In another thread I mentioned I was glad to be homeschooling my children now so I can attempt to maintain their childhood innocence from things and people like Lady GaGa. It brought up a few comments about turning the TV off and so on. I just wanted to go on the record and say I am a mother who does limit/censor what my kids watch and listen to. And I am ok with that. I feel it is unnecessary to wallow in the lower echelons of the world. I want my kids to be raised above the new 'normal'. I want them to be old fashioned like me. Is it a hard job to do this? You bet just look at the magazine covers in the checkouts. Half starved women trying to look coy, in scantily clad clothes with headlines that are trashy. How do I explain to my kids why people are this way? How have we gotten so far from real life that this is supposed to be considered normal?
I am with you all he way. We are very protective about what our children watch and listen too. Not because we are old fashion, (which is a great way to be) but because the Bible tells us to seperate ourselves from the world. When our children ask me, "why do people dress that way, or act that way, etc.?" I just tell them, "because they haven't been taught otherwise or because they don't fear the Lord or care about how He wants them to live." Some of my family thinks we are crazy for the things we keep our children from and feel that they won't be able to make it in the "real world" or carry on intelligent conversations with their peers that are "out there," I say, "praise the Lord." Anyway, I better step down now from my soap box. Keep censoring that world.
I'm very good friends with a couple who raised 4 children and never owned a tv. Their kids are not only NORMAL, but also extremely well educated, because they used all that wasted time on BOOKS! I also prefer to censor things around my house.
Hey As it turns out we never had a tv either growing up. No electricity at all. And I remember my PS friends being really shocked what did I do with all my time LOL. I read and played and wow spent time with my family. And we didn't miss it. I actually think it robs people of their own imaginative ideas. Once you have that visual input from outside of yourself the quality of my own imagination as a youngster started to fade away when we did get a tv later.
I'm right there with y'all. I tried to keep my kids "normal" but "sheltered" by censoring but once they got out into the world, all my influence was down the tubes. I'm not going to say they turned out depraved or anything, but just more attached to the world than I would have wished. Actually, dd is pretty protective of her dd, and I'm proud of how she's kept her from most tv (very selective about how much time and what content), but ds is just so oblivious.... and both of them are going to put my dgc into public school. :cry: (Neither of them lives nearby to us.) When dgs age 5 is with us, we're very selective about tv.
When did it become okay to talk about sex acts in front of a 6 year old in detail? When did it become ok for women to walk around with the boobs hanging out of a tight tshirt (but you get dirty looks for breastfeeding in public) I don't know-but I don't like it. Don't care for it. And refuse to do what is 'in' or 'cool' or 'the norm' if it goes against good sense and my moral beliefs!
We didn't have a TV growing up, but one thing my parents did to keep us innocent is they never held back on explaining when something wasn't right and why, and they always encouraged questions. We also just held a lot of conversations about adult issues, like politics or headlines, which kept us level headed. They also never sugar-coated anything. If something was bad then it was definitely bad, and these were the reasons. My dad would tell us about mistakes he made when he was in high school, and talk about why it was foolish to have done that. That kind of thing. Basically it just taught us how to think for ourselves and come to rational conclusions about things we saw in the media.
Sonita no it is not ok to talk in front of kids like that. And as to the breast issue in the province I live in they legalized women going topless although they don't want you doing it near a busy roadway as it has caused a couple accidents. Well let me tell you having witnessed a couple of women doing this it's not ok. I am trying to enjoy a family bbq and have to witness this because I live on a corner lot YUCK! I don't care how hot I am I am NOT removing my top. Have a shred of common decency..oh wait that's gone too apparently. Sorry just had to vent.
I don't censor much of anything from my kids. And I'm ok with that. Things of a sexual nature I do censor such as obscene or vulgar tv shows and movies and certainly they don't listen to nasty song lyrics (like rap songs) but that is pretty much it. I don't feel like I have to cut my kids off from the world to raise them to be morally upstanding people, we just talk about things alot, when there is something inappropriate we discuss why it is inappropriate. And they understand because we discuss things so openly together. So far my teenager is much more modest than I would require her to be and she has no desire at all to be one of those scantily clad woman on the magazine covers.
I just want to say censoring isn't a something I do because I want to but because my kids are small and there is a need to. The world is filled with violence and violent messages. When was the last time it was possible to look at a newspaper and see good news on the front? Almost always it sad or violent. When I went to PS they were still worried about being bombed from the Russians so we had bomb drills. It was the eighties for pete's sake. Not sure why they thought it was necessary but I remember the deep seeded fear of being bombed that it put in me. I think I would rather shelter and spare my kids that negative feeling until they are old enough to comprehend more. Not to say they know nothing of violence. My DS came home in JK wondering what bombs were all about because another boy was playing that. And then I spent months trying to get him to stop bombing his sisters toys. A four year old just doesn't get that it's a sad fact rather then something to be proud over. So it's not just scanty clothes and inappropriate messages but the violence that is portrayed in the world that I try to block out as much as possible.
I think I would have to move. And I agree with you and Sonita. 45 min. from where we live they have a completely nude, :shock: (I don't guess there is any other kind of nude LOL) male and female, hour long bike tour through town, to raise money for some cause. They do this twice a year and it is a HUGE hit and raises all kinds of money. :shock: Unbelievable.
There might be other kinds of nude-maybe we're just to sheltered to know about it LOL I love you so much:love::love:- you make me laugh Who want's to ride a bicycle nude anyway-even if you're okay with people seeing you in your birthday suit there are just some things you should put clothes on for-you know, like frying bacon....
I know, that's just plain gross. Even if I knew in a million years I would never be seen by anyone, I still wouldn't ride my bike or fry bacon completely nude or any other kind of nude. LOL. Love ya, too. I DON'T guess we should google "Is there any other kind of nude than completely," we might not be so sheltered then. LOL
Geesh forget the burn factor of bike riding like that. It's just uncomfortable on us girls. Not to mention what about bugs? Around here the blackflies, mosquitoes, deer flies, horse flies and so on would make a meal out of you if they didn't carry you off LOL.
Common decency. Common sense. Common courtesy and consideration. Quite a few "common" things that aren't too terribly common at all anymore! :roll: :?
Don't you know that we're all supposed to be so completely unique that there's nothing "common" at all about humanity!?
It's not just the topless women or the TV/movies (we censor sex stuff because they don't need to process that info in that context yet; we censor foul language because it's not part of the acceptable vocabulary to speak or listen to in our family). What I find increasingly tough is my children's interactions with other children whose parents allow them to be exposed to all manner of things. Almost as bad are the children whose parents don't hold them accountable for the things they say. I find myself constantly thinking of how to reinforce our values with our children.
Sad but true. I had to go over a few choice words with my son in school. Another boy said my son's little sister was a b>>>h. I point blank told him it was a ignorant term that uneducated people use. The correct meaning is a female dog. Is your little sister a female dog? No of course not. Further I pointed out that if the little boy wanted to go around calling girls that what kind of attitude was that portraying to his own little sister? And that boy was a constant negative influence in far too many ways. Then their was another who called my son a choice word and I told him the correct meaning again. I found I had to tell him meanings because they have this rather risky game in the Kindergarten class of rhyming words and lets see what can we rhyme with this and that and boom bad language comes out. So most of the bad words luckily weren't anything to sexual in nature. However I could see it getting there fast since this was Kindergarten I am talking about. So glad to be free of that. And we have a home rule if you have friends over then no one is allowed to use bad language. And they are to make the rules clear to their friends. And yes sometimes it's not only peers but adults who use offensive language. I wish I could carry soap around with me sometimes! lol.
