Raising Good Kids

How To Live Amid The Weeds

Did you read the bizarre news story about the mother who chaperoned a party for 15-year-old girls at which a male stripper performed? She claims she wasn’t in on the hiring (her own teenager handled that), but neither did she feel right in calling a halt to the shenanigans because she didn’t want to embarrass her daughter.

I have to agree with moral drill-sergeant Dr. Laura Schlessinger on this one when she wrote in her syndicated column, "Something frightening has happened to family culture when parents are more worried about their children’s image, social status, peer acceptance, and immediate sense of happiness than their children’s values and morals."

This is just one more example–a rather extreme one, to be sure–of how contemporary culture is a mixed bag for our kids. On the one hand our children enjoy unprecedented access to wonderful books, music, entertainment, ideas, and information. On the other hand, they have easy access to ideas and experiences that most parents find disgusting, misleading, even dangerous for their children. From inappropriately sexual material and casual and meaningless portrayals of violence, to endless commercial messages promising that consumerism will lead to happiness or the snickering ridicule of people who base their behavior on traditional moral principles, modern culture contains dangerous elements.

Which leaves thoughtful parents wondering how to live in a culture so often diametrically opposed to the Christian vision. It reminds me of the parable of the weeds and the wheat in which a farmer’s enemy sabotages a freshly sown field of wheat by spreading good measures of weed seed. The farmer’s servants want to yank the weeds, but the farmer warns that doing so may spoil the good plants in the process. He pronounces that the weeds and wheat will have to grow together until harvest time when a day of reckoning will occur.

We live in a culture of both weeds and wheat. Therefore we need strategies to help guide our children. Here are some suggestions:

A. Take responsibility and initiative for guiding your child. Recognize that you will have to put the brakes on, take a stand, and make some unpopular decisions. Simply letting your child "go with the flow" may find him or her careening over the falls. We are "playing for keeps" with our children’s lives. And while it doesn’t pay to go overboard or get paralyzed with fear, it’s essential that we parents embrace our role as faith fosterers and moral guides in the lives of our children.

B. Foster awareness (your own and your child’s) that the world we live in grows both weeds and wheat. Acknowledge and name both the good and the bad. As Catholics, thankfully, we don’t believe that the world is totally bad. We’re not anti-enjoyment or grimly somber. In fact, we believe that life and the world can be sacramental. They can put us in immediate contact with the love and presence of God. But we also recognize sin and spiritual danger. So be clear with your child when you witness something you don’t agree with: a racist comment, laughing approval of recreational sex, glorifying the accumulation of possessions, etc.

C. Be disciples. Help your children know more about Jesus. Expose them to gospel stories, teach them the stories of those who knew Jesus and loved him, the saints. One of the best ways to come to know Jesus is through regular participation and presence at Mass.

D. Live counterculturally. Actions speak louder than words when teaching your kids to know the good from the bad and the ugly. Realize that you have a range of choices–from not owning a TV to not allowing your children to watch programs inappropriate for their age group; from boycotting items made in foreign or domestic sweatshops to regularly visiting a soup kitchen. You can choose to live simply, by how you dress (not letting kids wear makeup or grown-up fashions before a certain age), making reasonable rules about at what age dating can occur, holding fast to family functions. You can be rigorously honest with local merchants, at work, with the IRS, etc. All these behaviors go against mainstream culture and will speak volumes to your children.

E. Take up religious disciplines and practices. To survive the onslaught of weeds, wheat needs to sink its roots firmly in good soil. That translates to church on Sunday, prayer at meals, time spent in devotions like quiet times in the morning or evening, novenas, praying the Rosary, and daily meditation. These aren’t signs that you’re a good and holy person, they’re ways to become one. Participating in the season of Lent is a particularly powerful way to counteract the negative aspects of modern culture.

F. Beware of the "whatever" syndrome. This is the very prevalent attitude that any standard is as good as another. Among youngsters today, "Well, that’s his opinion" is often sufficient justification for any and all actions. While I don’t suggest a narrow judgmentalism, standing up for the righteousness of key principles that you know and believe in is essential. When we get to the pearly gates and present Saint Peter with the balance sheet of our good and bad actions I doubt we’ll hear him say, "Whatever."