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The Bible Says
“Too good. That’s the only way I can describe my childhood. Lots of friends in the neighborhood. Sandlot football down at the end of Quince Street in East Houston or shooting hoops against the garage backboard. Then there was always “Hide N’ Seek” and “Kick the Can” till super time. There were family reunions at my grand-daddy’s little bay cabin, plus fishing, floundering, crabbing, swimming, and eating. Fresh shrimp, crab jumbo, fried gulf trout, freshly picked watermelon, homemade biscuits, gravy, hand cranked ice cream . . . I gotta stop! “But best of all we were given room to be kids. Just kids. Listen, I went to school barefoot until the forth grade, and I was still playing cops and robbers on into junior high. Scouts honor. Nobody pushed me to grow up. I suppose everybody figured it would just happen. Life was allowed to run its own course back then, like a lazy river working its own way to the sea. No big deal. No enormous list of expectations, no adult pressures, just down home, easy living, growin’ up stuff. “No longer, it seems. Several decades removed from those laid back years, there is a new youngster in our city streets. Have you noticed? Perhaps I am over sensitive because I have finished reading David Elkind’s splendid book, The hurried Child, with the provocative subtitle, “Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon.” On the cover is a little girl, not more than eleven, with earrings, plucked eyebrows, carefully applied cosmetics, teased and feathered hair, and exquisite jewelry. I have looked at her dozens of times, and on each occasion I see more. She bears the look of bewildered innocence, almost like a calf being drug to the slaughter. She’s afraid, but she can’t say so. It wouldn’t be chic. She’s being hurried. Too far. Too fast. Too soon. “She reminds me of the seven-year-old whom Susan Ferraro mentioned in her article in American Way magazine entitled “Hotsy Totsy.” It was the little girl’s birthday party, with ice cream and cake and a pin-the- tail-on-the-donkey poster. But when she opened her presents, they were not toys, books, and the usual childhood fare. There were Calvin Klein jeans, a Gloria Vanderbilt T-shirt, Christian Dior undies from grandma, and mother gave her a marvelous party outfit from Yves St Laurent.” “It’s not the clothes or even those silly brand names that bug me. It’s the subtle “hurry-up” message woven through those threads and styles. It’s the subliminal strokes and sensations a child in the second grade can wear but isn’t equipped to handle. “Music, books, films, and television increasingly portray the young as precocious and seductive. ‘Such portrayals,’ writes Elkind, ‘force children to think they should act grown up before they are ready.’ “Emotions and feelings are the most complex and intricate part of a child’s development. They have their own timing and rhythm which cannot be hurried. Growing up is tough enough with nobody pushing. But it must be absolutely bewildering when children’s behavior and appearance are hurried to speak “adult” while their insides cry ‘child.” “Am I over overreacting to suggest that the unique traumas of today’s children are somehow tied to all this? Younger and younger alcoholics. Increased promiscuity among preteens. Higher crime than ever involving the very young. And the all-time high suicide rate among children and adolescents is certainly telling us something . . . . if nothing else, at least for those kids, it’s telling us we’re reacting too late. “Scripture clearly states,”There is an appointed time for everything” (Eccl. 3:1). How about time to be a child? How about time to grow up slowly, carefully -- yes, even protected, naïve? “Otherwise, it is far, too fast, too soon.’ “—unquote
-- by Charles R. Swindoll, The Finishing Touch (Word Publishing, c1994) p.438-439 “Many American homes nowadays seem to be on three shifts. Father is on the night shift, mother is on the day shift, and the children shift for themselves.”
-- Uncle Ben’s Quotebook p.199 We will discipline them in love, and We will set an example they can safely follow
Some childish wrong: And kneeling at my knee He prayed with tears: “Dear God, make me a man, Like Daddy, wise and strong; I know You can.” Then while he slept, I knelt beside his bed, Confessed my sins And prayed with low bowed head, “O God, make me a child Like my child here— Pure guileless Trusting Thee with faith sincere.
--Rev. Andrew Gillies In this world which we enjoy, But we feel our souls awaking At the laughter of a boy— In the hearty, buoyant laughter Of a romping, happy boy. There’s a note of sadness Which its music can’t alloy; There’s so much of careless gladness In the laughter of a boy. In the free and ringing laughter Of a romping, happy boy. How it takes us backward flying With its merriment and joy, For the world cannot be sighing In the presence of a laughing boy— The loud, glad, joyous laughter Of a romping, happy boy.
--C.M. Sherouse |