worry about yourself? Better yet, I know your kids, and that is definitely who you should be worrying about. Cause you work nights, and they hate sleeping alone. BLOOP.

You learn how to live a double life. 

Ok, I know I said stop projecting this stereotype, but listen. It's not even necessarily leading a double life just to go party and wild out, but rather to not be so publicly scrutinized. There's a lot of pressure to maintain an image, and if something about me doesn't fit that image, people will have something to say. I went to college three states away, and while I went because of a scholarship (not with the soul purpose to act a fool, LOL), I was just glad that no one knew who I was. There was no pressure to be someone I'm not. I was just a person in school trying to figure life out.

The inevitable prodigal son complex. 

I notice that with most PKs, your life reflects the parable of the prodigal son. You're either the son who stayed with his father, or the son who left, wilded out, crashed and burn, and then came back. Most times this happens because people never had a chance to explore and learn themselves without the eyes of a congregation on them. So yes, many preacher's kids do leave the church for an extent of time. It's almost expected that if you leave, you'll come back. But what about the people who don't want to come back? 

You may have different ideologies than your parents.

Now, listen. I heard a quote that said "I don't excuse old white people for being racist, so I won't excuse old black people for being homophobic." We know there's a lot of homophobia in the church, a lot of misogyny in the church, and a boatload of other problematic issues that are not of God. Coming back from college after exploring womanism and feminism as well as the intersectionality of both, I've truly had to learn when to pick my battles with church people. I can't fight every time something problematic is said in the church so I just pray and ask God to help me meet people where they are.

No matter how old you get, there's a part of you that is always afraid of disappointing your parents.  

Even though I'm technically grown, just like anyone else, you want to make your parents proud. The internalized expectations of you can sometimes eat away at your spirit. It can make you feel like you simply aren't good enough. Eventually, you have to stop living a double life, stop living up to this impossible standard that's been set, and just be who you are because that stuff is draining. Otherwise, you end up like Ms. Phaedra Parks, grown as hell, in your thirties, lying about when you got pregnant because you don't want to admit you had premarital sex. A mess.

Making your relationship with God your own is hard.

Like I mentioned earlier, having a relationship with God has never been the problem. However my relationship with Him in relation to my parents' relationship with Him has made it hard for me to distinguish and build my own. When I graduated from college, it was just expected that I'd come home, go back to my parents' church, and get to work for God. Truthfully, I needed to venture out on my own. Maybe I don't want to go to the same church as them. I can't always just be an extension of my parents, I need to figure out who I am. Even more what my relationship with God looks like outside of them.

Finding your own path is even harder. 

The bottom line is I'm trying to figure out what I want to do and who I want to be. It's not about what my parents want, what the congregation wants, or anyone else. My path may not be the one that everyone envisioned for my life, it may not necessarily be the one that I envisioned for my life, but that's why it's my path. I'm living, I'm learning, and Im growing. I just want to figure out who I am, not what I've been molded to be. Once people understand that, then we can get somewhere.