Suburbia #2

Everyone loved the first one. . . .so here we go. :)

Suburbia pushes you towards the sin of idolizing your children.

If you want to hear a good message about this, check out Matt Chandler from last month here. (as well as the funniest Star Wars reference in a sermon I've ever heard :) )

Again, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but for some reason, those of us in the suburbs tend to idolize our children. We are competitive with them in sports, academics, and skills (my kid just did all of the ABC's and he's 6 months old!! ) . We tend to do what they want, and since kids don't have a good filter yet about how many things they should be involved in, we truck them around to 2 different soccer teams, swimming lessons, camp, afterschool art class, etc. . . .It gets rather insane.

In rural areas it seems that kids view themselves more as a part of a family and a needed help to get things done (i.e. helping on the farm, helping take care of a larger family).

In urban areas I think kids are more humbled by the size of their community and identify themselves more with the city, and they gain some balance from that. More on that in a future post

Our kids need us to set boundaries for them and to absolutely not use them for our own advantage. (i.e., the competitive bragging thing mentioned earlier). Our kids need discipline and structure to their life. They need us to not cave to what they want and change the vision of our family to suit what their friends are telling them. If they spend the ages of 5-11 staring at the back of a seat in a mini-van,. . always on the way to some activity. . . we've done something wrong.

We're teaching our kids what is most important and most ultimate by what we allow them to do, and how quick we are to take on a new activity, t.v. show, buy a new toy, cater to them. . . .we're teaching them what's important when we do those things.

None of the activities mentioned above are wrong in themselves. . . we just need some discernment. Again, the numerous options placed before us in the suburbs, and the tendency for coveteousness/comparisons push us towards idolizing our kids.