When we had our children in private, religious school, we often had people ask us (usually people who didn't know us well, weren't from our church and who had no spiritual authority over us) if we thought it was a good idea for us to keep them out of the world, since we as Christians are supposed to be salt and light and shouldn't our children of all people be out there changing the world for the Lord. We hear this even more now. How can your children evangelize if they are sheltered from the world?

Our response was and is that Jesus never sent children. He sent adults who were trained in some way or other (either explicitly or by experience). This is not to say that children cannot evangelize, or that they cannot influence the world around them, but that they should not be sent on a job for which they are not and cannot be prepared. They are not fully formed, spiritually, intellectually, emotionally or physically. Why would you send an untrained person onto a battlefield, with no armor or weapons?

It is our job to shelter our children while they are young, and slowly introduce those more difficult or confusing issues to them as they grow older and more mature. It is the responsibility of a parent to screen out those things that he does not wish his child to see or hear or know until that child is better equipped to handle them. I don't mean that somehow sending a child to school or public school means you are condemning him to some terrible fate, but I think sending them there with a mission is a terrible burden on someone who more likely than not is not ready for it.

A couple we are friends with asked us how long we planned to homeschool. We gave our standard reply: As long as it works for our family. They asked what we'd do if/when it didn't work out, and we said we'd sign them up for a private, religious school again. Public school wasn't an option to us? Nope. Aside from educational issues, aside from moral issues, aside from a whole philosophical point of view to which we don't subscribe, aside from the fact that our local school district has been on the national news twice in the last year, not for good things, and this is considered a wonderful school district, there is the fact that public schools as they are now attempt to put enmity between children and parents. They try to usurp the parental role, teach the children that the parents cannot be trusted, tell the parents they don't have a right to personal information about the child (but the school does), and that it is they (the teachers/faculty) who really know what the children need and should be trusted. We said that division, or the risk of it, was not worth it to us.

So, out came the question: How can you change that if you won't be a part of it? How can your children influence those children who need it the most, if they aren't there?

We aren't going to do the experiment with our children. Why would we risk them and their life here on earth to prove a point? Why would we send them on a mission for which they are not prepared, when their character hasn't even been formed yet? Jesus said that we were to approach Him as little children, open hearted, trusting, loyal, vulnerable. He didn't say that we were to go to the world as little children. Quite the opposite: Wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

Labels: Faith and Morality, Family