Earmuffs are objects designed to cover a person's ears for protection. Unfortunately, kids don't come with them and unless you've trained your kid to cover his ears on command as Beanie did in "Old School", the daunting task of earmuffing is mostly left to us parents. Sometime in the middle of the preaching portion of Sunday's service, I was gently reminded of this. While intently listening to the preaching (of course), I happened to look down over the shoulder of my oldest son as he read this day's entry (already multi-tasking his spiritual life) in a devotional book distributed to the kids in our church. To be honest, although we've probably had copies of these devotionals hanging around the house and the clutter of the family van for some time, I hadn't yet made an effort to look over the material. The topic was convictions and I was immediately convicted ... of my lazy parenting. He finished at the end of the single-page devotional, but I didn't. As I quickly scanned the next couple of entries, I was reminded of my ongoing failure to filter and add context to the things my kids read and hear. Over the next years, my kids will be bombarded with dogma and philosophies streaming from both malicious and well intentioned influences, and I need to be in all of it. Earmuffing offers some protection, but the noise is only dampened. Retreating to pockets of protection where we can isolate our children from the world certainly offers the perception of protection, but like earmuffs, is only moderately effective. Scarey to think about really. Passive parenting in this case is failure. But with these infiltrations of religiosity and absurdity come wonderful opportunities to teach the real Jesus. That's my job. Not the school's, not the church's (although I certainly hope in most cases to find a certain amount of alignment here), and it's most definitely not the job of a silly little devotional book.
"Earmuffs!" I wish it was that easy.
Any experiences of filtering you'd like to share?
lame as it sounds, they will receive gazillions of mixed messages, but i think the best filter i can provide is just doing my very best to be an example of what i believe Christ should look like. home is the one place where the filter gets cleaned out from all the stuff we are exposed to.... i am hopeful that everything in the world gets filtered by a sound foundation that they are learning at home and from our example in daily life. the older they get, the more apparent this shows itself :) love goes a long way and covers a multitude of parenting mistakes :) since we can't think for them, and at best we can only guide their decisions, i think example is what i would say is the best filter. xoxo, jan
ReplyDeletep.s. i went out on a limb to comment... so be kind :)
Well, read the LoTRs trilogy with (as in concurrently, but not together) my oldest daughter (11), and was thinking about watching the movies with her, but after re-watching Fellowship ... too dark, graphic and disturbing, at least for now.
ReplyDeleteBut truthfully, and to be a little controversial (would you expect otherwise?), I've had to earmuff my kids while reading the bible to them. Shortly into the first book you encounter the mass slaughter of humanity (Flood - though some children's versions nicely transform this story into a trip to the zoo), Lot and his daughters (explain that one to your daughters!), Patriarchal sex with slaves, multiple wives, Tamar seducing her father-in-law, etc. By the time you wade through the slaughter of the Canaanites (including all those little babies!) and get to the end of Judges, with that poor, raped concubine chopped up into 12 pieces of meat, you realize the obvious - much of the bible is frankly not safe for children. Bottom line: for me, any readings of the bible must be filtered through an inappropriate sex/violence grid before it hits my kids' ears.