March 9, 2008 | |
Your Children Are Listening. For What Do You Stand? | |
by Ron Ewart, President National Association of Rural Landowners Copyright March 9, 2008- All Rights Reserved | |
Most parents want the best for their children. They want them to grow up to be proud, strong individuals, capable of meeting most, if not all, of life's challenges. They want their children to be good parents to their offspring, as well. Any of these desires depends almost entirely on what goes on at home and on the quantity and quality of both education and experience while they are growing up. But the hard truth is, children are like sponges and they soak up the environment in which they live, in most cases, mirroring their parents. If their parents are slovenly and lazy, children have a very high percentage of turning out slovenly and lazy. If their parents are industrious, creative, responsible and self reliant, children are quite likely to take on these qualities. If their parents are involved in the community, children have a greater chance of also being involved. If the parents take an interest in and are a part of the political process, that experience will rub off on their children. But if the parents are apathetic and indifferent, their children will learn apathy and indifference. Of course there are exceptions to the general rule. Some children turn out well in spite of bad parenting and some others fall through the cracks and go bad from good parenting. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees and the books instructing parents on how to be good parents are just about as effective as instruction books for operating a computer. There is no substitute for experience and intuition. Parents send their children to government-run schools but don't constantly check and measure the quality of that education. They don't peek into the process and determine if the process is a learning experience in truth, or one filled with propaganda and indoctrination. Unfortunately, propaganda and indoctrination is what their children are receiving in our schools and colleges today and very little is being done about it. Part of parenting is knowing life's dangers that can harm their children before they are ready. Parents would not let their young children play near a cliff for the obvious reason that in the children's exuberance, they could easily slip and fall over the cliff. Parents who allow their children to own computers with internet connections had better be aware of the kind of information their children are viewing. The dangers from inadequately monitoring what their child sees on the computer can be just as damaging as falling off of a cliff. The dangers for boys are different than the dangers for girls and a parent needs to know the difference to adequately teach and at the same time, protect them. Parents focus on their family, jobs and home, but fail to look out at the horizon and learn of the other dangers that could assail their children. Evil permeates the world and it is up to the parents to teach their children of those evils and of the dangers. One of those significant evils is the attack on freedom. There was a movie made a while back called the White Squall. It was a true story of a summer sailing class, where parents sent their boys approaching adult hood, into a hands-on sailing experience at sea. The ship met up with a freak of nature, a white squall. It sank in heavy seas and several boys were lost, including the captain's wife. The captain was brought up on charges of negligence and dereliction of duty before the admiralty and would have lost his captain's ticket if not for the surviving boys sticking up for him. No matter how hard we try, we cannot save our children from every danger that faces them. We can only hope that the survivors use the bad experience as a learning experience. Again, there are no guarantees. So for what do you stand? If you stand for right over wrong, your children will do the same. If you stand for good and show it, your children will stand with you. If you stand for principle over selfish gain or political expediency, your children will follow you. If you have courage and show it, your children will mirror that courage. Should you fail to teach your children life's lessons, they will fail in life. If you fail to teach them responsibility, they will become irresponsible. If you fail to teach them self-reliance, they will learn dependency instead. If you do not vigorously defend freedom, your children will not defend freedom either and freedom will be lost. The gift we give to our children is who we are. If we stand for and practice love, goodness, honor, respect, truth, self reliance and defend liberty, so will they. Our children are our most precious resource. They learn by example. We have a solemn duty to guide them judiciously to adulthood, or the next generation will pay the consequences and they will end up standing for all the wrong things. They will end up standing for what we are or were! The National Association of Rural Landowners - NARLO - stands for and is defending freedom and liberty. It is our firm hope that all who hear our message will do the same and support our efforts. We further hope that they are teaching their children to follow in their footsteps. | |
Ron Ewart, President | |
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RURAL LANDOWNERS Dedicated to restoriing, maintaining and defending private property rights P. O. Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027 WE'RE REALLY COUNTING ON YOU TO HELP US CONTINUE THIS FIGHT. | |
Good Neighbor Committee | Good Neighbor Law© 2006 | | |