The Need for Improved Parenting

So, I am reading this book The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. As I mentioned earlier in the week, the focus of the tome is the convergence of change we are experiencing so early in the 21st century. With approximately 100 pages remaining, I am looking to finish the book and turn to another volume on my vacation list. Then, like a lightning bolt out of a blue sky, Friedman surprises me. Remember this is a book about 21st century facts and bringing them all together to expose the breakneck pace of our age.

While espousing social activism and retail reform, Friedman drops this bomb:

No discussion of compassionate flatism would be complete without also discussing
the need for improved parenting.

Do what? Did he just say that if we are going to succeed in the convergence and collaboration that is flattening our world, we need to improve our parenting? You better believe he does; and he has something worth repeating as he elaborates.

Friedman adds,

…Helping individuals adapt to a flat world is not only the job of governments and companies. It is also the job of parents. They too need to know in what world their kids are growing up and what it will take for them to thrive. Put simply, we need a new generation of parents ready to administer tough love. There comes a time when you’ve got to put away the Game Boys, turn off the television set, put away the iPod, and get your kids down to work (p.303).

Wow! Pow! Directly in the middle of a book about economics, politics and social agendas, Thomas Friedman nails it.

Here is my take on Friedman’s angle. Parents have the huge responsibility to get involved and stay involved in the lives of their children. It is not the schools’ job or the governments’ job or the villages’ job to raise children. That job belongs to the parents. Parents are accountable to God. They are also accountable to society. As the family goes, so goes society. As parents go, so go their children.
Friedman adds:

The sense of entitlement, the sense that because we once dominated global commerce and geopolitics—and Olympic basketball—we always will, the sense that delayed gratification is a punishment worse than a spanking, the sense that our kids have to be swaddled in cotton wool so that nothing bad or disappointing or stressful ever happens to them at school is, quite simply, a growing cancer on American society. And if we don’t start to reverse it, our kids are going to be in for a huge and socially disruptive shock from the flat world. While a different approach by politicians is necessary, it is not sufficient.

Imagine what would happen if parents acted on the author’s advice. We would have better schools; that’s for sure. We would have stronger family values. Our moral system would not be so debased. I think our churches would even be stronger.

I find it interesting that a purely secular book espouses the need for stronger parenting. This is a good reminder for the church. It is also a good reminder for me. It reminds me, first, to stay involved in the lives of my children—not coddling them, but disciplining, training and coaching them to be the man and woman God has called them to be. It reminds me to stay on point in my message to the church. Parents are called by God. We better take that task more seriously.