Confronting a Child’s Sin Nature
I was very much in agreement with an essay by Tony Woodlief on the last page of today’s Wall Street Journal (Friday, September 7, 2007, W11) titled “Don’t Suffer the Little Children.” Woodlief is an author of “Raising Wild Boys Into Men: A Modern Dad’s Survival Guide” and home schools his kids. Listen to this:
An afternoon at the playground is apt to make one toss out the idealist Rousseau (“man is a compassionate and sensible being”) in favor of the more realistic Hobbes (“all mankind [is in] a perpetual and restless desire for power”). As a father of four sons, I’ve signed on to Mr. Sowell’s summation of a parent’s duty: “Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”
If you’ve read Carlos Eire’s National Book Award Winning memoire Waiting For Snow In Havana you’ll echo some of the same sentiments that kids have an amazing capacity for good, but it is not NATURAL to follow those ends, only loving guidance and persistent attention will do that!
check out the whole, very funny, essay here http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118912978147520208.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal (for a fee)
