It’s a brave person in today’s PC world to venture into the realms of comment on child care and parenting, but comment is what Aric Sigman is doing. I’ll be interested to hear what the reaction is to his latest book, ‘The Spoilt Generation.’ Apparently, (I haven’t read it yet) he’s focusing upon the inability of parents to provide clear boundaries for young children and then deals with the consequences, I would add for society as a whole. My gut feeling is I’m going to end up agreeing with what reads, in the review in today’s paper at least, like common sense and a reasonable applications of biblical teaching.
So what of the role of the local pastor of typical Baptist Church? Many Churches stress the word ‘family’ in their presentation, in terms of community style, to the outside world, but are we any less dysfunctional than any other group of families? Sadly, our values are rather more influenced by our wider society than we’d care to admit and pastors can easily be intimidated by the reactions to perceived criticism of parenting skills – a veritable minefield. However, another hunch is we’re about to see a swinging of the pendulum towards a more recognised need for clear boundaries. The massive underlying issue – can we believe in such things as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ - is not, we’re told, very post-modern, but it is a sought after commodity in today’s rising generations bred on materialistic insecurity.
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