“Is this too complicated for you, young one?”

“We talk a lot of in-depth stuff,” One of the elder sisters from church said to me, “You’re just in your first year of university, and we’re talking about stuff that we’ve experienced in our working years. Is it too complicated for you?”

I pause. Today’s study in particular was about not loving the world — it’s a complicated topic, and I’m still learning about it, so I’m not going to comment on it right now — but her question makes me pause.

“I am young,” I say carefully, “But it is precisely because of my youth that gives me a unique perspective of things. When you share of your experiences, I learn, but I do not internalize. I learn, and I adapt to them when they happen to me because of the experiences that I have gained through you.

“Precisely because of my youth, I can think about a lot of these things without a context, without a pre-assumption of what it is. I can think about the world relative only to religion. The more experience I gain, the more I see of the world, the less I am able to separate the topic at hand with my own experiences.”

So don’t think that youth is a disadvantage, that it makes you unable to see things clearly. Yes, we lack experience — but it is this lack of experience that makes us aware of how little we know, which inspires us to improve.

Don’t be afraid to talk about complicated, or controversial things with us. The less you talk about it, the less space you give us, the more we are going to form pre-assumptions on it, the more we are going to lose sight of the big picture. The earlier you talk about it with us, the more we will be able to digest it and enforce it with our own experiences.

Talk to us. Don’t use excuses of “you’re too young” or “wait till you grow older”, because when we grow older, we won’t want to listen.