Friday, July 9, 2010

Whose team are you on?

I may anger some people with this post. Before you read, please remember that this is MY blog....therefore, MY opinions. You are entitled to have your own.
Now that the disclaimer is out of the way...lol...

I hear everyone walking around arguing about whose team they are on: Team Edward or Team Jacob. I have never read the books. I have never watched the movies. My husband and I have agreed that they will never be read or watched in our home. Then how do I know the main characters names, you ask? BECAUSE. IT. IS. EVERYWHERE. And I'm sick of it. I am tired of walking into Wal-Mart and seeing more bookshelves filled with books on vampires than with anything else. I am tired of the posters. I am tired of all of the magazine articles about the actors and what they are doing. I. DON'T. CARE. That may sound a little harsh, but I am telling you that if we were able to saturate the media with things about God as much as they are allowed to saturate the media with things about vampires, I may not be on a rant.

The thing I don't understand is this: Why does everyone think it's ok to be infatuated with vampires? I am concerned with the amount of adults that have been sucked into this, but I want to address the fact that parents allow their children to watch this and be sucked in. We, as adults, can watch things or read things and discern what is right and wrong in it. However, children do not have the ability to discern what we do. They take things in and internalize them, and process them in different ways than what we do. Why, then, would parents allow their teenage girls to watch this? Why would they let their little girl watch something where a girl changes herself for a man? If your daughter started dating someone that asked her to change for him (or that she had to change for) and someone that prevented her from seeing other guys because he was scared she would find something better out there YOU WOULD BE LIVID. So why are you going to let her watch a movie that promotes that and glorifies that????? I was told the other day that little girls were online talking about wanting to find "their Edward". WHY ARE YOU NOT ANGRY OVER THIS????? And we can talk about the little girls not needing to watch it for obvious reasons...but there is a reason boys shouldn't watch it either. It is our job as parents to teach our children how to behave and to teach them how to be productive adults. Take a moment and think about your own spouse. It was their parents responsibility to raise him (or her) and help shape them into the person they are now. Their parents taught them how to treat people in general, and people of the opposite sex. Aren't there a few things you wish they would have done differently? It is our job to raise boys to be productive people as adults, but also to teach them how to be a good husband. Why would you let them watch something with someone like Edward in it and know that he is glorified? I can assure you that if he treats his future wife like that, she will not appreciate it.

Parents need to realize that it's the little things that add up that we expose our children to that shape and mold them into who they are to become. That is a HUGE responsibility. One that some people take lightly. Every decision that you make as far as what they listen to or watch should be weighed with caution. If you decide not to let them watch something that turns out to be harmless, it is not going to kill them because they never saw it. Making sure your child sees a show or a movie does not make or break their world. I don't know when society started behaving like it was. If there are any doubts about it at all, don't let them watch it!!!!! It's not rocket science, people, and censoring children from shows and music never killed any of them.

I am convinced that if people put as much effort into pouring religion into the main stream media that lives could be changed. If they took the effort that they put into pre-ordering release movie tickets, standing in line for dvd releases, book releases, etc. and put it into their city to promote the gospel the world could be changed.

I could go on about this all day long. It is one of my soap box issues. My great friend, Jonathan, wrote a post that probably reads better and makes more sense...lol....over on his blog.... www.jlwide.blogspot.com. You should take a minute and check it out. Until then....I know whose team I am going to be on. No long decision making process here. Whose team are you going to be on?

2 comments:

  1. You're welcome, and thank you. Nicely done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. **I'm going to go ahead and apologize for this beast of a comment...I didn't intend for it to be this long!!!**

    You've made some good points here Miss Ranty Ranter! But, as someone whose read the books - mainly out of wanting to know what all the fuss was about and then finding myself semi-entertained...I just wanted to tell you some about the book books that you probably haven't heard.

    Edward actually doesn't / didn't want Bella to change for him at all. It was quite the opposite. He begged her not to each time she asked. One of the other biggies was that they didn't have sex before marriage - that was also Edward's idea. He talked about how he didn't choose his current life it was chosen for him. He was in a hospital dying and the one he calls his father (the doctor) changed him. He would talk about how there were non-negotiable lines that they would not cross. Premarital sex being one of them. Another being no human blood - only animals. He also tried to get her to be with someone besides him, but she wouldn't.

    With all that in mind, as far as an adult-read, the author's take on the whole vampires that don't do humans thing is pretty interesting. But as for letting children read it - I don't think that's appropriate at all. I agree that children's views are heavily influenced by the media and by what all the other kids are doing. I would not let my kids read these books. For me, it would be more of an age-appropriate issue rather than the vampire issue.

    Now, as for parents who are letting their girls and boys read these books - it makes me question how much they're really paying attention to what their kids are into. These books are long and detailed. This means that if the kid is actually retaining the information, he/she is probably in their room for hours reading. That's not going to help build the relationship with parent and child if they're always away by themselves reading. The same goes for video games. I'm going to go ahead and put it out there that my kids probably won't have all the latest games and gaming devices. There's a definite trend among kids these days who spend so much time in their video games that they're socially inept. They don't know how to carry on a conversation with adults, their attention spans are often lacking if it doesn't involve a controller, and they take little interest in any kind of physical activity. Over all it's up to the parents to set their children up to succeed.

    I'm proud of you and Olin for doing just that. I think that now that you two will be off the road, he'll be able to see what a real Christian-based family is like and how much he needs it in his life. I'm excited about where all of you are headed in life! :-)

    Just thought I'd weigh in from the opposite point of view. Well, not totally opposite!

    ReplyDelete

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