When did protection become a bad thing??......................................
I was in the nurses lounge the other day, which consists of a table and chairs with a fridge. There were a group of 5-6 women nurses, aides, and our wonderful secretary Demetria; she affectionately (I hope), calls me Moos-olini!--instead of Mullaney. Well, they were discussing children. One nurse said something like,
" You have to be a fool these days to not get your daughters on the pill as soon as they have their period. You know they are gonna fool around as soon as they can".
I was kind of surprised to hear her say this. I was even more taken aback to hear all the women at the table nod in agreement saying," Shore- do, you don't ever lie! You got that right."
Then I made the mistake (probably), of opening my own pie hole and offering my unsolicited opinion. " I don't agree with that at all!"
Well, this was met with some more comments.
"Oh Dan, you don't think your girl is lookin for a boy? You don't know what she's doin all the time. She out there and when you turn your back, she say-- I'm goin out to play dad bye. Then she go around the corner and she be doin the wild thing with the boys in ther neighborhood!"
"I don't think my daughter would do that. I trust my girls".
"Oh, Dan.....you naive! I can't believe you think she's not lookin to do that."
Well, they went on and on of how I am just naive. It really bothered me to allow them to walk away thinking that I was wrong and they were right. I hate letting people think they are right when I really think they are wrong and I am right. It's humbling to say nothing and allow others to think what they think without me trying to straighten them out!! OK perhaps you can see that it is actually arrogant for me to think that I am right and they are wrong, or to even think that I can change their minds to see things my way instead of the way they see things. After this event, I had some more sober thinking about it, which generally happens when I can step away from a volatile situation long enough to think things through.
What was happening to me while I was in the conversation? Well, I was getting defensive, feeling threatened by their surety that I was naive and my daughters were practicing deciet against my wife and I. I had fear of their opinions of me at that moment because I was saying something different than them, and I was also practicing SOME restraint over my tongue because I could sense in some people's tone of voice that my opinion was foreign to their understanding of the situation and that this was not the place to lay my thoughts on the subject before them on the table--remember, they never asked me what I thought! Boy.....there was a LOT going on in my head huh? That's usually the case isn't it? We are usually thinking so many things at once that it's difficult to even remember what we were thinking sometimes. When I got home, I spoke with my wife and daughters about it all. Poor Grace was getting downright agitated at THOSE women and wanted to go down there and straighten them out!! (I don't know where she gets that attitude).
I'm glad I stopped talking. Things are different for me and my children. They are with their mother all day everyday. When your child is not with you all day, but is surrounded only by people of the exact same age as them, then there really is a threat to their purity. There is a proverb written thousands of years ago by King solomom that says, " The companion of fools suffers harm." While I do not believe children are fools, I think most people would agree that children do foolish things. There is another proverb that says, "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child." I don't really have a definitive point here, just that we think it is better for children to spend most of their time with adults who love them than with other children. People who know us, know that our children are very sociable. We allow them to play with other children but only when we feel it is a safe environment. We do our best anyway. We are not perfect, but we think that protecting them from poor influences is our job as their parents. Some say that this is unrealistic and will harm them in the long run because they will not learn how to deal with real life situations in the real world. I feel that people who claim this are unthinking. What is more real; living each day with different people around you of different ages all the time, being forced to interact and communicate daily with people of all ages,
or being forced to sit at a desk with people all the same age as you, day in and day out for twelve or more years! We do not protect our children from real life-----we thrust it upon them!
To protect our children from evil; this we see as an important job. The evidence is in the children themselves. What are my children like? Do they appear stunted because of all the protection we have been providing them? I don't think so. Using an extreme to make a point, you do not have to get addicted to crack to know that it is a bad thing to get addicted to crack. Likewise, my children do not have to engage in certain adolescent behavior that is harmful to them to know that it is harmful to them. The scriptures tell us to be innocent in the ways of evil. We do our best to accomplish this. I hope and pray that others are doing their best to keep their children pure too. I alway remember too, that our children never have to even leave the house to be surrounded by people who sin everyday. I love my children. We will continue to do our best to raise them up to be godly people, who will contribute to the betterment of society. I know my life is better because of their presence.