Friday, August 01, 2008

They Made Me Do It

There's an interesting conversation going on on Beliefnet, about the wisdom of expecting your children to go to church.

I had no idea that this was such a startling or unreasonable expectation to some, nor that it evoked such strong negative memories in people. Jesus. (Whose name I invoke in the prayerful sense.)

This is truly going to date me as an Old Broad, but -- it just seems that there is a randomness about families with kids these days that I find troubling; a lack of sense of vocation on the part of parents; an idea that God has called them to be more than breadwinners, entertainers and taxi drivers for these little people running around their home.

2 comments:

LoieJ said...

I'm not sure I'd use the word randomness. Maybe Lack of Philosophy of parenting or lack of thinking of parenting goals. Its sort of like when people get so stuck in a rut, they can't see over the sides of the rut and see that there are other paths and possibilities.

It is sort of like having the babies and then saying, "Now what?" except that they don't stop to ask that question.

I wonder if the working parent routine coupled with the extended family often being so far away contributes to a lack of good role models in parenting and a lack of connection between moms, no networking.

I was appalled to find that my very brilliant husband didn't have a philosophy of parenting to guide some of his decisions or lack thereof.

Trish said...

Hmm. Well, even though my mom grew up in the Lutheran Church, she and my dad quit going not long after they were married and had my oldest brother. She didn't start attending again til I was 13 and my younger sister was 12. She dragged both of us along, EVERY Sunday. We hated it for a long time. And now, I'm in seminary to become a leader, and my sister isn't even a Creaster (Christmas and Easter attender). Weird the way things work out, eh?