May. 22, 2009 - Great Movie!
I haven't seen a movie in a long time that is as amazing as The Last Sin Eater. What a beautiful story! I loved the characters - pure undefiled good versus selfserving evil. I don't want to give any of the story away, so I'm not going to go into details. If you haven't seen this movie, watch it - you'll be glad you did.
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Apr. 8, 2009 - Deterioration of Family in America
At what point in American history did spending time with family become a bad thing? In today's society, it is the accepted norm for kids, especially teenagers, to not want to spend time with their parents or siblings. In tv families, parents are portrayed as stupid and clueless. They have their own interests, activities, and groups of friends that are totally separate from their children's. It seems that parents have no idea what their kids are doing, who their friends are, what they're learning about in school. As long as grades are okay and there seem to be no major problems parents pretty much stay out of their children's lives.
Kids are viewed as somehow wiser than their parents and more knowledgeable in just about every area. Kids turn to parents only in desperate situations when they can't fix a problem by themselves or with the help of a few of their friends. At what point between the time of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Hannah Montana did kids become smarter than parents?
When did family time become a bad thing? It seems to me that all time used to be family time because kids learned from parents, worked with parents, ate with parents. And siblings were playmates. Families celebrated together, mourned together, and supported one another. Was there one event in history that caused family life to change?
How about the creation and rise of public schooling? Public schools took children away from their parents for hours during the day. They were put together with other children, forming peer groups. Parents gave up much of their responsibility to teach and discipline their own children, leaving that to public school teachers.
What about mothers working outside the home? Kids began coming home from school to an empty house. Parents gave up even more control and responsibility to schools and to television. Because parents didn't have enough time at home with their children, morality and character had to be taught at school. Kids coming home and turning on the television in the afternoon meant that television had to also take some responsibility in child training. All kinds of afterschool programs began to pop up to help parents with child rearing. In these programs, kids began spending even more time with peers. In fact, kids were spending most of their time with other kids their same age. Is this when kids got together and decided that they were smarter than parents? And because parents weren't around the kids that much, did the parents not even notice what was going on?
What do you think statistics would show if we examined families with stay-at-home moms or families that homeschool? My guess is that we would find less divorce, less adultery, stronger families. I also suspect that there would be less alcohol and drug abuse, less tobacco use, and less delinquency in the children.
Getting families to transform from the Ingalls family to today's tv families was a slow process. Getting families back to where they should be will be a slow process as well. It will take a lot of work, a lot of prayer, and a really big God. Christian families will need to lead the pilgrimage. That means Christian families might need to rethink their priorities, their lifestyles, their ideals. Since we do have a very big God, a very big responsibility sits on the shoulders of those who proclaim Him Lord of all.
