Raising Covenant Children while Living in Babylon

 

My husband and I have been parents for 23 years. During that time, we have had a consistent fight against electronics and screen time. We've had constant dialogue about what we allow our children to watch or not watch, how often they're allowed to watch, if they are allowed to own video games, how often they can play video games, and - now - if they can have smartphones, and how often they are allowed to be used.

When our children were very young, the choices were different, but they were still there. Can he watch PBS while mom does dishes? Do we allow Barney into our home? We did allow them to watch, and it was always more than we wished it were. 

As our children got older, the questions just grew. Should we have cable or not? When someone gave us a Nintendo set, we had to decide what to do with it. (After a few months, we got rid of we just didn't like the people that our children became as a result of it.)

When our oldest was seven, we got rid of all electronics except the computer for a time. Mom and Dad found it as hard to control ourselves as did our children concerning TV time.

After about a year, someone gave us a TV. Yay! (Not) Then entered Netflix. At first Netflix was one DVD a week. That seemed manageable. We established a Friday night movie night. Then Netflix became streaming. We already paid for the service, so it automatically upgraded in our home. And by this time, our children were older and tech savvy, so they knew how to set it up. We struggled with TV time yet again.

Of course, we didn't just struggle with the amount of time that our family watched tv, we also struggled with what to allow our children to watch. When were they old enough to watch the Lord of the Rings? Should we allow Harry Potter into our home? Do we let them watch Romantic Comedies with Mom and Dad?

When it came to content, we were generally more lenient than most of our contemporaries. We thought it would be better for our children to have exposure to some of these things in an environment where we could talk about them and discuss the positives and negatives of each movie.

Most of the movies that we watched didn't have inappropriate bedroom scenes, but the ones that did were assiduously fast forwarded through.

Overall, the movies we chose to watch had an overarching good story. There is evil. Innocent people are being oppressed. A good power arises to combat evil. In the end, evil is vanquished. This was never in question, so it was always the side notes that were the questions. (How violent was it? Were there inappropriate scenes? Etc.)

A few years ago, my children started watching The Avenger movies. Of course, now, my children were much older. At first, the Avenger movies were squeaky clean. Except for an impulsive kiss, some intense battle scenes, and the weird skeleton faced man, Captain America was a great movie. We even had an opportunity to talk about the evils of Nazi Germany.

But over time, the Avengers movies have degraded into something that I no longer want my children to watch. The stories themselves are awful. The heroes of the stories do things that are just as evil as the bad guys. There is no character development. There is no conquest over evil by the good guys. Morals have been muddied.

And now, they've introduced the topic of gender absurdity. The alien rock man had two dads. The pod of space dolphins mates for life, and there are six of them! We watched the latest Thor movie, and there was nothing redeeming about it. Nothing!

And yet, my children don't recognize it. Oh, they're disgusted by the blatant display of gender foolishness, but they don't see the lack of good story. And because we began the series many years ago, they're fully invested in the characters, and they want to see the new movies as they come out.

Our youngest is only seven. He has thoroughly enjoyed the Toy Story movies. He was so excited when he heard that the new Buzz Lightyear movie was coming out! He and his older siblings were on the way out the door to go see the movie when I happened to read an article about it. I discovered that one of the main characters is in a lesbian marriage, and that these characters actually share a kiss on the screen. Adults were rarely even shown in the original toy story movies, now they have this narrative?

So we have said that we're not going to go watch Buzz Lightyear in the theater. But then what? Do we not watch it at all? Do we watch it but fast forward through this scene?

The people who created these are brilliant. To a certain extent, they win either way. My son knows all about this movie now, and desperately wants to see it. If I disallow him, I'm the bad guy. Stodgy mom and dad won't let him see this amazing movie that just has this one bad little part in it. But, if I allow him to see it, another piece of his innocence is taken away as same sex nonsense is normalized before his childish eyes. 

We've already had to explain to him why he couldn't see it, which introduced the idea of same sex behavior into his young and innocent world.

What is the Christian response in these sinful times? Do we get rid of our TV again entirely? Do we subscribe to a filtering site (like vidangel) and only watch what they filter?

There are larger questions, of course. What does it mean to be in the world but not of it - for our children especially? How can we protect our family while being a light to those around us?

I think that whatever our response should be, it must be prayerful. We must enter the waters of modern entertainment cautiously, with great trepidation. We have chosen to homeschool our children. We've put filters on all our computers and smartphones. We're careful about their friendships. After taking all of these steps, I don't want to fail in this area. I don't want to be the one to introduce my children into an area of temptation that could eventually be their moral downfall.

Oh Lord, we need you! Give us wisdom in Babylon, and the fortitude to carry it out.