Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Parental Responsibility
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Deuteronomy 6:6-9
A number of years ago, PBS Frontline produced a disturbing report on "The Lost Children of Rockdale County." It chronicled a story just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in which high school and even junior high children—some as young as 13—were involved in a web of multiple sexual partners over the spring and summer of 1996. By the time it was over, 17 young people tested positive for syphilis, while more than 200 others were exposed and treated. A registered nurse with the Rockdale County Public Health Department commented, "You don't expect to see a 14-year-old with 20, 30, 40, 50, or 100 partners. You expect that of someone who is more into the line of being a prostitute or something. And these girls were not homeless. They were not abused in any way. These were just normal, everyday, regular kids"—from middle- and upper-middle-class homes. These were not poor kids. They had their own TVs, VCRs, cell phones, and many even had their own cars—including a number with BMWs. The report points out that these activities mostly took place in homes while the parents were at work or away on trips. Therein lies a major source of the problem: The parents were more involved in providing material possessions for their children than they were providing what really matters, a stable, secure home with nurturing and instruction. The teens had the gadgets—what they needed were families. The PBS Frontline report repeatedly came back to the role of the parents in the lives of these teenagers, and the fact that many of the parents felt powerless against the culture. "What can you do about it? You know, you can't lock a kid in a closet, 13, 14, 15 years old," one parent said with resignation. Another lamented, "I think what it is is we've lost control over our children. You can't spank them now, or they'll turn you in to the police . . .." But underlying all of the identified "causes"—television, external groups, peer pressure—was the fact that the parents were more interested in their own lives than the lives of their children. The children were "lost" because the parents let them wander away. Homosexuality is another perceived threat to American culture, and rightfully so: When perverse relationships and lifestyles are portrayed as normal and even to be sought after, the foundation of the society—the family—is in grave danger of disintegrating. However, can we honestly say that homosexuality is a more common threat to the average family than dysfunction and/or parental apathy? Would homosexuality even be a threat to the culture if the family unit were truly intact? Rising rates of homosexuality are better seen as a symptom of a damaged family than a cause. In God's preparatory instructions to Israel before entering the Promised Land—and to us, before entering His Kingdom—He makes our parental responsibilities plain (Deuteronomy 6:6-9; see also Deuteronomy 11:19). Teaching at all times requires continual, active involvement, not passive observance. It demands that a higher priority be placed on instruction than on a higher salary or more possessions. It calls for the willing sacrifice of that most precious of all commodities: time. As adults, the pace of our lives may indeed be frenetic, but if our children are not properly instructed and cared for even in the midst of chaos, they, too, may become "lost." The above stories do not represent all teenagers. While they may not be isolated incidences, they also are not the norm—so far. There are encouraging signs that a part of the culture is coming to its senses and is determining to provide security and nurturing to the next generation. Homeschooling is increasing at a tremendous rate across this country. More women are recognizing that the cost of "having it all" in terms of careers and generous salaries is too high—that it does not reward with families and children but loneliness. Mothers with children under three are leaving the workplace. But what is most needed is for the fathers to shake off the shackles of materialism, narcissism, and feminism and to provide for their families what is truly needed: leadership, security, attention, involvement, and instruction. We cannot afford any more "lost" children.
David C. Grabbe
Are We Losing Our Children?
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Proverbs 22:6
In Muriel Beadle's book on the importance of early childhood development, A Child's Mind, she expresses her own version of this proverb: "Parents, train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will be unable to depart from it." Beadle is a child psychologist. She has an awful lot of clinical experience in dealing with children and their parents. It is her considered opinion that, when people get older, they really never change. Most adults understand how difficult it is to change, how difficult it is to overcome something. Beadle thinks nobody ever really changes. From her experience she is probably close to being a hundred percent accurate. There is a great parental responsibility to instill the right things in a child, because that child will carry them right through into his adulthood. Thus, God can confidently say that when you train up a child in the way that he should go, when he gets older he will live the way you trained him. If you trained your children right, they will continue, and their lives will be a success—a far greater success that it ever would have been if you had not given them the right instruction in the first place. Beadle's comment underscores the importance of the immediate with regard to children's conduct. There are things that cannot wait, and training up a child in the way that he should go is one of them. Your time with you children is running out. It is slipping away, and God is still holding you responsible.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Sanctification and the Teens
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Ecclesiastes 11:9-10
Part of the problem that confronts young people today is that they—and frankly, all of society—have a devilish misconception of what is fun. It is no joke: What most people consider to be fun stems from a Satan-inspired viewpoint. Etymologically, fun derives from an older English word that means "to hoax, to play a trick on, to deceive." This original word once meant "to fool," and it was also used in the noun form, "a fool." When people play tricks on others, they think the reactions they get are funny. Thus, the modern concept of fun began with deception and humiliation resulting in amusement. Fun did not come to mean "amusement," "gaiety," or "enjoyment" until the eighteenth century, suggesting that the prevalence of "having fun" is a fairly recent phenomena. In those tougher times—when child mortality was high, life spans were low, and life was hard and dangerous in general—people were more serious as a rule because life was so severe. In more modern times, having overcome many of these problems, society has elevated the concept of "fun" to its current levels. Now people want to have fun all the time and think they deserve it. Each individual has a different idea of what is fun. Some people consider playing chess or backgammon to be fun. Others feel that playing video games is fun. Many think that actually playing a sport is fun. We all know someone who must believe talking is great fun. To others, their idea of fun is reading a book, watching television or movies, or enjoying a visit with family and friends. People have all kinds of different notions about fun. Many of today's youth believe that fun must have an edge; it needs to be not only amusing but also risky, dangerous, and even potentially lethal. It is astonishing to realize what some young people consider to be fun—activities that more mature people would consider to be wild, riotous, hazardous, and downright foolish. Their version of fun often begins with alcohol and illicit sex and gets worse—far worse—from there. It descends into dangerous "pranks," illegal activities, and perversions of all kinds. Too many of today's young people end up as addicts, either to alcohol or drugs. Far too many young women resort to abortion, and they sometimes undergo multiple abortions (around one million abortions are performed each year in the United States). A frighteningly high percentage of them wind up with a sexually transmitted disease or three (in America, more than 19 million new cases of sexual disease are reported each year, half of which occur to young people). About five percent of them begin their adult years with criminal records. Yet, while they were doing all of these things, they thought that they were having fun. For many teens, this is the current idea of fun. It is not a good and wholesome activity that is amusing or enjoyable, but behavior that is exciting and risky, often containing an edge of rebellion. Certainly, this is not everyone's idea of fun, but as Solomon says about mankind's insatiable desires for more, "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing" (Ecclesiastes 1:8). When one kind of fun loses its edge, a more extreme form takes its place. Solomon also writes, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of correction will drive it far from him" (Proverbs 22:15). A child's tendency is toward foolish behavior because he does not have the wisdom or the experience to know what is good and right for him to do. Thus, God instructs parents to correct their children, to drive this foolish behavior out of them, and to teach them wisdom, the right and proper way to live. If they are left to themselves, undisciplined, they will likely intensify their foolishness until it becomes extreme and dangerous.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Wisdom for the Young (Part Two)
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