Social Liberals Strike Again

In the current political climate most Americans believe fiscal liberalism, i.e. massive government spending, is the main menace to our nation; however, the threat of social liberalism can't be dismissed. It's still there, devouring our families and traditional moral order. And here's the proof.

On tonight's edition of The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly revealed that the school board in Provincetown, MA has decided not only to give condoms to any student who asks but to deny parents the right to object. This would be outrageous even if we were talking about high school students, but the liberal educators in Provincetown have ok'd giving condoms to elementary school kids! And Mom and Dad can't say no. The arrogance of social liberals is mind boggling.

And just what justification did the Provincetown educational progressives have for distributing prophylactics to kids and trampling parental rights? I don't know; none of them could be reached for comment by the time the show aired. I think I know what these "concerned" school officials would say, though. They'd say that they're just trying to protect children from STDs and pregnancy, and I'd say, yeah, right.

Here's the deal.

Social liberals HATE the traditional, Bible-based morality that has guided America since its founding and even before. They particularly despise traditionalism's sexual ethic which defines moral sexual relations as only those that occur between a married man and woman. Liberals blame traditional sexual morality for everything from homophobia to wife beating. Only by replacing traditionalism with an anti-Biblical, free sex ethic, they believe, can we ensure an enlightened and egalitarian society. And traditionalism, liberals have found, can be quite easily replaced by teaching children their free sex ethic in public schools.

That's what Provincetown's condom give away,like all condom give aways, is really about: defeating Bible-based, traditional values, NOT protecting kids from pregnancy and disease. For social liberals it's a quasi-religious belief that defeating traditional values is necessary to create a just society. Consequently, they feel justified in using whatever means they can to ensure said defeat. Violating parental rights and authority comes naturally to social progressives since such rights and authority are part of the value system they're working to eliminate.

But what about dissenters from the progressive socio-sexual vision? Social liberals will respond to them the same way they responded to dissenters from health care "reform", namely, with contempt and arrogant paternalism. Unshakeably convinced that they alone know what's best for society, social liberals believe people will embrace their free sex ethic once it's been forced on them and they experience the resulting utopia. Until then, those who object to a sexualized childhood and anti-parent policies will be demonized as religious nuts, bigots, and/or ignorant defenders of outmoded thinking. And liberal educators' indoctrination of the nation's children will continue unabated.

As stated at the beginning of this post, massive fiscal irresponsibility IS a threat to the nation; I'm not trying to down play that. However, those of us who are conservative, who are traditionalist, must understand that progressives are waging a two front war on America. Their fight is fiscal AND social. Conservatives are gallantly fighting the fiscal war but too many seem to have surrendered in the social war. We can't do that. There's more at stake than the size of government or what happens to our money.

What good is a balanced budget if parents can't raise their children as they see fit?

What good are lower taxes if our history is rewritten and our heritage is smeared?

What good is smaller government if it can still undermine traditional values through the schools?

The actions of the Provincetown, MA school board show that progressives are determined to impose their Godless worldview on the whole of society. They will never stand down and neither should we. We must fight them on the social issues as tenaciously as we fight them on the fiscal issues. Our children and nation deserve nothing less.

Not Cute!!!!

First, a belated Happy New Year to one and all. Hope your holiday was great and hope the upcoming year will be exceedingly blessed for you!

Now on to the post.

While I don't think celebrities set the standard for parenting, or anything else, I do think they can lend some legitimacy to a trend, idea, or behavior that otherwise would be ignored or even condemned. That's why the apparent trend of celebrity tots wearing heels disturbs me.

It started with Suri Cruise.

The daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes has been photographed on several different occasions wearing heels as if she were 16 instead of 3. I found this to be rather weird. The Cruises let Suri suck a bottle long past her second birthday. Then, almost as soon as she's off the bottle, they allow their child to dress like a teenager. Weird. But the Cruises are Scientologists so I figured this was part of their religion. I was glad that Suri Cruise was the only celebrity preschooler trying to channel Miley Cyrus. Then came Denise Richards' daughters.

I recently saw pictures of Sam and Lola Sheen--daughters of Denise and her ex, Charlie Sheen--wearing black, heeled boots that looked more suitable for biker chicks than preschoolers. How can a mother have such poor judgment? What's going on here? It's beyond me that any company would even make children's shoes with heels. I don't get this. I don't get this adultification and sexualization of our children. What is it supposed to achieve?

Little children should be allowed to be little children. They do NOT need to go from the high chair to high heels in one step. They should NOT be prancing around in heels, lipstick, dangling earrings, and grown up looking dresses. I mean, if they're allowed to do that at 3, what's left for them to do at 13?

Parents who put their preschool girls in adolescent get-up and think it's cute are off their proverbial rocker. It is definitely NOT cute. Cute is a little girl wobbling around in her mother's high heels pretending to be grown up. Freakish is the word that best describes that same little girl wearing HER OWN high heels and accessorized like a super model. Freakish, and sad.

I think the Cruises, Denise Richards, and all parents who allow this behavior are being very irresponsible. Parents are supposed to love, nurture, and protect their children. They are supposed to set limits and teach values. Letting their children grow up too fast is a failure of the parental duty that can have disastrous consequences. I hope all those irresponsible parents will get a clue, and fast. Their children are depending on them. If only they knew that.

Why The Hate?

A few days ago I saw on Yahoo! News that Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar, America's most famous parents, are expecting their 19th--yes, 19th!--baby. I was happy for them but some of the comments I read following the story disturbed me. They were nasty, mean-spirited, hateful. I wouldn't have 19 children myself, and I have expressed dismay that the Duggars didn't adopt a child or two, but I certainly don't hate them. Many people, though, seem to. Why?

As stated above, the Duggars were the targets of some nasty comments. What really struck me was how disconnected from reality some of those comments were. They were rants of blind hate, spoken in total disregard of the fact that they had no basis in fact. The epitome of those rants was the charge that the Duggars were a burden on society. A burden on society?! The Duggars are not and have never been on welfare, so how could they be a burden on society? The claim was that they were a burden because their children had to be educated at taxpayer's expense. Well, the Duggar kids are homeschooled, and even if they attended public school, their parents pay taxes just like everyone else. So, again, how are they a burden on society? Answer: they're not! But that doesn't matter to the people who hate the Duggars. And I ask again, why are they so hated?

I don't think the Duggars are hated because of their super large family. I think the Duggars are hated because of the kind of people they are. The Duggars are White, conservative Christians, and there is a liberal segment of our society that hates such people and does not want to see their numbers increase. Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar have been called everything from ignorant to homophobic. Can you imagine them being called such things if they were Muslim or Black? Of course not. That would violate the progessive tenet of never criticizing minorities. But it's open season on White Christians.

Well, I want to say I support the Duggars. Yes, I wished they'd adopted a child but I accept that they've chosen to live out their pro-life, Christian beliefs another way. And who knows? Maybe some of their children will adopt. At any rate, the Duggars have done a better job with 18 kids than many "modern" parents have done with only one or two. Maybe that's another reason why the Duggars are so hated. Their success with over a dozen kids makes so many struggling, small-family parents look incompetent. Hmmmmm, hating White Christians AND being made to feel incompetent? That could add up to a potent brew of animosity. Oh wait, it already has.

Corruption In Vermont

What's up with Vermont? I saw on "The O'Reilly Factor" a few days ago that this VERY liberal state is considering legalizing "sexting" among teens as young as thirteen. For those who don't know sexting is the practice of taking sexually explicit pictures on a cell phone and text messaging them to another person.

Over the last couple of years I've heard of more and more instances of kids sexting each other. In a few cases kids have been arrested and labelled sexual predators for sending and/or receiving sexually explicit photos of themselves or others. The state of Vermont wants to legalize sexting supposedly to protect kids who just might be doing something stupid from getting slapped with the predator label. Sounds good, but it's not. There's something else going on here.

If Vermont doesn't want teens to be designated sexual predators for sexting it could simply lower the legal penalty for the act. But no, Vermont wants to completely legalize sexting for kids. Kids! Oh, there are stipulations. The sexting must be by kids 13-18 years old and sent only to other 13-18 year olds with whom they have a "committed relationship". Did you get that? A committed relationship. For 13 year olds! What is going on here? I think Bill O'Reilly hit the proverbial nail at least partially on the head.

O'Reilly opined that Vermont's move reflects the progressives' goal of eliminating all sexual boundaries for everyone, including children. I would take this further and say that Vermont's action is also part of a progressive plan to legitimize adult-child sex. Hear me out.

As I stated above, the proposal to legalize sexting by kids stipulates that the act must occur between kids in a committed relationship. The notion of a committed relationship among teens as young as 13 presupposes that said teens can consent to sex. And if 13-18 year olds can consent to sex among themselves why not with older people, i.e. adults? Thus, legalizing sexting could be the opening salvo against age of consent laws which, in turn, could be a precursor to normalizing sex between adults and kids. Why would progressives want to normalizing such sexual deviancy?

Progressives despise America's traditional, Judeo-Christian sexual ethic. They regard it as repressive and the source of misogyny and anti-gay bigotry. Eradicating this ethic is a prime goal of the progressive movement. For progs, unfettered sexual expression is the panacea for society, and they believe it should include children. The effort to legalize sexting is just the latest instance of that belief run amok.

Vermont is corrupt. Progressives appear to have almost total control there. From opposing Jessica's Law to legalizing sexting this state is a lost cause. And it's a portent of what lies ahead for all of America if we traditionalists fail. We can't lose heart. We can't give up. We can't be afraid. An "anything goes" philosophy is guaranteed to put our kids at risk. We need to shout, from the bottom of our hearts, NO! NO to sexting! NO to anything goes! NO to Vermont! The future and well-being of our children depend on that.

What's In A Name?

If your name is Adolf Hitler Campbell, a lot.

Little Adolf Hitler Campbell shot to notoriety in December when a grocery store refused his parents' request to put his full name on his birthday cake. Heath and Deborah Campbell, Adolf's parents, denied they were racist even though their two other children, both girls, have Nazi inspired names. Now the state of New Jersey, where the Campbells live, has removed Adolf and his sisters, JoyceLynn Aryan Nations and Honszlynn Hinnler Jeannie, from their parents. Most people seem to think that was a good move; I don't.

The New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services seized the Campbell children supposedly because a neighbor accused their parents of abuse and their father of domestic violence. The child welfare agency insists that it would never remove children from their homes just because of their names, but Deborah Campbell believes her children's names are the real problem. I agree.

I've heard the Campbells called unfit and abusive parents for naming their son Adolf Hitler. I believe that naming your child after someone is a way to honor that person. I believe that Heath and Deborah Campbell intended to honor Der Fuhrer with their son's name. I believe they are racists, in spite of their denial. And I believe that giving a child a badly stigmatized name is a socially disasterous move; socially disasterous, though, is NOT the same thing as abusive. And being a racist doesn't automatically make anyone an unfit parent. But the state of New Jersey apparently believes that it does. Whatever their neighbor's accusations, I believe Heath and Deborah Campbell lost custody of their kids because they have beliefs that the state doesn't approve of. Their children's names tipped off the state to those beliefs. This is chilling.

The state has an obligation to protect children from abuse but under no circumstances should the definition of abuse be political. If that happens children become powerful tools the state can use to punish politically incorrect adults. And when child abuse is politicized its prosecution can become highly selective. Does anyone believe, for instance, that the state of New Jersey would dare remove a child named Osama ben Laden from radical Muslim parents? Does anyone believe, even for a second, that the state of New Jersey would dare remove a child named Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, or Pol Pot from Communist parents? We know that would never happen. Muslim civil rights groups and the ACLU would be screaming in the streets and the courts. In the current politically correct climate it's ok to be a radical Muslim or a Communist; it's not ok to be a White racist, supremacist, or separatist. That's why the Campbell children were taken from their parents. And that should terrify everyone because the next "wrong" beliefs could be yours and child protective services could come calling.

Here's One For Solomon

Who should get baby Manji? That's the question facing India's Supreme Court as it tries to decide the fate of a baby girl born to a Japanese father and an Indian surrogate mother. This case reveals not only problems with practice of surrogacy but also what happens when law trumps common sense. For those of you who don't know, here's baby Manji's story.

In November of last year Ikuyumi Yamada and his then wife Yuki went to India and contracted with a surrogate mother to carry a baby for them. The baby was conceived using Mr. Yamada's sperm and the surrogate's egg. Shortly before the baby's birth Mr. Yamada and his wife divorced and Yuki Yamada decided she no longer wanted the child. Well then, baby Manji should just go home to Japan with her father, right? Wrong.

India has no laws governing the practice of surrogacy, so baby Manji was born as an Indian citizen. In order to take his daughter home Ikuyumi Yamada would have to adopt her. But there's a catch. Indian adoption law forbids the adoption of a girl by a single man. But what a minute, you say. Ikuyumi Yamada isn't just any old single man, he's Manji's FATHER! Exactly, and you'd think that would be enough for India to allow Manji to go home with him. And you'd be dead wrong. The letter of the law has common sense by the throat in this case. And things are getting more complicated.

An Indian child welfare group has now stepped forward asking the Supreme Court for custody of Manji. What this group wants with Manji is unclear. If it were truly committed to her welfare, though, it would demand that India let her father take her home. If nothing else India should give custody of Manji to her paternal grandmother, who's in India looking after her, and let the baby leave the country. Once in Japan it would not be India's business who Manji lived with, and she could then be placed with her father where she belongs.

This case should give pause to anyone considering the use of a surrogate mother, especially one from India. I can understand how obsessed some childless couples can get to have a child biologically related to at least one of them. But there are hundreds of thousands of orphans in this world desperately in need of parents. If all someone wants to do is raise a child it shouldn't matter much, if at all, if that child is or isn't "my own". When I see people going to the extreme of surrogacy or in vitro fertilization I suspect that there's more going on with them than a simple desire to be a parent.

Ikuyumi Yamada and his now ex-wife did chose surrogacy, however, and this man deserves to have the child that resulted from it. Yes, Mr. Yamada is now a single man, but he's also Manji's father. It is a violation of justice and common sense to keep Mr. Yamada, who has never been proven in any way unfit, from his baby. India ought to be ecstatic that Manji, unlike so many female children in that country, has a parent who desperately wants her. India, it's time to do the right thing. Let Manji go home.

Straight Out Of "Home Alone"

I read this on Yahoo! News this morning.

In a mad dash to board a plane to Paris, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli couple forgot one of their five children at Ben Gurion airport. The child, a three-year-old girl, was found by airport personnel wandering around and crying for her mother. She was later flown to Paris, accompanied by airport staff, and reunited with her parents. The parents, whose names haven't been released, didn't know they were missing a child until they were informed in flight that their daughter had been found at Ben Gurion. They will be investigated for parental negligence when the family returns from their vacation.

Wow! I'm not quite sure what to make of this. On the surface it's easy to accuse those parents of neglect. How could they possibly not know their little girl was not with the family? Then again, airports are big, crowded, busy places and when you're trying to shuffle five little ones plus luggage through them it's easy to see how children and parents could get separated. This is especially true if they are running late and rushing to make it to the plane, as this family was. So I can cut the parents some slack on losing sight of their child in the airport. What gets me is how they didn't notice the three-year-old was missing once they got on the plane.

Airplanes, in sharp contrast to airports, are small, contained spaces where it should be fairly easy to do a head count. Why didn't the parents do such a head count? That's the first thing I would've done. What did they do to make sure each child was accounted for? Who did they think had their daughter, since she obviously wasn't with them? Were they depending on one of the older kids to look after the three-year-old? And if so, why didn't that child tell the parents that his/her little sister was missing? Was the older child scared of the parents? These are the questions that keep running through my mind.

I don't want to condemn these parents. It's not like they left their child in a hot car or some other life threatening place. And I understand how hard it can be to keep up with one child, let alone five. On the other hand, I also know that if you're supervising more than one child you must constantly count, count, count! Doing head counts and name checks, where each child says "Here!" when his name is called, is crucial to prevent losing a child or discovering early that a child has wandered off. I learned that trick from working in day care and I will always follow it because it works. This family should've tried it.

In the end I suppose we should just be thankful that the little Ben Gurion Girl was found unharmed and safely reunited with her family. I hope Israeli authorities won't be too hard on her parents. Everyone involved has, I'm sure, been through enough trauma.

Home Alone, indeed.

Rest In Peace, Little Angels

I just read a news article on the 'net that makes me so mad I could kill. A father--I use that term very loosely--drowned his four babies to get revenge on his wife. Lam Luong, an Alabama shrimper, threw his children off a bridge after having an argument with his wife, Ngoc Phan. The article didn't say what the couple argued about but did mention that Luong had a cocaine problem.

I don't know what to say about this. I'm so sick and tired of filthy, cowardly, and downright evil "parents" murdering their own defenseless kids to solve their problems or strike back at each other. These people are the lowest of the low. They should be executed in the slowest, most painful way possible. And I mean that literally. To those of you who are squeamish about capital punishment, think of the terror the Luong children felt as they plunged 80 feet to their deaths. They were given the death penalty by their own father; he deserves no mercy.

I can't imagine what Ngoc Phan is going through right now. In one cruel instant her entire family was wiped out by the one person duty bound to protect them. Never again will Ngoc plan a birthday party, hear her children laughing, or feel their good night hugs. From now on the only time she'll see her babies is in photographs. As I said, I can't imagine what she's going through. If I were her I'd be out of my mind.

Lam Luong confessed to his crime and is facing four counts of capital murder. At least he didn't take the coward's way out and commit suicide the way so many of these killers do. But that should get him no mercy from the law. He should be executed immediately so he can stand before the Judge who really matters. The One who said it would be better to be thrown in the ocean with a milstone tied around your neck than harm one of His little ones. Lam Luong faces a justice more terrible than man's.

But his children are in a better place. They will never again know family strife, or crying, or pain. Goodbye Ryan, 3; Hannah, 2; Lindsey, 1 and Danny, 4 months. Rest in peace, little angels. I will cry for you.

To Tell Or Not To Tell

Well, it's that time again. Christmas is just around the corner and a lot of parents are facing the Santa question. Do they tell their children the truth about jolly St. Nick or not?

I have mixed feelings about Santa Claus. Like most folks I believed in Santa as a child. I was never told the truth; I figured it out on my own. Slowly, over time, I realized that the Santa story didn't add up. By the time I was nine or ten I'd put two and two together and made peace with the fact that Santa was a pleasant fiction. I suffered no psychological damage from having been "lied" to by my parents and other adults for years. But I do understand how the dishonesty can be uncomfortable for a lot of people.

Many adults remember their belief in Santa as harmless fun and they want the same for their children. A happy fantasy, they reason, can be soothing and reassuring for children in an often dark and dangerous world. That's true, but today's children are often more wordly than those of the past and more likely to spot a hoax. Consequently it might be a good idea for parents to level with them from the beginning. But won't that take away the magic of Christmas? Not necessarily.

If you're religious, Christmas was never supposed to be about Santa Claus and his presents anyway. It's supposed to be about the birth of Christ. Teaching children the true reason for the season, sharing precious time with family and friends, and giving to those less fortunate are ways to experience the joy of Christmas without involving the Santa myth.

If you just can't get through the holiday without Santa, but don't want to tell your kids a fib, try telling them the story of the real St. Nicholas, on whom the Santa legend is based. The life of this man can serve as an inspiration for everyone, regardless of religion or lack thereof. You can make telling his story a family tradition, as telling the story of the first Christmas already is for many. Following St. Nicholas' example of loving children and the poor can motivate us to help others, bringing joy to them and to ourselves. And keeping us in the spirit of Christmas.

I don't want to sound like a moral relativist, but there's no right or wrong answer to the Santa question. Children aren't going to be harmed by believing in a pleasant myth for a few years. On the other hand, if you don't want to fib to your kids rest assured that not believing in Santa won't ruin the spirit of the season for them. Be careful, though, that your kids don't spill the beans to kids whose parents DO want them to believe in the man in the red suit.

Whatever decision you make about Santa be sure it jibes with your values as a family. Santa Claus IS Christmas to many people, but he doesn't have to be. Worshipping Christ, being with family, giving gifts and helping others are all ways of bringing Christmas joy to your children with or without Santa Claus. So go ahead. Tell your kids Santa's real, or tell them he's not. The magic of the season will be there either way.

Bottles and Binkies and Boobs! Oh My!

We live in a society that doesn't seem to know what to do with children. The stage of life called "childhood" is shifting. The lines between infant and child and child and adult are blurring. I touched on this phenomenon in my previous post "Prosti-tots". The wearing of provocative Halloween costumes by preteen girls, however, is only one facet of this disturbing trend.

We adults can't make up our minds about when we want children to be children, babies, or adults. We want to both infantilize and adultify children whenever it suits us. Young children, for instance, are allowed to continue doing things like sucking bottles or wearing diapers long after they're past the age for it. As recently as five years ago I worked for a day care where kids couldn't move up to the 3-year-old class unless they were potty trained. Now, 3-year-old teachers are expected to change diapers. It's like adults want to keep children babies for as long as possible. Working parent guilt may be partly to blame.

Infancy does pass quickly. Some working parents, feeling they've missed out on it, may try to recapture it by letting their kids suck pacifiers or wear diapers when they're too old for it. Other working parents may be too tired to fight with rebellious toddlers and let them have their way just to keep the peace. Either way, toddlers and even preschoolers are being infantilized for the satisfaction of adults. And it gets worse.

Once we adults decide that infancy is finally over, we want an immediate transition to maturity. We want kids to stay in diapers until they're five but show their cleavage at ten. We switch them from bottles to bustiers with ease. We dress our girls in sexy Halloween costumes and think it's cute. Even everyday clothes for kids, especially girls, are getting more "sophisticated". Several years ago the show 20/20 did a story on this trend. The children's fashion industry even had a name for it: KGOY or kids getting older younger. I find that really, really sad.

We grown ups need to get our proverbial act together. We need to understand that we are here to train children, guide them through the various stages of growing up, and finally send them into the world as responsible adults. We have no right to either retard or accelerate that process for our convenience. Three-year-olds shouldn't be wearing diapers and sucking binkies just so parents can cope with their guilt. And ten-year-olds shouldn't be looking like Britney Spears because Moms want to relive their carefree, pre-motherhood days through their daughters.

Stunting or accelerating children's development can be detrimental, even dangerous. Provocatively dressed young girls could give the wrong idea to the wrong people. And children who are infantilized may never become autonomous individuals but remain forever dependent on Mom and Dad. We can and should do better by our kids. They don't deserve to be stunted or pimped out because we've got issues. Let us deal with our problems, not mess up our kids with them.

Prosti-tots

Halloween is just around the corner and little children all over the land are eager to jump into their costumes and "extort" candy from willing "victims". Unfortunately, a large number of those children will be little girls looking more like hookers than Disney princesses. Welcome to the age of the prosti-tots.*

When I was a child I was lucky to get a mask to wear for Halloween. Now, teen and preteen girls are clamoring for sexed up costumes and parents are buying them. How sad! We live in a time when child predators are everywhere yet some parents happily offer up their daughters as pedophile eye candy.

Some will say that I'm overreacting. Halloween is just one night out of the year. Surely girls won't be harmed by looking sexy just one night. Maybe not. But why should 11, 12, or 13-year-old girls look sexy at all? What purpose does that serve except to make them enticing to the wrong men?

Of course, the little Lolitas couldn't wear those costumes if parents didn't buy them. But they do buy them. Some parents do so because they're wimps too weak, lazy, or even scared of their kids to say no. Other parents buy the outfits because they don't find them inappropriate and/or don't have a sense of boundaries. These parents want to be the "cool" parents. They want to be their girls' friends, not the people who make and enforce standards. Also, some of the Moms who buy these sexy costumes maybe trying to recapture their pre-motherhood figures through their daughters. Whatever the reason, this needs to stop.

If provocative costumes are worn on Halloween they should be worn by adults. Kids, including teens, have NO business looking sexy at ANY time. It is child abuse to push young girls into a psuedo-adult sexiness. When they grow up they'll have the rest of their lives to look trashy, if they so choose. While minors, let children be children. Don't turn your tots into prosti-tots*.

*I didn't coin this term; I heard it on the Glenn Beck Show, which inspired this post.

They Are YOUR Children!

I'm sure everyone has heard about the decision of the Portland, ME school board to give birth control pills to middle school girls without their parents knowledge, let alone consent. This makes my blood boil! And what's even worse is that there are parents who agree with this policy! Is there no sanity left in our culture?

Remember, public schools are government schools. So when they give children anything without their parents' knowledge it's really the government telling parents what they can and can't know about their own children. It is government intrusion of the worst kind. I don't see how any parent could submit to that, but some do. It's as if they don't understand who they are or what their job is. I'll tell them.

Parents, you job is to raise your children!!! They're your responsibility and yours alone. You have no right to expect anyone or anything--grandparents, government, day care centers, even the church--to take on any part of the job for you. And you should never let anyone or anything take away any part of the job from you. Parents, you are to provide for your children not only financially but also morally and spiritually. You are to consciously teach them values not just let them create their own. And you are to teach them faith. The Bible clearly gives parents, not clergy or religious institutions, the primary responsibility to teach God's law to the next generation. This is a BIG job!

Many frazzled modern parents apparently feel it's too much. They work 8 or more hours a day and think that that is their main parenting function. Exhausted, they begin to believe that things like potty training or teaching values are, or should be, someone else's job. Indeed, many modern parents feel that's what they're paying day care centers to do. By the time their children start school these parents are already comfortable with giving up huge chunks of their authority in exchange for less responsibility. This sad state of affairs reveals itself most starkly in situations like the one in Maine, where some parents happily embrace the government's take over of a very important part of their job. It's like they're saying, "Yes! Less work for me!".

I implore all parents to take back their role and rights as parents. You are the authority over your children. You, not the government, decide what values they will have. I understand that parenting can be hard and exhausting, especially when it's combined with working outside the home. But when you brought that little bundle home from the hospital you were committing yourself to that awesome task. Your children are a sacred trust. You, not grandparents, day care centers, or schools will be held responsible by God for how they turn out. They are YOUR children. Act like it!