Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Wisdom of Mommy

O.k., so I have to admit that I have a hard time with memorization. It's a good thing phone numbers can be programmed in or I would never call anyone. O.k., so I still never call anyone but that's not the point. I have a really hard time memorizing people's names, road names, and even sometimes the names of my clients. I have no idea how I made it through high school and college successfully. I also have to admit that I have a really hard time memorizing scriptures and rely way too much on biblegateway.com because "I know it's in there somewhere." I have found that the best way to remember something is to teach it to my kids. Because those little jokers don't forget a thing!

One of my best pieces of advice for new moms is, "don't do anything you don't want to become a habit because kids have a much better memory than we do." If you give them a quarter to get gum out of a machine in a random Chinese restaurant, four years later when you visit that same restaurant they WILL expect to receive their quarter. If you give in and buy a screaming toddler a "quiet down" toy in Wal-Mart - you will be broke within a year after all your weekly visits. If you go to a screaming 2 year old in the middle of the night and give him a cup of milk, you had better get ready to make that milk every night until he is 8! But I digress...

So now to the subject of my blog - we live in a neighborhood with lots of kids. Kids that love my front yard and seem to gather there as much as the local fire ants. So one day after the kids had been outside, Braeden reported that one of the neighborhood girls had called him a not-nice name. To which Seth puffed his chest up and let me know that he and the other big boys had "taken care of her". Which I, upon interviewing, found out meant they had called her some pretty not-nice names right back. So I go into full mommy mode. Here would be a teachable moment and I need to capitalize on it. I whip out my highlighted Bible and find Romans 12:17
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody." (So you know that I just zipped over to biblegateway for that one don't you??) and discuss it with the boys. Man, did I do a good job! Nugget of knowledge passed to my offspring, my work is done for the day.

So the next day, the boys and their dad are on their way to Seth's football practice and are discussing the little bully that likes to tackle Braeden and be mean while his Daddy is out on the field coaching. T gives Braeden that old adage that every dad feels the need to crown their little man-child with "boy, if he hits you - hit him back!!" To which Braeden says, "oh no Daddy, I can't repay evil for evil!!" (mom is smirking now) Score one for the good guys.....

So my point is that even if you think that your little ones are too little, too preoccupied, or too immature to handle discussions about good vs. evil; Heaven vs. Hell; sin vs. salvation - they will learn things and remember things so much better than we could, even without lifting a finger in effort. There are so many touchy subjects today with abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, promiscuity, drug abuse. All those things, in our day, could wait until at least middle school. But moms and dads, your children WILL learn what evil is. Whether you like it or not. In many states, it has already made it's way into the elementary classroom and is being taught as normal and good. And I would much rather my children be able to see it and know the difference between right and wrong while their little minds are still pliable and while they still think I know everything! We have a lot of work to do and a long row to hoe.....

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