Our Babysitters

Our Babysitters

When I was growing up, there wasn’t any such thing as a “babysitter”. We were all given chores and things that were mandatory for us to do around the house. And, if the job(s) weren’t accomplished or done satisfactory there was discipline meted that met the need for reminder of how things were to be.

I remember in the afternoons after school, I was to practice my handwriting. I thought that was such a mean thing to make me have to do. Didn’t they realize I’d just sat an entire day in a classroom writing in some manner or another?

I remember sitting on the back porch of my grandparent’s house shelling peas. My grandmother always made those tasks seem so much fun. She would talk about growing up and the things in her life that she thought were “funny” or giving lessons in life of what she wanted me to learn – like “always wear good step-ins when you are traveling that way if you have a wreck they won’t see any holes in them.”

I remember picking blackberries. Afterwards, for hours, we would stir them over the stove to make jelly, to be rewarded by a huge cobbler after supper. I don’t think there is anything more awesome than a hot blackberry cobbler with Blue Bell Homemade Ice Cream over it!

I remember story time in front of the old fireplace. We didn’t have a lot of books, so my grandmother would read the stories from the Bible – sometimes she would just tell the story from memory.

I’ve watched and listened to parents nowadays. “I bought this DVD so that it would occupy them” or “they are watching the television while I do such and such”. Why are we allowing a television to raise our children?

I hear parents say, “I have no idea where they learned that.” Well, are you watching what they are watching? Are you listening to the conversations they have with their friends? Recently, I was told by a mother, that she didn’t know any of the last names of her daughter’s “friends” who had been coming around for over fourteen years, nor in case of an emergency, would she know how to reach them. I was shocked!

Parents you are this child’s future. The work ethics, the morals, the values, your time that you give to a child will be manifested many times over. When did you last read them a Bible story or sing a Christian song to them or with them? When you travel do they watch movies that teach morals or kindness or loving their neighbor as thyself or is it a current cartoon? When did you turn off the television and really do something constructive with your child?

I thoroughly believe, that television has a profound negative affect on family life. We have allowed it to control our lives. People try to paradox their lives after those on soap operas, or we try to incorporate the lives we see on television into our own, just as our children do.

We set our children or ourselves in front of the television and we neglect our homes, our spouses, and our devotional time with God. We neglect to teach our children the joys of loving Jesus. “Jesus loves the little children” was always a favorite song of mine.

Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: or of such is the kingdom of Heaven.” Mathew 19:14 Have we brought our children to God? Have we thanked God for our children? Are we teaching our children the way that God would have us to teach them? Are we teaching them values that will make them productive citizens in society when they are older? Are we teaching them to love Jesus and honor Him?

Do we discipline our children when they’ve done wrong? Or do we just give in to their whims because that is the easiest thing to do? “No” should always mean “no”.

Find the time, at least once a day, turn off the television, read a Bible story to your child and sing a song of God’s love to him or her or them. That little bit of time will be the best gift and the hugest investment to their future you could give them. “Train up child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. ” Proverbs 22:6 Pass good one!