Train Up A Child

Over at 365 Reasons to Homeschool there is a nice little piece about a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that argues that we're starting our kids' education too early. We start around 5 or so. It ought to be closer to 7. "I’ve got a better idea than that," Danny says on his blog. "Start them earlier, and never start them at all." How? Well, start them at birth and make it a part of life, not "an educational experience." Oh, and make it your job, parents.

I'm concerned about today's kids. I'm not talking about "the world's kids". They've been under threat since time immemorial. I'm talking about today's kids in Christian homes. It looks as if we've decided that they're on their own. It looks as though we've decided they need a buddy far more than they need a parent. The whole biblical injunction to "train up a child in the way he should go" (Prov 22:6) has gone by the wayside. "Let the teachers and the youth leaders at church and, by far the largest group, their peers do that. We'll just be their friends."

The reason I'm so concerned today isn't because it's new, but because it's undetected. Recently I was talking to the (godly Christian) mother of a new teenage daughter who told me "She is really into guys with man buns." Now, I'm quite sure that 1) "man buns" would seem largely innocuous and 2) there wouldn't appear to be anything seriously threatening about a 13-year-old girl liking them. But I'm concerned that in this we're setting our kids up for a fall. We're letting them continue to think that the best way to determine who to marry is by how they feel. And "who to marry" is not the only question resolved this way. Everything falls under this approach. Determine everything by the senses.

So, when the day arrives that that cute little 13-year-old turns 17 and brings home the tattooed guy with body piercings and the man bun and mom and dad disapprove, it will be "But, Mom, I love him." And no amount of "That makes no sense" will make it past the ears because we aren't equipping our kids with a renewed mind. We're buying into the world's perspective that life is all about how it feels and "if it feels good, do it". Christian kids aren't far behind. They're ill-equipped to answer questions, analyze morality or values or truth, or consider what God might think (based on things like Scripture) because we're not raising our kids that way.

We are, today, tending to raise up our children in the way they would go rather than should go. We will be reaping the harvest of that failure. Teach our kids from birth? Oh, we are ... just not often what God's Word tells us to.