A Monday Morning Rant About Freedom

Last night the kids and I watched the movie "Martian Child". It was the story of an eccentric little boy in the foster care system who thought he was from Mars. It was a very neat story, and I won't share it all, but one quote - the moment the adoptive father, who is a writer gets how the boy feels all the time when his publisher tells him, "Why can't you be who we want you to be!?" This left me thinking.....
People are so intimidated by freedom, especially when you give it to your kids. So many people don't want children to have a say on anything in their lives. It seems the whole world is convinced that when left to themselves, they will all go down the wrong path. I have to assert that isn't so. In fact, I've seen far too many kids sprung from the restrictions of their parents home, and do more damage in the first year or two away from that rule oriented, authoritarian environment than they could've done in all the other years collectively. It seems to me, if they understood that this life was their own, and not something they were being forced to live to the standards and approval of others aside from God, would they not perhaps being given this freedom, guard that life, and care about their future all the more? Then, even if they make mistakes or do things we don't wish them to do, they can claim them as their own and not look at them as "disappointing the folks".
I know I have a long way to go here, and it isn't as if there aren't things, boundaries of mutual respect, and safety issues in our home, there are. Just yesterday one of my kids walked to a restaurant on the highway to get some change without letting me know - and I went ballistic, because it scared me. I am not saying"it's all good" or being morally relative. I am saying that kids need some breathing room. Don't set them up with so many rules that they are destined to mess up.
Why does allowing children freedom upset some people so much? I can't tell you how many times at a church potluck I've had people come to tell me that my middle daughter was only having dessert, or any of a number of other things that are trivial to me when it comes to raising my kids. I want them to be honest, loving, kind, compassionate - eating cake and playing with sticks are areas where we throw caution to the wind.
Childhood is only once people. Let your children out of the cage.

Take It Easy

I had the misfortune today of finding something humorous that a child did -
The mother of the child who did it did not agree, and she let me know in no uncertain terms that her child struggled with "pride"........
Poor guy.
It was just a joke.
He was only teasing.
It was actually quite witty. It was clever.
It wasn't disrespectful or hurtful or disobedient in any way.
He was punished.

I have been scratching my head. I have never understood this kind of parent. This mother spoke of her son in his presence with her teeth gritted while I giggled at what he had done.
I wondered if her son's behavior had embarrassed her. Perhaps he is not the one struggling with pride after all.

Respect and Freedom

One of the things that I have been learning a lot about in this past year is respectful, mindful parenting. Growing up in "children should be seen and not heard", parental authoritarian environments, this has been a difficult stretch. On one hand I know that God expects parents to guide their children - but I am learning how this is done more by example, and less by talk. As a child both of my parents said, "Don't ever smoke" as they blew a nicotine cloud out the side of their mouths. I know that they said this because they knew it was a horrible, nasty, addictive habit, but their example of smoking for years spoke louder than their words, and when I was old enough, I began to smoke. Thankfully, the Lord helped me quit after many years of smoking.

Recently I have heard parents say things about their children, or recount things said to their children that have given me pause - and while others around seem to be nodding their heads, I struggle to understand. I am not taking issue with these parents - because their thinking is the general consensus in the Christian homeschooling community of which I am so much a part, and I have thought or said similar things. I am wondering if we can all learn to do it a better way. The respect that we want our kids to learn is a mutual thing. If we don't show them respect, respect for their feelings, their thoughts, each phase of their growth both physically and spiritually, how can we expect from them what we have not modeled. I know these parents did not intend to demean their children, and yet I wonder how they would feel if the same things were said to or about them.

Parents get pretty hung up on their children's behavior being a reflection on them, and I wonder if that completely negates those children's individuality, their sin nature, their own hopes and dreams and desires, the growth the Lord is doing in them, and the story of their lives that God is writing on their hearts and has had laid the foundation for from before there was time. I was absorbed into the life of a mentally ill mother. She told me how to dress, think, wear my hair, talk, walk, and I still struggle with these things today. Any little hint of difference between us caused a major rift. I ran away at 16 with only the clothes on my back, and when my aunt took me shopping - I stood in the middle of the department store and cried, because I did not even know what kind of clothes I liked. I determined in my heart that I would let my children be individuals. Perhaps it is a sensitive issue for me personally because of my history - but I wonder if all parents couldn't stand to practice a little more putting myself in their shoes.

Cult Authority

Authority. This word presents a problem in our culture. We are a generation of think-for-ourselfers. We don’t like anybody to tell us what to do. I have been thinking about this as our family has been watching LOST. The people all seem to want a leader – someone to make the big decisions, someone to run to in case of a crisis – and yet, when that same leader turns around and makes decisions they don’t like, they snort and scrape their feet like a bull in a stall before a fight.
I encountered some of this when I was the coordinator of a co-op for the homeschool families where we lived in West Virginia. Every minute detail of how things were run was constantly in question. I was talking to a more mature woman about the subject and she said to me that people are just rebellious against authority. We don’t live in a society where that is respected – even to the end of people making fun of the President – not just his politics but how he looks, walks and talks, what he wears, etc.
The opposite extreme of this is people who follow any authority like blind sheep. This specifically annoys me when it is in a church setting. People amen anything the pastor says with little or no knowledge for themselves about God’s word and what it says. They sit swallowing what is spoon fed and never question, never dig deeper into the Word for their own growth, and never ask questions. When a pastor or leader says that something is “not up for discussion”, I think that is dangerous territory. I may even suggest cultish. Anybody who tells me I have to believe what they say without question treads on altogether different and seriously more dangerous territory.