Running the race

Read the paper today? Anything that caught your fancy? There’s a kind of news that we see everyday in the paper that there’s a danger of us just glossing over it and hardly giving it a second thought. The kind of news? Crime news.

Every day we read of either a stabbing, a kidnapping, a rape, a robbery, a smuggling, a heist, a snatch theft, a shootout, a cheating, a corruption, a murder, a bribery, and so it goes. Has our society really gone so far down the moral ladder that we have come to accept such happenings as part of our life? Doesn’t it make you wonder where we have gone wrong?

Sure, we can put the blame on the usual suspects: the tv, music, the internet, bad company, yadda-yadda. But, have we looked closer to home? I personally feel that the family is largely to blame – rather the break-up of the family unit. Divorce rates are sky-rocketing, pre-marital sex is becoming more rampant (and with it unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children), and children are often left to their own devices while mommy and daddy work hard ‘for the family’. Marriage seems to have lost its lustre and meaning. Can children find stability in such an environment? Will such an environment enable children to face and shun the many enticing temptations that will come their way as they grow older?

I see the effects of growing up in such an environment in the lives of my students in school. They often skip school, and when they do come, they look scruffy, in un-ironed uniforms, uncombed hair, and without any motivation to study. Not all fit this bill though. Some look well groomed. But, always, always, they have problems with their attendance and they are far behind in their studies.

I shudder to think what the country will be like if more and more of these unguided children should grow up to be adults with similar dispositions.

Just last Sunday at church, a friend shared how important the family is. He said the family is the only place where the child must receive unconditional love, because the world at large is strictly conditional. Wise words, when I think about it. Home should be the primary source for values, and where the child can turn to for encouragement and love without hesitation.

I’m thinking about this because Adelle is picking up things so quickly! Anything that you say or do, she’ll mimic very quickly. And she has no capacity to filter the good from the bad! That’s the worry. So, we try to be careful of our speech and behaviour, and try to be consistent in both our training and disciplining of Adelle and pray that she'll move in the right direction.

So, to myself, my wife and all parents, let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Adelle praying with daddy before dinner