Gaby Rodriguez did a experiment at her school. She pretended to be pregnant for six months to see the response. She got to feel first hand the reaction of her peers and her teachers. A good student who had never had trouble in school before, hers was a story everyone had an opinion about. I believe she taught us all something about ourselves. How we view others, how we really don’t know what it’s like to walk it out in their shoes and how gossip never helps anyone.
This seems to be a hot topic among the high school crowd. MTV has a reality show about teen moms and according to news reports some girls are trying to get pregnant to be on the show. Sadly, being famous at any cost is the reality of our day. So the question becomes are the shows there to deter pregnancy or to glorify them and the answer probably is both. While I don’t think the show’s creator set out to glorify a teen getting pregnant because honestly, who would do that? I believe the show’s creators probably set out to make an informative show on what not to do with your life. The mere presence of a television show using real people makes real people do some pretty crazy things to get on the show.
As a woman who was a teen mom, there isn’t any glory in it. Your life is forever changed. The dreams you once had for your life are changed permanently. Poverty is higher, joblessness is higher, children of teen parents suffer the consequences of what happens when a home is not prepared in advance. Grandmothers get put into the role of mother and then resented because of it. It’s a mess.
Maybe the real reality show should be to follow moms who were teen moms and see how their lives unfolded. If we’re looking for a deterrent then maybe that is the way to go! Watching a 32 year-old mom handle her 16 year-old child puts things a little bit more in perspective of what it will be like. To see the challenge of living your life out in spite of circumstances may be the real key here.
Hmmm maybe I should stop writing this blog and go pitch a new show!
I love when a father takes his rightful place in a family. Hallelujah! May the Lord bless LZ Granderson immensely for speaking the truth! Maybe Mr. Granderson can teach some men how to be a dad! Here is a story from CNN.com Opinion. The story highlights are as follows:
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
LZ Granderson: Some parents dress their young girls in provocative outfits
Retailers have encouraged this behavior by marketing inappropriate clothing
He says it’s OK to blame retailers, but it’s parents who are ultimately responsible
Children need parents who will set rules, not be their friends, he says
Growing up I was raised by a feminist woman. I was told I could be whatever I wanted to be. Limits were not placed on my achievement in education or career just because I was born female. Once in the corporate world, I was given classes on how to speak, voice inflection and command, in order to be taken seriously in a boardroom. I was taught to dress professionally, not denying the fact that I was a woman but not flaunting my sexuality because I wanted to be taken seriously. This was the legacy of the women who fought hard for their equality in the workplace.
I look around at the toddler and and tiara set of females we are raising today and am left wondering what happened? On the one hand we scream for equality and on the other hand we dress our daughters like pole dancers. Padded bras for 8 year-olds, sexually suggestive clothing and wording, and makeup way too soon, is this the legacy for the next generation? What happened?
There is a character in the bible named Elijah. He was a prophet of God and he was a great servant. There is a woman named Jezebel, who Elijah has a run-in with to put it very mildly. She is angry because Elijah has proven her belief system wrong. So she tells Elijah, after he’d had this fantastic battle in which he proved victorious:
1Kings 19: 1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
So Elijah has just proved that his God was bigger than his circumstances, he conquers very matter-of-factly, and then along comes Jezebel, a woman no less, and he freaks out and runs for the desert. He even tells the Lord he’s had enough and asks God to take his life.
Now, I didn’t ask God to take my life but I did question what I was doing. It came about this way:
Having a conversation with our kids around the dinner table, I said living together without the benefit of marriage was wrong. One child said, “But you and dad are the only ones who believe that. Seriously, you two are the only ones.” I said smugly, “No, we go to a church full of people who believe that.” They answered clearly, “You think that, but it’s not true. They say they believe that but they don’t. Seriously, you and dad are the only ones.” Have you ever heard someone’s interpretation of facts and thought they might have a point? I felt flat and defeated. What did it matter if we stood for truth, if we stood alone? Would it not be better to concentrate effort on something productive? What were some in the faith showing my kids? What was I showing them? I’m not perfect or always doing the right thing either.
Then I was reminded of the end of this portion of this story when God shows up and says after a dramatic show of who God is, get up, go back and keep standing. There are seven thousand people just like you and you haven’t seen anything yet.
1 Kings 19:14 He (*Elijah) replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” 15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel–all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.” *My insertion for clarification.
So it’s all good. There are those who believe what God says is for our benefit and we’ll stand together and our children will one day see that even though we weren’t part of the “in” crowd we stood for what we believe. There are people getting discipled and baptized in our church, just yesterday there were seven people who were baptized, two baby dedications. Not everyone has bowed. Yes, there are those who profess Christ and live differently, bowing and kissing the gods of the world, but that is their account to give not mine. I am to get up and go!
This was the scene at my stylist’s as I was getting my hair done. It went like this:
A girl and her mom walked into the salon. My stylist says to the young girl:
Stylist: Hi! You didn’t go to school today?
Girl: (smiles) Nope! I’m getting my piercing today.
Stylist: So your dad said yes?
Girl: ummmm
Mom: No, she didn’t ask him because she knows that he is going to say no.
Girl: So, yeah we’re not going to tell him.
Mom: (looking nervous) Yeah, when he finds out he is going to be mad. He doesn’t believe in this. There will be hell to pay for this.
Girl: (rolls her eyes) So? I know people who have two piercings.
Mom: (laughs nervously and shrugs)
Clearly we see a mom who is not in control of her daughter and who has serious anger issues towards her husband. Sadly, they acted like two teenagers against the establishment. You have to see what the long term effects of this is. The daughter learns that men’s opinions don’t matter and that you do what you want to do behind your husband’s back. A mother is teaching her daughter how to dishonor her husband and her father.
The wife clearly has no backbone and no idea what it means to help lead a house and family successfully. Fathers matter, they hold their family in safety. Whether society tells us that they matter or they don’t, fathers really matter. I don’t remember a single time when my mom went against my father over his opinion when it came to his children.
This scenario was nothing new. I see it al the time and always with bad results. I have never seen a woman, who keeps secrets from her husband regarding their children, end up in a place of honor with honorable children. The reason is because it’s the abdication of leadership. Where there is no leadership, the chaos runs wild. There should be a healthy respect of parents and a desire to please them. When a woman undermines a father by keeping secrets she most often ends up with results she could not have foreseen especially in her daughter. A daughter looks for significance and value from her father. When she finds out her father is worthless in the home and not worthy of her mother’s honor, then she looks to other men to fulfill that value within her. A mother who keeps secrets from her husband does her daughter a disservice.
Likewise, when the shoe is on the other foot, and a father keeps secrets from a mother, the daughter looks suspiciously at men. Men lie, men don’t tell the truth, men keep secrets, men don’t care what women think, is the message she gets. The abdication of leadership has long-term effects.
When I goofed up as a child my first response was, “My parents are going to be so mad.” I knew I had disappointed them with my actions. This girl at the salon had none of that towards her parents. Her mother clearly wasn’t strong enough to stand up to her daughter and this will have bad consequences to it.
What I see today is the clear abdication of leadership in parenting. I see that no one wants to be the bad guy. Parents just want to be liked. Parents fear rejection and we are definitely afraid of losing our children. We’re afraid they’ll run away. Where are they going to go where there is a warm bed, and three square meals a day and run of the house? I don’t think my grandparents ever feared their kids leaving home before it was time. I hear parents say, “You don’t want to push them away.” Some of those parents have kids who are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. These kids don’t love their parents more, they surely don’t respect their parents more, and these kids are looking for boundaries somewhere.
Our kids depend on us to be leaders, our kids are not equipped for leadership and we certainly aren’t doing them any favors, nor are we teaching them how to lead productive, united lives with the family they will one day form. Although, they don’t act as if they want leadership, they thank parents later for their leadership.
I know a young woman with three kids who each have a different father. She lives at home and was never married. Now that she is older she blames her parents for never saying no to her. Her parents say now, that they didn’t like the guys she dated but when it counted, they didn’t put their foot down. Now it’s too late for the whole family. Is it the parent’s fault ultimately? Not entirely no, but they share responsibility. The things they allowed in their home, is a direct result of the fruit they all now have to bear.
This deal about, well if I as the parent don’t let them, then they’ll sneak and do it anyway doesn’t hold water. It clearly doesn’t allow you to abdicate your responsibility. When the child respects you and understands your rules and the consequences it may not stop the behavior but it helps. And if they go off and do it anyway? Then your account will be clear before God that you did your parenting to the best of your ability and that you were stood your ground morally and ethically. Then who could blame you?
This is an ongoing series on stepparenting. To read the previous entry click here.
Lady Tremaine suddenly finds herself misunderstood and the magnifying glass is on her. Why is there no peace in her home? Why is she always disapproving? Why can’t we all just get along? Why does she take the blame for everything?
The children on both sides of the coin are vying for control. One child told his stepmother, “Every time I hum a song using da, like ‘da da da dadum dum’ it really means I’m praying for my dad to ‘da-vorce’ you.” So each time they got in the car to go somewhere as a family, the child would sit behind her in the car and as the music would play on the car stereo, the child would kick her seat and hum along using the “da”. By the time they reached their destination she would be furious and the child would be in control and loving it. Her husband simply didn’t believe her because the child was only 8 years old, at the time, and it seemed too manipulative a move for a child this age.
Stepmothers need to take an honest assessment of the situation they are in. If the home is becoming hostile and she is getting resentful and feeling like an outsider, she must back off and take a hands off approach to the children. She can’t step into a stepmother role, rather she must be seen as a mentor. This is not easy because our idea of a family is a mother and father. Only we have to remember that these children have a mother and father, for the most part, and they haven’t asked for another.
If a battle is ensuing in your home you must step back. The house will become unbalanced. There is no way around this. It means the things you need to have done will more than likely not get done. If your rule is to bring your own dirty clothes down to the laundry room on Wednesday for wash day, you can bet that the children will forget or ignore. It’s not personal. It doesn’t add to your chores either. You will simply have less clothes to wash that day. On Friday when everyone is looking to you to provide the clean School Spirit Shirt, you’ll simply say, “I washed all the clothes that were brought to me on Wednesday”. If dishes weren’t done the night before, well then tonight you won’t be able to cook dinner. Don’t worry, cereal for dinner has never killed a family. The key here is to give the person with the responsibility the ultimate authority while saving your sanity.
One stepmother would get up each morning to get her stepchildren off to school. Because they had ignored bedtimes the night before, there was always a battle. She’d think to herself how she was ignored the night before and now she was paying for something she hadn’t done. By the time she dropped them off at the bus stop, she was angry, kids were angry, and everyone was miserable. One harried morning she was rushing kids to get up and get moving while getting herself ready for work. Then, one of the kids threw up. Not having the time to figure it out and get the other one to the bus stop, she told the sick child to go back and lie down and she would be right back. She loaded up the other child and ran them to the bus stop. When she came home the sick child wasn’t home. She was frantic and called her husband. They both went looking for the child and when they found him wandering the streets, he began to cry to his father saying that he had thrown up and his evil stepmother had grounded him for life and told him to go to his room and never come out. The father was enraged and asked how she could be so heartless? It had never happened but it didn’t matter, she must have had a tone or a look or something. She had a choice, fight, flight, or take a step back. Guess what? This stepmother took a step back. She removed herself from the responsibility of getting children ready for school. Do you want to know the result? The children’s father was frustrated in no time, yelling, rushing out the door and the bedtime rules which seemed harsh before, became law. When her husband would come to complain about how hard it was, she would pat him on the arm and say, “I’m sorry you are going through this. Parenting is hard work.”
Today Casey is 25. I remember well the day she was born. Casey was born social with a great imagination and lots of strong will. As a toddler she pranced around in her tutu and when she started kindgergarten she was convinced she was allergic to pants and so she wore dresses all the time. She was a joy to raise and even though she challenged me with her opinion, we did a great job of getting along and working together.
Apples don’t fall far from trees and I see myself in her. Independent, loving, and driven she has set out into the world to make a place for herself. A place of her own ideals on her own terms. You can bet that she is never motivated by peer pressure, all of her successes and failures have been of her own choices. I learned early with a strong-willed child you have to find a way to channel it in boundaries but you never want to take it away. Strong will will serve its purpose one day and it has. Instead of a five year college plan she finished in 3 1/2 while working, proving that whatever she sets her mind to do she accomplishes it.
When I close my eyes and see my daughter I remember her as a four year-old, dancing and playing and singing. Hers was a world of make believe.
I know you I walked with you once upon a dream
I know you the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
And I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem
But if I know you I know what you’ll do
You’ll love me at once the way you did once upon a dream
I worry about her, I pray for her and the word love doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about her. I miss her terribly most days. We won’t see each other today, as we are miles apart, but my love follows her always and distance is never an obstacle. I love you sweet child ‘o mine!
We were honored to have such powerful conference this weekend. Almost 150 women gathered to discuss why God asks us not to arouse or awaken love before it so desires. Women from the ages of 10-100 came and learned what God’s plan was and why he said wait. I was so impressed by our teens who were honestly saying that they had never really considered why God said wait.
Some of the comments that touched my heart were:
“Now I understand why my dad acts like he hates boys to talk to me you know? He is trying to protect me. I mean, he’s still not doing it right but I see his heart now you know?”
“I would never do the things I do in front of my dad but I had never considered that my father in heaven is always watching. It makes you think.”
“I can’t talk to my mom because she always runs and tells her sisters and her friends.”
“I can’t talk to my mom because she always starts yelling and judging.”
“I feel helpless when my daughter comes to me because I see my baby asking 13 year-old questions and it scares me.”
“I sometimes don’t know what to say to my daughter so I revert to rules.”
“I still wear scars by the things boys said to me in high school”
“I didn’t live what I am teaching and I want more for my daughter but I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m scared of what I see happening to the young girls today.”
“My mom just lectures and I have no one to talk to but my friends.”
Thank you Jesus for a ministry that allows us to come forth with the questions of our heart. Thank you that you see every question and that it is meaningful to you!
In his book, Forgotten God, Francis Chan asks the question, how much do you love the church?
I read this with interest and thought about some things that are really disturbing to me. Recently, my son was called a bible thumper in youth group. It made me laugh, although my son was angry about it, but it was a funny statement coming from within the church. I laughed because it’s true! He is a bible thumper and his questions and study make me smile.
We read the bible at our house and we discuss it and we teach it and we try very hard to live it. Although, yeah, with teenagers we sometimes find ourselves defending and explaining ideals that they often find old-fashioned to our culture today. What was meant as a put-down wasn’t in my eyes because it’s our job to teach the bible to our kids. We love the church that much! Not even because we are pastors either. We loved the church before we were in ministry. We are friends of the groom, called to serve his bride and prepare her for a wedding. This is why I love the picture above so much. The people in the picture are caring for every detail of the bride in preparation!
What happens though when the church doesn’t know she’s getting married? I have a friend who is faithful to her church attendance. Her children are in Sunday School each Sunday. Get beyond the basics of Sunday School and her kids know nothing really about the word of God. They can’t pray cognitively for a meal or for themselves or others. Should not love for the church begin at home? I spoke to this issue with her. What I realized was to raise a bible thumper you really have to believe the bible. You have to know it, you have to read it. A thousand sermons at your left hand and ten thousand at your right, makes you no more an effective witness if you don’t know your word. How can your family stand against the trials of the world if they do not know the word or who the bride is beyond a mere acquaintance? So what is the fruit of our testimony? Is it not in part our children and our life? Does it matter that the people who I call friends and co-workers come to ask me to pray for them but my kids live like hell? How much do I love the church? It shows first in my life. No not one of us is perfect nor do any of us have the perfect family, I certainly don’t. I want to try to do better. I want to love the church so much that television or tiredness or overwork doesn’t cause me to forsake my family. I don’t want to depend on the little songs from childhood Sunday School to get my kids through. I want to be active and engaged in their education. I want them to know that I love God not just with my lips but with my action and my advancement of the kingdom in their lives. I ask what my kids are reading in their bibles, and no it’s not the only thing they read. We discuss viewpoints and my bible thumper has some deep thoughts that you’d never know about unless you ask. Bible study is not just for the pastor’s kids, it’s for everyone who loves the church.
So you all think President Obama was the one that came up with the bailout plan? Not so! Parents are teaching their kids to overspend and then bailing them out.
This was an interesting and quick video on how we teach our children about money based on how we treat it. Click here to watch!
Pastor Susan 