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Re-valu-ing
the Family, Part Eighteen: Substituting Correct Principles for False
Paradigms
by
Richard and Linda Eyre
(www.valuesparenting.com)
Note: In this
twenty-six part column, Richard and Linda Eyre explore the recent
revolution of the family from the honored centerpiece of society
to a disrespected and seemingly redundant appendage to the larger
corporate and cultural institutions of our new world. Re-valu-ing
the family, the Eyres believe, is the only alternative to America's
demise. The sequence of the column is: A. Re-valu-ing the family
(part I); B. The "crux" (parts 2 and 3 -- why family is the foundation
for everything, including happiness); C. The "curse" (parts 4 and
5 -- the social problems that plague our society today); D. The
"crisis" (parts 6 and 7 -- the breakdown and breakup of families
that allows and leads to the social problems); E. The "cause" (parts
8, 9, 10, 11 -- the reasons our families are failing); F. The "culprits"
(parts 12, 13, 14, and 15-- how our new, large institutions are
destroying the small, most basic institution of family); G. The
"cure" (parts 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 -- what you as a parent
can do about it); H. The "case" (parts 23, 24, and 25 -- a case
for government and big corporations to pay more positive attention),
and I. Finding or forming a family support group (part 26).
This
week, in part 18, we look at the tremendous challenge of teaching
true principles in a false world.
2.
Substitute Correct PRINCIPLES for False Paradigms
It's a family
challenge that no other era of parents and spouses have faced:
how to undo or supersede the damage and danger of widespread
and pervasive false paradigms. No earlier families had to face
a world where a minority masqueraded so successfully as a majority,
where materialism and instant gratification were the accepted norms,
and where conditional morality and selfish expediency had pretty
much overthrown the ideas of absolutes and of spiritual sources
of good and evil.
False paradigms
have a way of getting in our heads and of staying there until we
replace them with something better and truer. As parents, it's hard
to overcome the "bacteria" that comes at us from larger institutions
if our immune systems are weakened by false paradigms. And children,
literally surrounded and bombarded by the false world-views are
not going to recognize them, let alone reject them, unless we give
them real replacements.
But forget
trying to replace false paradigms in kids' heads before we have
corrected them in our own. An attitude or a paradigm manifests itself
in all sorts of ways -- obvious and subtle, and there is no way
to fake it. So we need to correct ourselves first.
The most straightforward
way to overcome and slip out of the clutches and influence of false
paradigms is to openly assert your belief in their exact
opposites. Do whatever you have to do -- make a chart of correct
principles, of things as they really are, of what you believe, and
hang it on your wall, or put it in a family mission statement or
make a screen saver out of it for your personal computer. Find your
own way to pledge your allegiance to some simple, clear, positive
principles that will cut through the smokescreen of the prevailing
false paradigms.
There are four
basic, true principles that can be taught within a family which
are the exact antithesis of the four false paradigms we listed earlier
-- and that can set up a foundation on which a strong family can
be maintained and strong individual lives can be lived. They will
"ring true" to you as you read them because, deep within ourselves,
we are recognizers of truth. Notice, as they are discussed, how
directly they counter and correct the false paradigms outlined earlier.
1. The
spiritual majority is always on the side of what is right, and what
is light. Whether you count angels in your interpretation
of that, or whether it's just a question of the might that goes
with right, it's a truth that you can rely on and that you can teach
to your children. Here are two things kids need to know in order
to accept and live by this principle:
A. The facts
run contrary to the implication of most movies, TV shows and rock
songs:
Premarital
sex is not the norm -- and there are consequences.
Slightly more than half of high school students are virgins. And
half of those who have had sex say they wish they hadn't.
The F word
is not the most commonly used word in the English language.
Everyone
worth knowing does not drive a trendy new car, wear only name
brands and live in luxury.
Divorce is
not something that happens smoothly and easily and without long-term
problems.
People still
value commitments and relationships and character.
B. Most
of what we see on the large and small screen and hear in popular
music comes directly from a small cultural elite -- a few hundred
people who produce and direct and decide on most of what comes to
us as media and entertainment. Most of this group are neither as
family-oriented or as religiously inclined as the average American.
It is they, not we, who are the minority. But their visibility and
influence, magnified a million times by media, makes them appear
as a majority.
Kids who understand
these simple facts will have an immunity of sorts to the compelling
"be part of it" influence of media. They will be able to stand aside
a bit and see error as error, figure consequences for actions, and
take some comfort in the fact that what they believe is more common
than it sometimes seems.
2. What
Matters is What's Inside, What You've Worked for and Waited for,
and What You Give.
The world whispers
to us (sometimes shouts) that what matters is:
A. Outside
appearances.
B. Instant
gratification and
C. How much
we can get.
Yet we know,
almost all of us know, that these are not only delusions, they are
directly opposite-of-truth lies. What really matters is:
A. Who and
what we are inside.
B. Good things
worked for (and often waited for), especially relationships.
C. How much
we can give.
In surveys,
substantial majorities say that family is more important than possessions,
character than appearance. Yet in so many ways we believe
in one creed and live by another. When the current goes one way,
it takes strong swimming to move in the other. There is real determination
and effort required to get to and stay with a place that society
seems to be moving away from.
Sometimes the
key is as simple as reminding ourselves of who we are and what we
believe. And reminding ourselves that the real majority still believes
with us. As we remind ourselves, we must teach our children. "What
matters" is a topic and a discussion that can't come up too often.
3. Joy comes
from commitment, sacrifice, and delayed gratification.
Like any true
principle, this one is truly learned and truly taught only by living
it. But along with the living should come the straight-forward telling.
We need to tell our children boldly and clearly that the whole hedonistic
approach of seeking happiness through pleasure and self-gratification
is a crock.
I was on
a several-hour drive one summer with my son from our house to a
vacation destination. In his early adolescence, he seemed so vulnerable
and easily influenced by everything around him. He wanted to wear
the right brands, to have the things that "everyone else" had, to
try out and feel everything, right or wrong, that his friends were
telling him about. And he wanted to have and be and try all of it
now. I wanted to use the drive time to talk him out of
some of this and convince him of the value of commitment, sacrifice,
and delayed gratification, but I knew a lecture on my theories wouldn't
cut it.
The only
other one in the car with us was our chocolate Labrador dog, and
we were talking about her. My son loved the dog and was interested
in animals and biology in general. It was a safe subject. Somehow
we got from what we were talking about to what I wanted to talk
about. Instinct and appetites, we decided, were what made animals
accomplish their purposes and find their happiness. Following
those instincts, urges, and appetities allowed them to stay alive,
reproduce, and keep the whole biological ecosystem balanced and
functional. What made humans different from animals was that we
got our happiness and maximize our potential not by following but
by controlling our appetites. Animals' appetites control them. Humans
must control their appetites.
Then we
talked about various appetites -- for food, for sex, for possessions,
for recognition. I was amazed at how clearly my fourteen-year-old
could see how each of those appetites, if allowed to control us,
could hurt us and cause unhappiness to ourselves and others. But
I was even more impressed that he could see how controlling them
could make us better and happier.
So much of
our world feeds us (and our children) the disastrous hedonistic
attitudes of pleasure-seeking and instant-gratification -- an animalistic
philosophy. We also get bombarded with the notion that "freedom"
and "commitment" are opposites . . . that loyalties to family relationships
"tie us down" and cause us to want. By our example and our words
we must help our children see how by big this lie is. We must
try both to teach and to exemplify its opposite.
4. Absolute
Right and Absolute Help Both Exist. And Both Can Be Reached.
More than 90
percent of Americans believe in God. And while the specifics of
belief vary widely, most accept many of the same connected convictions
about the nature of Deity and about the eternal nature of their
own soul or spirit. (Although there are many different faiths, when
it comes to the basics, various world religions could almost be
interpreted by an outside analyst as a game of how many different
ways the same things could be said). Certain beliefs of "believers"
are virtually universal:
A. God exists,
lives.
B. He is
our Father/Creator.
C. God is
good -- the ultimate good.
D. He gives
truth about how we should live (in scripture, etc.).
E. But respects
our agency (allows us to choose).
F. He hears
and answers prayers and gives guidance.
G. He can
forgive and we can improve.
H. We (humans)
have within us a spirit or soul that continues after death.
It is important
to see and understand the ramifications of belief in God
and in a life hereafter -- to see what it should mean in terms of
our general view of life and our rejection of paradigms and attitudes
that are inconsistent with spiritual beliefs.
A. God is
the source of good, so His principles define
what is right. (If there were no God, it could be argued that
any set of principles would be as good as any other.)
B. Therefore,
absolutes exist. God's word or way and what leads to
it is absolutely good and what leads away from it is absolutely
bad.
C. A belief
in God and in absolutes can simplify life in a positive way, giving
us a framework of what is right and wrong, good and bad, relieving
us of the oppressive obligation to make every one of those judgments
for ourselves.
Beliefs and
absolutes are the key to knowing who we are and to understanding
life's purpose. If God is father, we are children. If He is the
owner and giver, then we are the receivers and stewards. If He loves
us then there is positive purpose in being born into and living
through mortality, and there is ongoing life and additional opportunity
beyond death. How we live and what we learn here will affect who
and what we are there.
This eternal
perspective makes life more beautiful as well as more meaningful.
Our faith allows us to perceive ourselves as:
A. Sons and
daughters of God.
B. Who came
from Him through birth (birth which was "a sleeping and a forgetting
. . . from God who is our Home" -- Wordsworth).
C. Recipients
of the gift of this mortality . . . physical bodies on a physical
earth -- sent to the perfect school/laboratory on earth where
there is every option and possibility.
D. Choosers
of good or evil; self-determining.
E. Beings
capable of love; which precipitates happiness.
F. Able to
make commitments and create families, wherein lies life's deepest
joy.
G. Subject
to God's commandments (the most important of which involve the
taking and the starting of life) which are best viewed as "loving
counsel from a wise Father."
H. Capable
of returning to God, to continue living and progressing in an
afterlife.
With these
beliefs, shared by a majority but talked about too seldom, what
do we do? The best thing to do is to remind ourselves and
our children of what we believe . . . and of the reality and consistency
of what is right and what is wrong . . . and of the need we all
have for help from God . . . and of the happiness that runs so parallel
with goodness. We need to remind ourselves and our children often
enough and strongly enough that we outweigh the opposite (counterfeit)
messages of the world.
Perhaps the
best reminder of all is prayer. Most people pray, but too often
only sporadically or in times of particular need. Remember that
family prayer or prayer with children at bedtime or before a meal,
in addition to whatever spiritual help it may bring, is a powerful
statement to your child that you believe, that there are absolutes,
and that we don't have to depend entirely on ourselves.
Next week: How
to reinvent "time management" with a family priority and emphasis.
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