Pray for Germany

Not only can Christians not homeschool in Germany, now the state is funding and endorsing "incestuous pedophilia as healthy [s-x] ed." That headline is all I will quote from the article, because the details are just sick and revolting. The German government is advocating as healthy for children as young as infants what other civilized countries in the West criminalize.

Yet I was just thinking that where sin abounds, grace abounds. I know the Lord is busy calling His own in Germany, and raising up a generation of men who are learning what real fatherhood is all about (and not the twisted counterfeit the German government is promoting). He has sent one of the four original founders of Promise Keepers to Germany to raise up a biblical standard for men and their families. This man was just at our church last Sunday, telling the many amazing things that the Lord has been doing in Germany among the Christian men for the past several years.

Yes, things are deathly sick in the world, but God has always reserved for Himself a remnant. We can take hope that our fervent prayers for our German brothers and sisters will bear fruit!

On birthdays

Previously: On holidays

I too had noticed that the only birthdays mentioned in Scripture is the birthday of Pharaoh in Genesis 40:20, and the birthday of Herod in Matthew 14:6 and Mark 6:21. The birthdays of rulers were commonly celebrated nationally in the ancient world. I suspect this custom had its origin in that the first rulers were the patriarchs after Noah's Flood, and since these men lived so much longer than their descendants, they came to be seen as immortal and deified. Subsequent rulers often carried the aura of deity about them, openly as in the case of the pharaohs, or at least the kingship was approved and upheld by the gods.

Birthday celebrations are indeed pagan in origin ... every day of the week, and in some cultures, every day of the year was dedicated to a different god. We can still see this today. We call Sunday "Sunday" because it was the day dedicated to the sun god, Monday is "Monday" because it was dedicated to the moon god, and so on. (Tuesday was the war god's day, Wednesday was Woden's day, who was supposed to be the father of the gods, Thursday was Thor's day, Friday was the goddess' day, and Saturday was Saturn's day.)

The spirits associated with the god on whose day someone was born, were supposed to watch over that person during his life. On his birthday, he himself laid gifts on the altar of that god, as a way of thanksgiving for care in the year past, and as a plea for blessing in the coming year. His friends and family also celebrated with him, so that his next year would be blessed.

Birthday candles have their origin in that offerings were burned on altars, and the prayers of the worshiper were supposed to ascend to heaven to the gods in the smoke of the flame. In the case of birthday cakes, the flame of the candles sent the smoke upward, which was to carry the wishes of the one celebrating his birthday to the gods. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Make a wish before you blow out the candles!" That is because if the wish was made after the candles were out, or before they were lit, there would be no smoke to carry the wishes up to the gods.

It is interesting that neither Jesus nor His disciples appeared to know when His birthday was, indicating that birthdays were not celebrated in the Hebrew culture:

"Jesus, when He began His ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, ..." Luke 3:23

We do still celebrate birthdays in our family. We often do not have cake, since I am allergic to flour (and I used to be the one making the cakes, most of the time), and we usually do not have candles, either. We are in transition with phasing out pagan holidays and phasing in the ones instituted by God. To not celebrate birthdays is lower on my list of priorities than to celebrate Sabbath or other holidays which are clearly commanded.

But if I were a young mother beginning over, with no other family expectations of birthday celebrations, I would prefer to mark the day reminding our children what a gift they are to us, and to reiterate their blessing over them. And perhaps by giving them a gift of books, and something which they will use in the coming year (art supplies if an artist, an instrument if a musician, etc.), since we do not support retailers who exploit Christmas, thus we no longer buy those things for gifts at Christmastime.

To be continued ...

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Update: continued in On holidays: Trumpets

New front in the abortion battle

The World Net Daily headline reads, "Coloradans aim to exploit hole in 'Roe';" the hole is in the 1973 Supreme Court decision which overturned state laws banning abortion. Included in Court's opinion, it reads:

"[If the] suggestion of personhood [for the unborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment." - Justice Harry Blackmun, for the majority, 1973

What Coloradoans are attempting to do, through the work of Colorado for Equal Rights, is put a proposal on the ballot in 2008 which would define a person as any human being from the moment of fertilization.

"Noting Colorado was the first state to legalize abortion, due to the work of ex-Gov. Dick Lamm [D], then a state lawmaker, [spokesman Mark] Meuser told WND, "We should be the first state to turn around and acknowledge our mistake and grant personhood to the unborn.""

Amen, I am on board with that. They need 76,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot, where do I sign up? I think I will contact this organization and see what I can do to help collect signatures. Georgia is already planning something similar for their 2008 ballot, and if Colorado and Georgia are successful, I imagine a score of states will do the same. Please pray that the travesty of government- sanctioned murder is soon brought to an end!

God does bless everyone -- no exceptions

I saw a bumper sticker today that said "God bless everyone -- no exceptions." It was on a rainbow- colored background, so I assume the unspoken message is God bless those who practice immorality -- no exceptions. This sentiment seems to show up more and more these days. Today there was a "gay pride" parade held in Jerusalem, for example. There were a small number of people -- 2,000 -- who marched in the parade, sponsored by the Jerusalem Gay and Lesbian Center, over the protests of many Jerusalem residents and the Orthodox community. Now why, I ask myself, is it so important to the Jerusalem G&LC, to have this parade, when it is so offensive to so many? If you must be gay, no one is stopping you, but why the driving need to flaunt it or make it public? Why make this immorality the defining feature of your identity?

Some topics are appropriate for social situations and public discourse, and some are just not. "Public" assumes mixed company, children present, people of various religious or cultural sensitivities -- so conversation appropriate for "public" does not include [s-x], out of respect for those in the potential audience. Why are homo[s-x]uals the tolerant ones, when they publically disrespect and offend others without regard or mercy?

Back to Jerusalem: it is the city of the Great King, Jesus said. The city of He who said, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." The city of the One who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Having a parade in that city, of all places, is the best way to magnify rebellion against the Great King to His face.

Back to the bumper sticker: should God bless everyone, no exceptions? Perhaps something that hasn't occurred to the writer of this bumper sticker, or to the car owner who displays it, is that by God saying, "Do not practice this immorality, it is an abomination," He is blessing everyone, no exceptions. For when Adam chose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he really burdened mankind with the responsibility of knowing what was good, and what was evil, and making the correct choice between them. Man is no good at that, as the society in Noah's day (and ours) shows so well. For there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. God, in His mercy toward us, in His blessing of us, told us His paths of righteousness, that which was good, and that which was evil, so that we would know which path would produce blessing in our lives. God, because He loves us, and desires us to be blessed, told us that following the path of unrighteousness would hurt us and others, and open our lives to myriads of troubles. He is blessing us by telling us to walk in His ways. May deaf ears hear Your blessing, Lord, and blind eyes see it.

Scriptural child training

Do you remember ages ago I asked everyone to submit their favorite parenting books, and I would see which books had the most votes, and then evaluate the top five for the best wisdom on child rearing and parenting, coming from a place of having three grown children and hindsight, which is always 20/20, LOL. Well, it has taken me a lot longer than I thought, but I finally have a winner. It is a book which was never even in the top five after all: Child Training Tips by Reb Bradley (subtitled What I wish I knew when my children were young). This book gets my vote for top book, because the emphasis is Scriptural -- the end result of child training is maturity (wisdom) and self- control. The two- prong method to achieve the end result is Scriptural -- first, training, or teaching a child how to obey, and second, chastisement, or disciplining a child when he disobeys. The difference between thoughtless disobedience and outright rebellion is carefully explained from Scripture with many real life examples.

The method of chastisement is carefully explained and is Scriptural, and does not veer from the Bible's injunctions to parents. The biggest help that I found in the book, however, was the expose of what the author calls parental blind spots. Areas where we may be unconsciously utilizing unbiblical or worldly child training methods, and the end result of even unwitting ignorance to God's ways outlined in His word. Believe me, his parental blind spots are right on, and the outcomes in our children of ignorance of those blind spots are right on. Talk to any parents of grown children who did not adhere to God's ways as presented in Scripture and ask them if they recognize their "blind spot" and the resulting destructive outcome in their children, and I am sure you will hear an Amen. It is so devastating to a parent who loves the Lord and who loves their children, to see their children fall prey to the destruction which Scripture promises will come to those who ignore His ways, when all the time the parent thought they were doing right because they learned their (worldly) parenting method in a church class. The child pays the heart- rending price for the parents' blindness.

But as Reb Bradley says in the beginning of the book, this book is does not have all the answers on child training. Teaching such as how a parent's anger fosters resentment and rebellion in the child; how rebellion once begun can be reversed; the thorough difference between training and chastisement, and many many more questions, are all explained in detail through the preaching of Dr. S. M. Davis. This man sought the Lord for wisdom and answers for his own rebellious daughter, and boy did the Lord give him wisdom. What I would consider a must have supplement to Reb Bradley's book, is Dr. Davis' Changing the Heart of a Rebel (because you learn, even if your child is not rebellious, how a parent provoking their child to wrath drives him there, and how to win him back by love), and What the Bible Says About Spanking. Especially if your children are too young to be rebellious, I would still listen to these. They can stop you from making drastic mistakes before the damage is done. Then I would recommend the Parenting Series. And of course all the other wonderful Dr. Davis teachings (there is wonderful, wonderful gold in Helping Weak Children Become Strong, Personal Responsibility, The Sin of Silence, How to Tell True Repentance ... the list just goes on and on). But start here.

As a grandmother, these two resources -- Reb Bradley, and Dr. Davis -- contain the best advice I can give for effective, Scriptural child training, from a hindsight is 20/20 perspective. I hope they bless you and yours as they have me and mine.

Non commercial Christmas

A few months back, I noted that Canadian schools were considering a book for use in the [s-x] ed curriculum, which was so perverted and disturbing, that even a sanitized description of its contents for the news article was offensive to read. Now Walmart has that same book in its stock list for its stores. Another reason to politely excuse oneself from participating in the retail frenzy that Christmas has become.

Sowing the seeds of our own destruction

09/29 Update: The gunman left a suicide note. You can monitor the progress of the investigation and related stories with the Rocky Mountain News.

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Original post from 09/28:

I am just so torn up over this tragedy which occurred in Bailey, Colorado yesterday. My son’s betrothed was from Bailey. It is a beautiful little town, small and close- knit; just an ideal place to raise a family. My theory is that the gunman picked on the school in Bailey because schools in larger cities have metal detectors, police on duty, and ID checks, but these little rural schools don’t have those kinds of things. Plus the police forces in small towns are small. I think he figured he could get in with a minimum of trouble and go out in some sick twisted blaze of glory.

At the press conference the Park County sheriff’s department just held, they confirmed the gunman did not have a bomb in his backpack as he had said, but [s-x] toys, and that he traumatized and assaulted the female students he was holding hostage; but that he did not have a criminal record as a [s-x] offender. I am sorry, but our society is creating these criminals which flourish among us.

First we make sure that we erase all mention of God from every aspect of our culture, so that atheists and “freethinkers” are not made to feel uncomfortable being reminded that a holy and just God exists who has imposed a moral standard on human behavior. Then we basically nullify all public obscenity, profanity, and pornography laws because of a grossly mistaken interpretation of the first amendment, which has risen in sanctity -- in their minds -- far above any of the Ten Commandments.

Then we allow [s-x]ual perversions to flourish on TV, in movies, on the Internet, and through things like “pride” parades, so that perverts make sure that everything they do in private is forced into the public square, after which they demand that the rest of us not be horrified by their behavior, but instead proclaim it moral and good. Then we allow [s-x]ual predators to live among us, right in our family neighborhoods and communities. We are so tolerant of every evil, that we are sacrificing our children on the altar of political correctness, just as surely as the ancient Canaanites sacrficed their children on the altar of Molech.

When will we wake up?

Obedience is better than sacrifice

Last summer I first commented on the unintended results of the secular worldview: population decline in Europe is taking place at an alarming rate. I wonder that secularists can denigrate femininity, by promoting male bashing, gender equality, and homo[s-x]uality; and denigrate children, by promoting abortion and careers spent outside the home, then ask with sincerity why motherhood is declining in industrialized nations. And this will not be the last news we see on this topic, as today it is reported that the German birth rate has sunk to new lows. Truly, children are a blessing from the Lord, and perhaps those who long ago abandoned God are beginning to realize that.

The feminist problem with a woman’s right to choose

A woman’s right to choose how to raise her own children, that is. I came across an interesting article in the Washington Post, published a few days ago, called Unleashing the Wrath of Stay- at- Home Moms. I missed the original controversy, last December, when the author published an article in The American Prospect putting forth the following premises (taken from the Washington Post article):

1) Women who quit their jobs to stay home with their children were making a mistake;
2) The tasks of housekeeping and child rearing were not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings, because:
a) They do not require a great intellect;
b) They are not honored; and
c) They do not involve risks and the rewards that risk brings.

These assumptions shocked me, frankly. Perhaps most telling is her history of how she arrived at these assumptions: She set out to research “how the first generation of women to grow up with feminism managed their marriages ... When I began my book research in 2002 by calling couples who had announced their weddings in the Sunday New York Times in 1996, I thought I’d find a bunch of female managers, lawyers, journalists and doctors. Instead, they were, as my first interviewee described his wife, ‘at home in Brooklyn taking care of’ the children.”

Even her premise is a faulty assumption; that the first generation of women to grow up with feminist mothers began marrying in 1996. It is my belief that it is much earlier, and that women who were raised by working mothers more often choose to stay home themselves to raise their own children.

The author admits she is retired with married grown children, so I assume she is older than I am -- I am in my mid- 40s. But was she raised by a mother who worked full- time? Was she raised by minimum- wage day care providers? I was. My mother worked full- time. Being raised by babysitters who do not love you, who you know do not love you, who you know are only giving you basic minimum care because your mother is paying them to do so, is a horrible childhood. Going to a stranger’s house after school and not your own home, day in and day out for years on end, is horrible. I turned 18 in 1979, and then already knew that I would be a stay- at- home mom when I married and had my own children. My younger sister is a stay- at- home mom for the same reason - we hated being raised by babysitters.

I wonder how many of those women who married in 1996 were raised in day care and by babysitters, and I wonder how many chose to stay home to raise their own children because their own experience in day care was heart- wrenching. I wonder if the author asked that question. Somehow, I doubt it.

To be continued ...

South Dakota bans abortion

In case you haven’t heard, the governor of South Dakota signed the abortion ban bill into law last night. (Previous blogging about said bill here.) “The bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless the procedure was necessary to save the woman’s life. It would make no exception for cases of rape or incest but such victims could get emergency contraception.” The news report says that a judge will likely suspend the abortion ban before it takes effect, and Planned Parenthood is going to fight it. This means it will make its way to the Supreme Court, eventually.

Reason to be hopeful

Kate O’Beirne with her book, Women Who Make the World Worse, opened a floodgate. Actually, she did not fire the first salvo. The failure of the feminist agenda has become more and more apparent as the decades since the 70s have slipped by, and those failures have been documented and commented on before. But it seems that Mrs. O’Beirne’s book coincided with a tipping point in American culture; that point at which feminism is no longer regarded as admirable, because everyone can smell how rotten the bad fruit of the feminist philosophy is. And we all know what kind of a tree produces bad fruit.

Soon Mike Adams was posting his Why I can’t take feminists seriously articles (scroll down for links to all seven in the series, and the adendums here and here). But that was last month. Now the articles are coming out fast and furiously. Carey Roberts documents the feminists’ anti-kid crusade. No, not the one where they murder their children before they are born. The one where they deprive their children of their fathers by divorcing them, and then work overtime to restrict the access of the fathers to their children. That anti-kid crusade. Not satisfied with destroying said children by forcing them to shuttle between two houses, the feminists push to get custody reduced to joint custody, and joint custody reduced to visitation -- for the dads.

Jennifer Roback Morse picks up the feminist-bashing stick admirably. She is the type of woman the feminists love to hold up as an example of real achievement: doctorate in economics, professor at Yale and George Mason University (extra points for being a member of academia), best-selling author. But then she left her job to :: gasp! :: stay home and raise her children! Which completely disqualifies her as an example for young women to follow, according to the feminists. Mrs. Morse rebuts the misrepresentations of the feminist Good Morning America trotted out recently for two days of coverage on the “mommy wars.” Oh, didn’t you know there was a war on between mommies, with mommies who work outside the home on one side, and mommies who work inside the home on the other? I don’t think there really is a mommy war, it is all a made-up conflict invented by feminists and their cohorts in the media to give themselves something to talk about.

Doug Giles then takes the feminist-derision on an interesting new twist: a parenting series titled Raising boys that feminists will hate. Love the title. Here is a snippet from the first in the series, published Friday:

“Parent, if you have a young son and you want him to grow up to be a man, then you need to keep him away from pop culture, public school and a lot of Nancy Boy churches.”

Sounds promising. And W. Thomas Smith, Jr. ends our feminist-bashing round-up with this message of hope: American manhood will prevail. I just want to say, thank God for it. No one knows how precious a gift from our Creator true biblical masculinity is, until they have been forced to live without it. Here’s to male and female, the way God intended!

SD house passes abortion ban

The state house ban passed 47 to 22, and the bill now goes to the state senate:

“Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.”

On feminism

Don’t you hate it when perfectly good words become co-opted by the forces of darkness, or ignorance, and they lose their usefulness as a description as a result? “Liberal” is a classic example. For centuries, “liberal” meant that which pertained to freedom, as a “liberal education” fitted one for a self-controlled and thoughtful life within a free society. Nowadays it means nothing close to that, and has become a dirty word (even among liberals, who prefer to be called “progressives” to escape the bad connotations) for a political philosophy based on government- reliance rather than self- reliance, a preference for the failed economic systems of socialism or communism, and a return to a hidden oligarchial tyranny, where the liberals, of course, become the new aristocracy, not at all different from historic aristocratic rule, except that the new elites have pure and proper intellect and morals, instead of blood lines.

“Feminism” is another such perfectly good word, now ruined. Historically, “feminine” (whence “feminism” was derived) described the ideal state of womanhood, and was embodied by the role of wife and mother, further bringing to mind the conduct of genteel ladylikeness. Nowadays, of course, the word describes the tiny minority of NOWers and NARALers, of the Gloria Steinems, Barbara Boxers, and Hillary Clintons of the world.

Early feminists, the suffragettes, much more embodied the historic meaning of the word, embracing motherhood and denouncing abortion as the vilest murder. Their pro-life determination is ably demonstrated by Kate O’Beirne in her new book, Women Who Make the World Worse, exposing the destructive modern feminist agenda and the havoc its implementation has wreaked on American schools, families, sports, and the military.

On a more humorous note, Mike Adams presents in seven parts why he cannot take feminists seriously. (Read part one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven here.) One is struck how un-feminine, not to mention illogical and contradictory, the modern feminist has become.

In reality, modern feminism is rooted in simple rebellion. Male and female was the Creator’s design, and thus His pervue as to roles and responsibilities. Killing the child we are called to nurture, and hating the man we are called to sacrificially serve, is a mere extension of shaking our fist at the Lawgiver and Judge we wish to overthrow.

Our Linus Christmas

We made the decision in September. My dh and I walked into a JC Penney’s to look for towels or something, the day after the Labor Day weekend. And the store already had its Christmas decorations up. I stared in shock at the girl behind the catalog counter, and she took one look at my face and said, “I know. I hate it too.”

Then and there we decided to rebel, in our small way, against the naked greed, the crass commercialism that has become Christmas. We called our extended family and told them we were not giving anyone gifts this year, except for the children, so please don't plan on giving anything to us. Everyone was relieved. It seems that everyone else had been wanting to do something similar for some time.

It is amazing how the joy of giving returns to Christmas when the obligation of giving has been removed from it. We picked up a few little things here and there, when we stumbled across them quite by accident: “That reminds me of so-and-so, wouldn’t they love it!” And instead of feeling like you HAVE to buy it, you happily take it home, thinking of how much pleasure it will give the recipient, because they aren’t expecting anything from you. Gifts can come from the heart again.

My sister-in-law, freed from the obligation of gifts, gave all of us the most beautiful gift we have ever received from her. She interviewed my mother over the course of a month, and typed up her history, and had it bound in a beautiful book. This was my mother’s last Christmas, and this gift had everyone in tears. It was a true priceless gift.

It was a wonderful Christmas.

Many thanks to Choosing Home for inspiring this post.

Child training results

Last week I asked everyone to let me know the very best parenting or child training book they have read. Here are the results:

The book with the most votes was For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaffer Macaulay. This book was instrumental in shaping my homeschooling philosophy as well. I remember the wonderful educating advice, but I don’t remember that much about child training. So I will have to re-read it.

The second runner up was not actually a book, but a video series by Gary and Marie Ezzo. The name of the series varied: Preparation for Parenthood, and Growing Kids God’s Way. I did look up the Ezzos on amazon.com, and they do have books out. The comments are very divided. I will read these with interest.

The third runner up was Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp. This book has been out a while, and I have heard a lot about it.

Books with more than one vote, but not in the top three, include Hints on Child Training by H. Clay Trumball, The Mother at Home by John S. C. Abbot, and Home Grown Kids by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore.

The book I read when my children were little was Dare to Discipline by James Dobson, a book which received no votes. Disciplining was out of vogue in those days (80s) and most of the books out were about understanding and reasoning with your toddler. !?!! An approach obviously advocated by someone without toddlers of their own.

As our children became teens, we discovered Dr. S. M. Davis and his videos and dvds on biblical family relationships. These are wonderful and would have received my top vote if I was voting. And then, representing the newest generation of parents, my daughter has dog-eared her copies of the parenting books by Dr. William and Martha Sears. So I will add these three: Dare to Discipline by Dobson, the parenting series of videos by Dr. S. M. Davis, and The Complete Book of Christian Parenting and Child Care by Sears, to the six already mentioned; the top three by Macaulay, Ezzo, and Tripp, and the honorable mentions by Trumball, Abbot, and Moore, to evaluate. I will post on my progress through the books.

My plan is to read (or view and takes notes on, as the case may be) these nine recommendations. I will evaluate each of them with a fresh eye, with the Lord's help, based on agreement with Scriptural principles, and what I have learned about child training, from the real life experience and hindsight angle. I will post my top three recommendations from the nine, and why. Also, I will post why the bottom six did not make the cut. This will take me a few months, so stay tuned! Thank you everyone for participating!

Child (or parent) training

Now that my children are grown, there are many new books on parenting and child training out there that were not available when my children were young. If you had to choose one book on the subject of parenting or child training to recommend to new parents, which book would it be and why? (It doesn’t have to be a new book. It doesn’t even have to be a book.) I will post the top three suggestions, and will read all the suggestions and narrow them down to the top three most helpful, from my been there done that perspective. If you do not want to leave your suggestions in the comments, feel free to e-mail me at alittleperspective [at] gmail [dot] com. Please also spread this request around the homeschool blogosphere. We want as many responses as possible. Thank you for your help!

Family and society news

Good news! Homeschoolers have always known that it is far better for children to be raised by their parents and their mothers instead of by substitutes. But the rest of America is getting it, too.

The Census Bureau calls parents staying at home a growing trend, based on the increasing number of children who live in such households. In 2002, the Census Bureau says there were 10.6 million children with stay-at-home moms. That’s up 13 percent from eight years prior. Overall, the bureau believes about one-fourth of all U.S. kids live in such households.

Three new books might help convince the other three quarters of American parents. Mary Eberstadt’s Home-Alone America examines the hidden toll of day care, behavioral drugs, and other parent substitutes on our children. Dr. Laura recommends 7 Myths of Working Mothers: Why Children and Most Careers Just Don’t Mix; and Rick Santorum, U.S. senator and homeschooling dad, has also just released It Takes a Family, a premise in direct opposition to the one Hilary Clinton proposed in her child-rearing book, It Takes a Village.

The research is coming in on those parent substitutes. A new study shows that preschool loosens the parent-child bond. And speaking of preschool: a pet liberal project, universal preschool, is shown to not be the utopia its proponents claim. ("Universal" is a code word for "mandatory," claimed necessary so that children learn to read better.)

Kids are busier than ever these days. Their lives are jam-packed, with every second scheduled. But, according to noted psychologist Kevin Leman, parents are substituting all kinds of activities for quality family time with them, and children are suffering because of it. There is that parent substitution thing again.

Then there is TV and video games, common parental substitutes even in households where the parents are home. Too much TV-watching can harm children’s ability to learn, and even reduce their chances of getting a college degree, three new studies suggest in the latest effort to examine the effects of television on kids. Another study confirms what many parents have long suspected: that violent TV or video games affects children’s minds, causing a rise in aggressiveness even in those children without a history of such behavior. This is so because the brain sees violent video games, not as a fantasy, but as a real life study requiring aggressive responses. This shouldn’t surprise anyone: after all, video game technology was first developed by the military to train soldiers and reduce factors (such as moral qualms) which inhibit response time.

If that isn’t enough to convince parents to pull the plug on the Playstation, a Moscow boy died after his parents allowed him to play video games for 12 hours straight as a reward for earning good grades. Apparently the exposure brought on an epileptic-type seizure in his brain resulting in hemorrhage and death. And Sony’s new handheld Playstation, the PSP, has just had [p-rn] product developed for it (scroll down). Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back on the pervasiveness of [p-rn] in our society. Please deliver us, Lord Jesus!

Thursday family and society news

Check back every Thursday for the latest news concerning the family and society. This week there was some good news for our unborn children: researchers have been able to isolate embryo quality stem cells from adult blood, a major breakthrough in stem cell research. Pro-life Republicans in Congress are seeking federal support for non-destructive stem cell research rather than the bill making its way through the House and Senate that President Bush has vowed to veto.

On the legal battlefront, Albertson’s has agreed to respect pharmicists’ right of conscience by not requiring them to fill prescriptions for the “morning after” pill, while pro-life medical groups seek to defend healthcare professionals’ right of conscience in California. Tomorrow a new law goes into effect in Florida, requiring doctors to notify the parents of girls ages 17 and under before performing abortions. And in December, President Bush signed federal regulations that would assess harsh financial penalties on states that discriminate against doctors who refuse to provide abortions. California sued the administration seeking to overturn these regulations (Californians for discrimination!) and a federal judge has ruled that constitutionally, California’s lawsuit can proceed.

And on the legislative battlefront, efforts to protect the unborn have proliferated at the state level, most recently through laws that establish the personhood of a fetus. Since a new study shows that a reversal of Roe would only affect 10% of the country, these state laws are necessary (hat tip: Glenn Beck). Now if only the courts will let the state laws stand: a Virginia partial birth abortion ban was just struck down by our judicial masters public servants. Now the bad news, the National Catholic Register asks if the GOP is planning to drop its pro-life platform.

Now for the really bad news: World Magazine reports on new evidence that some abortion clinics are violating federal law by killing children who survive abortions. And while the new ultrasound technology is saving the lives of the unborn here in the U.S., in China they are being used to kill girls under that country’s one child law.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”