Matthew 18:1-7

Today has been established as a holiday in recognition of the fundamental importance of the family. It was established in the beginning to honor mothers and the heroic contributions that mothers typically made to children, and to society through the family. This was at a time when the role of mothers was generally clearly recognized as being that of bearing and rearing the children. At that time, the mom's task in life was not understood to be a career or breadwinner. She was perceived as a home-maker. The duty of providing a house for the home and the material necessities of life was perceived to be that of the husband and father. His duties as "provider" were typically made possible through his commitment to a career.

It has generally been understood that this arrangement provided for some overlapping of responsibilities between mom and dad. Although, in a patriarchal society, equality was not always the order of the day, there has been a growing trend in that direction to the present time, and teamwork has generally been recognized as an important ingredient in responding to these responsibilities.

Recently "Mother's Day" has also come to be recognized by the church as "Festival of the Christian Home." This title does not diminish either the role of or appreciation for of mothers. Equality and teamwork are definitely perceived to be important. There is a blur, however, in the perception of who does what in relation to the roles of mother and father. The contemporary celebration of home recognizes the critical nature of family at the same time that it responds to the reality of child care outside the home, thus, accommodating both mother and father in a career role.

There is general consent to the idea that the family is especially challenged today in face of the fact that the importance of its mission to human beings has not diminished. Jesus recognized the importance of family to the development of children, but broadened his concern for children to include the whole community. He predicted "bad" things if society failed to give children positive and priority attention. (Matthew 18:1-7)

In the animal world, of which we humans are a part, the parental relationship with offspring in a given species is provided for by nature in a variety of ways. Although we have come to learn of distinct and important roles filled by mother and/or father in each species, that role varies from species to species. There are no examples in nature where the family unit plays a greater role in the developing and fulfilling experience of a specific species than is true with us human beings.

The goals of family are many and relate to various segments of the family in different ways at different times. All human family goals are included under the umbrellas of propagation, nurture, and security. In a complex society such as we are today, all aspects of these responsibilities have become more complex and in most ways are shared with others. The complexity amplifies the need to make good choices. The need to share these responsibilities with others often diminishes the ability of parents to influence the impact of the family on each member in it. At the same time, such sharing offers specialized expertise on a level not otherwise possible for parents to provide.

The dilution of parental influence on children within the family is seen in a variety of ways and is generally viewed as a reasonable trade-off in our own society. In recent years, with the increase in two-income families, there has been a gradual increase in sharing the rearing of children through the utilization of child care provided by persons other than parents.

Formal education designed to enable children to compete successfully in a challenging and complex world is done primarily by others. This is true from preschool through the next twenty or more years of a child's' life. It is common knowledge that among the ways children learn is from one another. Much learning therefore occurs through the associations that develop in the social structures of the formal educational and developmental process. Many of these social groupings are wholesome and helpful. Some are not. We are currently struggling to come to grips with a new and powerful medium of learning called the Internet. The associations of the young are now no longer confined to friends with whom the parents may become acquainted but with all kinds of people from all kinds of cultures from all kinds of places in the world. Some associations are sick because they develop with persons who are themselves both weird and sick.

Health care is no longer primarily a matter of parental responsibility but is shared by health care professionals and those with whom parents share in the rearing and educating of children. Every school has its nurse. Every community has its "Minor Medical Center." Most food and variety stores have their pharmacy. Insurance companies tell us what can be done by whom and when. Government tells us what food and drugs are good and bad for us and why. Advertising tells us what we should eat and what we should avoid. Whole food industries rise and fall on the basis of food choices not related to the wisdom of parents but to the influence of "others," primarily through the power of media, advertising, and peers. Parents are slowly being assigned the role of health monitors rather than health nurturers.

Then there is the whole matter of entertainment. Entertainment for developing children was once a family responsibility. Primary entertainment is now provided by schools, peer groups, sports on a variety of levels, films/videos, computers, and the Internet. Apart from a supporting role in sports, parents are slowly being relegated to the role of spectators or monitors rather than participants in the entertainment of their children.

Finally, though this is not the end of the list, it is evident that parents must try harder if they are to have influence, which surpasses that of child care, school, entertainment, and peers. Of primary importance in relation to parental influence is the development of attitudes in children toward others of all races, cultures, and ages. Given the tremendous impact on the attitudes of developing children by others, it is essential that parents make an intentional and powerful effort in this area. Attitudes have to do with rejection and acceptance. They have to do with violence and peace. They have to do with respect and disrespect. They have to do with the development or denial of self-esteem. They have to do with a developing sense of values. These parental concerns are increasingly being usurped by movies, television, peers, entertainment, sports figures, and the Internet. A heavy price is being paid by children, among children, families, and society as a result of taunting and teasing as a form of "put down" or rejection, and the lack of appropriate non-violent responses.

Among the values of age is the memory of history. All history, to the elderly, is not just a matter of reading books or watching the "history channel." Memory recalls not just the perception of facts concerning events of the past, but emotions that were related to the participation in or observation of these events. It is different to read about Pearl Harbor than it was to hear the announcement first-hand as it came over the radio. It is different to have been in the war and/or to have had friends and loved ones in it--some of whom did not return--than to endeavor to get a feeling of what it was like from books or movies. History has much to teach.

My memory permits me to share about matters related to the family, as they were in the environment of my childhood and youth, sixty years ago. The purpose of this comparison is not for judgment, but for examination in comparison with the reality of today. There are some frightening things happening in our society today to our families, parents, and children, and we need to discover "why." We did not have school massacres sixty years ago. We did not have a youth population that accounted for a high percentage of crime in our society sixty years ago. We need to learn what we can from the past, in terms of what to go back to, what to build on, and what to stay away from.

Sixty years ago, for the masses, child care was an unknown phrase. The care of children was not farmed out by my parents to anyone for any reason. It was a treat just to be permitted to stay at a friend's house overnight. That is a considerable difference from situations today where children are cared for by others for a minimum of eight hours a day, five days a week, from the age of six weeks. Until I went to first grade at age 4, all day every day was spent within sound or sight of my mother as she gardened, raised chickens, or carried me in front of her on the saddle horn as she brought the cows in from the pasture for their evening milking.

During the years of my pre-college education, I traveled by foot or horseback a mile and a half to meet the rural mail carrier early in the morning, who then took me 14 miles into Chadron for school during the day. He picked me up from the school at 4:00 and brought me home in time do share in the evening chores. Chores included bringing in wood for the heating and cooking stoves, milking cows, and generally caring for horses, cattle, and chickens. Without fail, I ate supper with the family every night. My evenings were spent until 8:00 building model airplanes, listening to the radio, or participating with the family in table games. Card games and Chinese Checkers were "staples." There was no TV, video games, computers, or teen-lines. Summers were spent herding sheep or turkeys, building fence, caring for livestock, planting, weeding the garden, cultivating and harvesting crops, picking apples, and, in general, working with tractors and other machinery. It was an unusual event, such as mud or snow, that made the roads impassable, to miss going to Sunday School as a family. Leisure time was Saturdays and Sunday afternoons during the winter months. There was exploration to be done with 1200 acres of pasture, fields, canyons, and trees. I presented limited danger to coyotes, rabbits, pheasants, or squirrels with 22- or 25/20-rifles or 12-gauge shotguns. There were always carts to make or repair or horses to ride. As a result of commuting to high school, I was unable to participate in sports until college and only rarely enjoyed being a spectator during high school.

The influence of parents on family was major and diluted only a bit with school. The peers of children and youth were many less in number. There was insufficient media for it to be an influence. The only available guns were for hunting or the destruction of varmints. Hunting was always done for a combination of sport and food. Assault rifles were not available and I had no knowledge of them. Although we were close to the "wild west" in both geographical proximity and time, handguns were few and far between and were not generally accessible to children. Pipe bombs were neither a matter of knowledge or conversation. The only drugs, apart from alcohol, that influenced lives were those prescribed by a physician. There were "cliques" but no gangs.

Today we live in critical times in terms of family relationships and children destroying children. Many youth justifiably fear going to school. It is often unsafe for women or children to walk alone in their neighborhood parks or on the sidewalks that join the houses into a community. As a society, systems of justice are clogged with numbers and we are perpetually challenged to build more prisons. All possible reasons for these alarming and deadly social factors must be determined.

If, as I have suggested, the primary responsibility of parents to family is included under the umbrellas of propagation, nurture, and security, and if, as many believe, the family must be involved some way in the development of healthy and whole adults and in the peace of our schools and neighborhoods, then we are challenged, as a matter of life or death, to do two things. First, we must discover as many causes for these problems as we can. Second, we must find handles, which will enable us to correct the problems. Neither panic nor pointing fingers of accusation is sufficient.

Let's examine some potential problems in relation to the three primary responsibilities of family. First is the matter if propagation. Human beings are so equipped biologically and emotionally by nature that propagation is absolutely going to occur. The only thing that could prevent this would be some catastrophe that would render all of either or both sexes sterile, or if for some reason, as a human race, we would go the way of the dinosaurs. Associated with the inevitable activity which results in the propagation of the species is the endowment of the ability to make choices related to "whether or not to," with whom, and when. It is these matters of choice over which we alone have ultimate control.

A friend and former St. Luke member, Dr. F. Ivan Nye, retired Professor of Sociology, and author or co-author of nine books on the American Family, indicates three changes that are worthy of consideration. First, he suggested that every child needs to be a "wanted child." Second, he suggests that parents and schools must be granted the right to discipline children in ways that are both humane and effective. Third, he suggests that school, and especially high school, should not completely dominate the world of the adolescent. (Communication with Dr. Nye may be addressed to him at #151, Mesa, AZ 85205)

Each of these recommendations relates well to some part of a consideration of course corrections for family emphases that relate to propagation, nurture, or security.

There are two major concerns that must be addressed related to the matter of propagation. First, better choices need to be made than are often being made in relation to the selection of spouses. I have, during my ministry, heard too many spouses indicate that they got married for the wrong reasons. They wanted to get away from home. They thought it was the expected thing to do. They were pregnant. They felt pressured. The list of unacceptable reasons for marriage is a long one. A better job needs to be done of helping our youth find an appropriate mate with whom there is a strong likelihood of a happy and enduring marriage.

Second, children and youth need to be taught by word and example that sexuality is a wonderful part of being human, either as male or female. They need to be taught that sexuality is special and sacred and that sexual partnership should be reserved for the person to whom we are willing to commit for the remainder of our lives. Sexuality and sexual sharing should be removed from the lists of entertainment, exploitation, or obligation. Sexual partnership between male and female should always be viewed as potentially resulting in the creation of a human life. No risk of creating another human being should ever be taken without both the willingness and the ability to love that child as one's own life and to be responsible for it nurture and security.

Children and youth should be taught early that abstinence from sexual activity is not only permissible, but is both desirable and expected. It is o.k. to abstain from sexual intercourse outside the relationship of marriage! Great care should be exercised in selecting the person with whom we choose to be married. The ideal goal of marriage is one of enduring as long as we live.

Except for medical reasons, there is no reason in our society why abortion should even be an issue of concern. If there was never sexual intercourse without the desire and ability to be responsible for the creation of a baby, unwanted conceptions would never occur and every child born would be a wanted child.

This fact alone would go a long way toward assuring proper nurture and security of all children. Children who are properly nurtured in an environment of security seldom if ever become a menace to society on any level.

The matter of nurturing a new human being carries broader responsibility than we often suppose. Most people in civilized and educated society understand the responsibility of nurturing children intellectually and physically. We have laws that assure some level of acceptable physical nourishment. We have laws that assure opportunities for learning in a school setting as a supplement to all other ways that children learn.

Parents and society are sometimes not as sensitive to the emotional and psychological needs, which every child has for nurture as they are to the needs of the body and the mind. In the same sense that we become physically what we ingest, we also become psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually what is ingested through our minds and relationships. Just as the body can be either nourished or poisoned by what is placed in it, the mind, emotions, and spirit can be nourished or poisoned by what is placed in them. We are continually reminded to keep things out of reach of children that can be harmful to their bodies if ingested. Medicines and poisons are kept unavailable. Anything that is poison to the young mind, emotions, or spirit should be treated in the same manner, whether it be via computer, printed page, movies, videos, games, or conversations and experiences with older and unscrupulous persons.

For the parent, this means controlling what goes into the mind and emotions of a child just as closely as we control what goes into their body. If potential mothers and fathers are unwilling to be committed to nurturing a child through wholesome physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual "food," that person should not consider themselves to be a worthy candidate for parenthood.

If a person becomes a parent without the commitment to this kind and magnitude of responsibility, then it is their obligation to readjust their values. If they are unwilling to readjust their values, then it becomes the responsibility of society to "save" the child by intervention.

There is considerable overlapping in the matters of nurture and security. A child cannot be properly nurtured unless it feels secure. If it is not properly nurtured it cannot feel secure. Security is both a matter of family and societal responsibility, especially in a complex society where the nurturing of a child is a shared responsibility between parents, professionals, and volunteers.

Small children should never be outside the supervision and companionship of an adult, either the parent or an adult trusted by the parent. The minds of children should be protected from "entertainment" or events that create fear out of concern for their real or perceived well-being. Children should never be subjected to threatening relationship environments either at home or at school. Parental differences should be settled without children present. Every effort should be made to nurture the perception in a child that school is a safe place to be.

Youth should be perceived as potentially dangerous to themselves and others. Youth today have access to potential sources of power that far exceeds their ability to manage safely. Youth often demonstrate great power without commensurate judgment to use it responsibly. Distasteful and challenging as it may be, the primary task of protecting youth from themselves and from one another falls on the shoulders of the parent. Cars are powerful and can be destroyers. The Internet is powerful and can be a destroyer. Television, movies, and videos are potential for good or bad, and can be destroyers. Sex is powerful and can be a destroyer. Guns are powerful and can be destroyers. Knowledge which enables one to build weapons to cripple or kill are powerful, and we are learning the hard way that some youth use such knowledge to destroy.

There is too much evidence that too much propagation is done without wisdom, that too many children are malnourished in one or more ways, and that neither home nor society is a safe place where children can feel secure.

What can we do? Blame? Not a good choice! There are many potential sources which contribute to this major problem. It would be good for us to list all possibilities and then measure our willingness to modify those possibilities against the value we place on our children and youth. If, for the salvation of our children, we must make changes in relation to movies, television, videos, entertainment, alcohol, availability of guns, the Internet, tranquility within the home, protection in our schools, availability of cars, supervision in the face of conflict, or anything else, then we MUST do it. If changes are not proven to be needed permanently, then as evidence indicates a return to the present is possible without great risk, adjustments can be made. The problem is one of such magnitude that too much adjustment is preferable to too little. It is too little attention--not too much--that has gotten our society into our present frightening state.

The church is a potentially powerful source of hope and help! The church is the only institution designed to provide assistance to persons and family in the area of spiritual nurture and support. The church needs to take itself more seriously and do a better job of providing functional rather than "pie in the sky" resources. Families need to take the church more seriously, and make certain its ministry is such that the spirit of children and youth are nurtured on a level equal to the attention given their bodies and minds.

There is no gift of greater value than life. There is no influence related to human life of greater importance or power than that of parents.

As parents responsible for our families, we need not go forward with fear. We can go forward with hope and assurance that the task of providing well for our young is both possible and extremely rewarding.

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