Conscious Parenting
Implicit learning is wonderful when someone is conscious of it...
Are you ready to have kids?
Sure, that might be an unfair question. Let me explain what I mean.
There are so many people I know who are excited to be parents, or even already are parents, who forget something I think is central to having children: you’re responsible for the entirety of their raising.
In all honesty, such flippancy is something of which I’m thoroughly guilty. I spend so much of my time planning education in mathematics, literature, history, and theology that I forget about the entire rest of children’s lives. From my experience, it seems I err on the over-planning side. Many people near my age and a bit older would consider themselves dedicated (or future) parents but have various gaps of time in their children’s day where they plan to turn over those children to a medium or group of people with absolutely zero thought of what the consequences might be.
I cannot reconcile those positions in my head.
See, children are wonderful gifts of God. However, as we have likely all experienced, their capability for implicit learning tends to mean that they, well, say things everyone would prefer they had never learned. Sometimes it’s the people they were around, sometimes it’s a slip as a parent, whatever the case may be. It happens to everyone at some point; no guilt here.
The gap in thought that I don’t understand occurs when people are highly intelligent, proud parents or future parents, virtuous people with good intentions, but put little to no thought into the entertainment and social environments their children encounter.
Your kids will learn anything you put in front of them. If you want them to be virtuous Christians, you might have to put some thought into what and who they regularly see.
For example, children will learn virtue from watching characters interact in stories (yes, all stories). Cartoons like Family Guy, Sesame Street, or Spongebob cannot honestly be said to be great teachers of virtue, and neither are the Minecraft YouTubers or other “kid-friendly” content channels that seem to have replaced cartoons for most kids. But the baby is crying or the parents need rest, so kids old enough to watch TV are given that privilege with the thought, “It’s kid-friendly. How bad could it be?”
Other people assume that sending their children to the nearest Christian school will be enough, or even a public school with the supplement of family at home and church on Sundays. For some families, maybe it will be, but I believe our society has passed the point where flippant trust is sufficient. Slapping “Christian” onto something does not mean that the people, the content, or the confession are Christian. The same goes for “kid-friendly”, “quality”, “vocational training”, “preparatory”, and any number of other monikers that educational settings and entertainment use to make their marketing work.
Let me be plain: I am not saying that every school, every child who watches cartoons, or your anecdotal experiences are all wrong if you experience positive results. I am also not saying that parents should insist on eighteen years of totalitarian control over their children’s media consumption, activities, and friendships (although during the grammar stage that is exactly what ought to happen). Children turn out virtuous or unvirtuous from every possible foundation. Sin reaches all people, all cultures, and certainly all times of life.
No education will be perfect. Even an ideal earthly education is not rigorously controlled and will by nature include unsavory and even dangerous ideas.
Neither of those excuses flippancy in this part of a child’s life.
All I can say is what I believe is the most reasonable position. Everyone who thinks having children is important, or even is having a child by mistake, would assess what education is well-fit for producing mature adults long before making decisions about those children’s education. It is far easier to adjust a plan prepared ahead of time than to make up a standard with no time to prepare. Better yet, I would prefer if we would all assess and create standards for the sorts of media, cultural influences, and society to which we will willingly allow or encourage their child to be exposed, and then cut those influences out of our own lives. As much as our children will learn from everything, they will learn most from parents’ friends, speech, actions, and choices of entertainment.
That said, people who already have kids can still take time and make the same assessment. It is never too late. (It might be more difficult.)
Your kids will learn anything you put in front of them. If you want them to be virtuous Christians, you might have to put some thought into what and who they regularly see.
Thanks for reading! I’m not currently a father so I would love to know what parents think about this. Leave a comment below with examples you know of thoughtful (or flippant) parenting!
(No real children were used in the images for this article.)
I'm a fan - but as with all of us who think about such things, how do we act in it?
"I would prefer if we would all assess and create standards for the sorts of media, cultural influences, and society to which we will willingly allow or encourage their child to be exposed"
What standards do you suggest, though? Standards certainly do already exist to inform society what content is present in a work of media. Film ratings, the ESRB, music label content warnings.... Some children's TV channels (an abhorrent concept) even have their own content advisories at the beginning of each show, saying what the show intends to discuss and teach. Isn't that what you're asking for?
So it's clearly not just the existence if standards, but the existence of standards which are what you support and want for your kids. So what standards are those? How do you measure them? How are you certain that they are adoptable by society? What if people are perfectly fine with the standards we have in place right now? I hope that's not the case, but clearly there hasn't been a big enough push to adjust or augment existing standards, or else we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today.
Maybe, just maybe, adults need to lead by example, rather than policing more things. While I know that's more or less what you're calling for, that would be the laziest response. Rather than someone taking an interest in their child's frequented media (or even their own), those who do not pay attention are likely to simply make blanket standards that are just as lazy as their earlier disinterest. Simply "making standards" as a blanket statement, or worse, a bureaucratic stamp of approval or disapproval is like putting a shock collar on a dog rather than actually taking the time to train the dog. Unless those in authority take the time to verify media for themselves, they are in no position to judge or restrict others.
Which leads back to the question of: what is good media? How do we know? I think you and I would agree that most of what is served up (spongebob, for instance) is loathsome for anyone, let alone children. Should children be shielded from anything and everything evil? At what point are they permitted to learn of the existence of evil things? How do they guard against that which they do not know? An obvious answer is to teach your children in the way that they should go, so that they can discern for themselves if something does not deserve to be read, watched, or discussed, but if some concepts are truly foreign to them... What happens when they get curious, and old enough to research for themselves? Dangerous futures lie that way, especially in a world where internet access can be hidden in someone's pocket.
I agree that adults should keep a watchful eye on what media and cultural influences they consume, especially in front of their (or others'!) kids. But what standards can one look to to actually find what is good? Are strict ratings and rules and new, better networks the answer? How are people to be educated to find out for themselves?