Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Socialization

When You Rise Up by R.C. Sproul.


"Sometimes I ask those who raise this objection ['What about socialization?], 'Now, when you speak of socialization, you're talking about my child's ability to get along with others who are different. Is that it?' Usually I get some sort of affirmative response. 'I see,' I go on, 'and your solution is for my ten-year-old to spend seven hours a day stuck in a room with a bunch of other ten-year olds?'

...But this isn't really what people mean by socialization. What they want for my daughter is for her to be hip about all the things other ten-year-old girls are concerned about, like fashion labels, television shows, pop singers, and other essentials to the good life. They are concerned that my daughter is not under the sway of Madison Avenue, that she is free. But I have none of that concern. I raise my daughter, her sisters, and her brother to be free. Their identity is in Christ, not in pop culture."

9 comments:

Cutzi said...

I love this so much. I need to finish that book.

melanie said...

Just came from FB... so

{{{LIKE}}}

=)

and g'night!

(Got an email, got an email, got an e-mail to-night! da da dut duh, da da dut duh..)

Felicity said...

I really like this! I have raised my kids to be free too - free to be themselves, in Christ.

The Hibbard Family said...

Yes!!!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

I love it too, that my boys are not completely captive to pop culture.

Anonymous said...

YES, YES, YES! Love this, should read the book again . . .

Rachael Starke said...

I've had an epiphany with my oldest now that we're a month into our new adventure of outsourcing our childrens' education to their moralistic therapeutic deist overlords (AKA large-ish Christian school).

She really does need help with socialization. She's so brainy and so nerdy that she's far more content to literally go off by herself and climb a tree than to humble her genius self to ask to play in a game, or , worse, ask how a game is played. If she's interested, she'll just walk up to them and stare at what they're doing, without asking if that's okay. Then there's the challenges of a teacher who seems to not be the fairest disicplinarian....

Anyway, I totally get and one hundred percent agree that most of the time, this is an argument for communal worship at the altar of Lady Gaga.

But it's not all the time. And I'll note that the same nerdiness that makes her in need of some help with social niceties also makes her, at this stage, reflexively disinterested in pop anything.

Just my $0.25. Ask me again in six months if she gets invited to go to a Justin Beiber concert. And actually wants to go. :)

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Hey Rachael,

Thank the Lord that she's brainy and nerdy, yah?

Wyatt always had friends at school, but he wasn't really caught up in the social whirl. (Not interested? Not savvy enough? Don't know...)

But I watched their classmates get sucked into it all. The clothes, the music, the video games, the attitudes. Eight year-olds, sporting Green Day shirts and playing Halo. Six year-old girls in heels and mini-skirts. (Aren't you glad your kids wear uniforms?!)

And - you know - we don't exactly keep the boys in a bubble. ;D

heather west said...

Oh, if I could only tattoo this quote to my forehead.