Donspoliticalblog's Blog

Friday, July 18, 2008 A day doesn’t go by that I don’t hear the comment, oh if we could only go back to the good old days. That may because I’m getting older and my friends are mostly of my era but either way it’s a comment that needs some explanation. By using the term good old days people are just asking for a less hectic time. A time when neighbors had time to become friends. When kids could play outside till dark without worry. When families sat down to dinner together and discussed the days events. Girls had slumber parties and the boys had sleepovers. We went to church as a family and after church a ride in the family car was in order usually to a place where mom brought out the hidden picnic basket from the trunk while dad found a nice even place to lay the blanket.

You know what’s so funny about this is the fact that everything I have mentioned is still available today. Life is what we make of it and lately it seems we have made a mess of what we have. Few families share the dinner hour, seldom do families attend church regularly especially together. The girls are more interested in boys from the age of 10 or 11 on that they seldom care to be in the company of family. Boys usually don’t start having those thoughts until at least 12 and then watch out. A ride in the country is out of the question, “boring”. If the kids are out till dark it generally leads to a visit from an angry neighbor or the police.

You will notice nothing has been said about money. It’s not the cost of things that have changed it is the attitude. TV and the Internet has taken the place of mom and dad in many homes, what they learn from watching it is that it’s cool to be a bad dude, to carry a knife or even a gun. That their real friends are the punks that they hang out with every day. The boys learn that girls should be treated like some type toy to be played with and then thrown away. The girls learn only too fast that they can get what ever they want by using their bodies.

No, times haven’t changed, we have. We have allowed this corruption to permeate into our society and take over our lives. We send our kids to their room to get them out of our hair and they spend hours watching garbage on TV or chatting on the internet with God knows who. We wonder where they learned the disrespectful language they use and why they treat their parents with such demeaning anger. Kids crave discipline, they will respond to it if it is mete out with love and they understand the reason for it. My Grand Daughter surprised me one day as she told me she knows we love her because we care what happens to her and want her to be smart about what she does.

Once a child is on drugs it is a whole different matter. Drugs have to be dealt with tough love. I have seen the result of some of these so called professional treatment centers. Few if any do what a parent can do but it takes a discipline that few can muster. We have allowed sex to become part of a 12 year olds world in the manner in which they dress and what they watch on TV or the Internet. I’m afraid that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah would feel right at home in this century, kind of scary isn’t it? When you take time to remember what God did to them.

And that’s my opinion
Don