Parents-take back your responsibility!

Friends With Christ and other places around the blogosphere have picked up the increasingly sinister and bullying tactics of this Government to undermine the welfare of children through pushing morally abhorant propaganda into the classroom as well as attacking Catholic schools for being 'Catholic'. While the acedemic standards of schools has plummeted so far that Universities have been setting up basic literacy skills sessions for first year undergraduates, and while young people are faced with massive difficulties finding work when they leave school-the Govt is obsessed with sex.

When my children were in school I felt powerless against the tide of stupidity that they were faced with. I spent a lot of time and energy re-teaching them at home, correcting mistakes in science and history or filling in the gaps so they got the context of some events. When it came to sex ed I had to teach the Truth because the Catholic school the boys attended offered contraceptive advice and a film that had a cartoon of a couple having sex while on the black board the words "The Church says sex is for marriage" was the full extent of the Catholic teaching.

Then I spent ages putting right what they were learning from ICONS the RE programme and that peeked with my oldest who was taught to refer to the Holy Spirit as 'She'!!!

Meanwhile most of the parents I knew didn't care that this was the standard of education their children were receiving. It was no worse than anywhere else. The children could jump through the acedemic hoops by doing their homework (regardless of whether that homework taught them anything or not) and sitting exams.

'Caring' parents were those who no matter how badly behaved or utterly miserable their child was at least ensured he got the correct grades at GCSE. If he stopped going to Mass and was getting involved with drinking, telling lies and being dishonest, so what? It wont affect him getting into Uni. These were the parents who complained about every holiday and loathed the summer ones.

The Govt has been able to take over our children's lives because WE the PARENTS have handed our children over!

This quote from Friends with Christ:

"So, it is already late in the day, but how can we rebuild a climate and a culture in which parents recover their primary role as educators of their children? First of
all, I think that quite a bit of personal interest and initiative by parents is necessary; an interest and initiative whereby parents actively seek to build a culture and a way of life for themselves and their families in which they embrace their God-given
mission to form and guide a family."

How can we?

A lot of parents are taking personal interest. A friend of mine has done much the same as I did. She has a tutor to help undue some of the damage of poor teaching in the school and she knows enough about the faith to have kept all four of her boys Catholic so far. The older 3 are in University now and are a credit to her and her husband.

Many of us homeschool-and that choice is increasing rapidly in this country. It is something the Govt is unhappy about and there are moves to either stop us or try and force their propaganda on us. Bizarrely the first thing they want to force on us is...yep, sex ed! Are they just weird or what?

As some of you may have noticed I am a great fan of Dr Ray Guarendi who on more than one occasion has said the 'cult of the expert' has stripped parents of their strength and sense of responsibility. He wrote "You're A Better Parent Than You Think" partly in answer to this. Meanwhile Dr William Coulson is out there apoloising for the devastating effects his work with Dr Carl Rogers had on schools and the monastic institutions of the Catholic Church.

Parenting is about SACRIFICE not 'How does it feel for you'. Even at the height of my career with 'Warm, empathic, non-judgemental, unconditional positive regard' ringing in my ears, I never believed a word of it. While idiots wandered around complaining about 'Catholic guilt', I was nursing a bunch of people with no discernable mental illness who were simply wrapped up in 'How does it feel for MEEEEE' rather than how does my horrible behaviour feel to the other poor sod?

Guilt! Ha!

My generation of parents need to learn from this mess. We have to take back our responsibilities as parents; face up to the mistakes we may have made and try and put things right. We need to remember that if we produce kids who cheat, lie, steal, fornicate, get drunk and throw up in the street etc. that WE have produced those children; we are still parents and we need to do something about it. We need to remember that our children's bad behaviour effects others for good or ill.

There is simply no point in complaining about the Govt trying to nanny our children in the worst possible way if we let them-because we aren't bothered enough.