I Don't Get It!

I know that the woman that just said this meant nothing sinister by it, but it made me scratch my head as I was leaving. I just dropped Kullen off at VBS at the church closest to our house. As I was leaving, one lady was saying to another, "There's nothing like 3 hours of free babysitting for your kids, huh?" I just don't get it. The public schools in our area just let out. Once the rounds of Vacation Bible Schools are over, these same women will be saying, "Oh, I can't wait for school to start again! These kids are driving me crazy!" Why do people have children? They are going to be children. As a homeschool mom, this is completely counter to my thinking - I hate it when my children are away. Yes, even on the days when they drive me crazy, I wouldn't want them anywhere else. Call me weird, say I can't cut the cord, act like I have attachment disorder - I don't care. This is where God has called me to keep them - and I will tarry on in spite of the mentality that children are something to "get rid of" that swirls all around me. I know a adult that told me once that their mother said often during their childhood, "I can't wait until you kids are grown!" and even at their age it still hurts. The message they got was that they were an inconvenience keeping her from the life SHE wanted to have. What parent doesn't lay aside some of their own plans and dreams to raise their children? I am still scratching my head. I just don't get it!

Unpopular Opinions About VBS

Let me start this post that is going to contain some likely not very common thoughts on VBS by saying that many, many years I have poured my heart and soul into Vacation Bible School at the church where we were longtime members. I loved the kids, and gave everything I had to the point of exhaustion every year, and I know that there was benefit in what we did to glorify the Lord. However, I think there is an ugly side to VBS that is seldom mentioned. One thing that was extremely distressing was when our VBS had to be closed to children outside of our church. Vacation Bible School is supposed to be an outreach to the community, a place for churches to reach out to the community and give the schoolchildren a place to spend their time during the long, hot summer months - that had a two fold purpose - the children are off the streets and we have an opportunity to share Jesus.
Now, that being said, another thing that has started to bother me in more recent years is the cheesy, canned curriculum that passes itself off as "educational material" for the local church. I am not saying that some of it isn't fun, and that the kids don't like it. They do - kids love cheesy - for the same reason they love SpongeBob. The stuff is just downright goofy sometimes. I think that sometimes we sell kids short and make the things of Christ come off like a Garfield comic instead of what it truly is, the Greatest Story Ever Told.
That said, I love Veggie Tales, although I hate that the kids who watch them who have never been in church and hear the real story of, oh let's say Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego will spend the next 20 years of their lives thinking they were thrown into the furnace for not bowing to a chocolate bunny. Yep, Christian kids get that it is allegorical humor - but what about the rest of the world.
I do not mean to sound critical - I know how much blood, sweat and tears go into those programs - but wonder like much of what is done in the church if we've lost the true intent of what VBS is all about. In spite of these thoughts, Kullen will likely attend one or two of the local VBSs in our area, and if we were really plugged in to a church, I would likely be helping out. But that is not the sum total of his spiritual training. He's mainly going for the friends and the cookies!