Family
(Rated M for “Mature”)
by Dr. Patrick Johnston
For men only.
The initial title of this article
was “
By Dr. Patrick Johnston, D.O.
[Print this booklet on 8.5 x 14 legal sized paper; double sided]
For answers to important questions on:
- Birth Control
- Labor and Delivery
- Circumcision
- Breastfeeding vs. Bottle-Feeding
- Vaccines
- Prioritizing your marriage
Children Are a Blessing From God
Children are one of the greatest blessings we will ever have in this life. We invest so much time and energy into our new cars, a bigger home, a better job, more luxuries and recreation, and our retirement, but none of these will accompany us into eternity. Our children are the only gifts God gives us in this life that we can take to heaven with us.
Psalm 127 says, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it… Lo, children are the heritage of he Lord, the fruit of the womb is His reward. As children are in the hands of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them.”
I am so sorry you have to deal with this irrational criticism of your homeschooling. Try to resist the urge to lash out in frustration – I know how tempting it must be. With calmly presented facts and Scripture, perhaps your family will be persuaded.
First of all, the letter your family member sent you is full of bad arguments for public schooling. Your response should be designed to put her on the defensive. You shouldn't have to explain why you are homeschooling (the perfectly natural thing to do for a child whom you love). She should have to explain why she is public schooling and especially why she is discouraging loving parents from leaving the failed public school experiment which has been a dismal failure!
Two informative news reports have emerged in the past month that should call our attention to some desperately needed reforms in the state’s foster system. In late June, a man caught soliciting sex from underage children had footage confiscated of him molesting a boy in his home. I was shocked to discover that this man was a single foster parent who had custody of five foster children in the past.
Does anyone else see the folly of the state granting custody of children to single foster parents? Almost every negative cultural ill – child abuse, poverty, psychological illness, substance abuse, poor school performance, suicide - has higher rates in single parent homes (Family Research Council). Surely there are many loving single parent homes, but even nature teaches us that this is not the ideal and that the complimentary roles of a mother and a father are part of God’s plan for the nurturing and training of children.
The rebuttal comes, “But if we disallow singles and unmarried couples from fostering children, we’ll have less foster homes available for children in need.” I respond with the findings of another surprising article that very week by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that reported that foster children developed better under the care of their natural parents who were investigated for abuse or neglect than in foster care. Foster kids were more likely to drop out of school, commit crimes, abuse drugs, or become teen parents, than if they had stayed with their natural parents. This held true even when compared with other disadvantaged youth.
Is it common sense that God designed that children have a home with a mother and a father? If a crime has been committed against the child, then for God’s sakes, prosecute; but if no prosecutable crime has been committed, leave the kids with their parents. It is the State that commits a crime when it places a troubled child in the home of a sodomite. If a foster home is necessary, place the child in a loving home with a married man and woman. But the state should not be placing parents in the homes of single foster parents or unmarried couples.
Letter to the editor, Times Recorder newspaper, Zanesville, Ohio
Having read so many positive letters to the editor concerning The Foxhole - Zanesville's local smut-bar where one owner tried to murder another owner recently - one would think it is a charitable club that bakes cookies for the elderly, crochetes booties for newborns, and gives free marital counseling for ailing marriages. After all, one citizen told us that it is a “clean club” that is helping single mothers and college students “better themselves,” and that its owner, Mr. George, is a “great man”. And another citizen referred to The Foxhole as merely a place of entertainment. When can I get an appointment to take my husband and five children to visit this clean club for some entertainment and meet this great man, Mr. George? I am always looking for more positive role models for my children!
I. Parents are the Chief Educators of Children
Parents are not only the chief protectors and disciplinarians, but they are also the God-ordained chief educators of their children. After giving His law to Israel, God commands them: “These words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9) Obedience to God’s law is not the only order, but teaching it to your children and assuring their obedience as well.
The God of nature has designed that parents be the chief protectors, educators, and trainers of their children. Humans are born with a clean slate, so to speak, morally and intellectually. It is the responsibility of the parent to train the child in the way that they should go: not only to educate them in the ways of God, but to train and discipline them into compliance.
This tract focuses on the discipline of children, but this is a relatively small part of effective parenting. The child-training the Bible encourages is practiced in the context of love, administered by a parent who truly wants what's best for his or her child, who reads the Bible to them, who takes them to church, who spends time with them, who plays with them, who prays for them, and who leads by example. Angry outbursts, yelling, and uncontrolled violence do not contribute to effective child-training, but work against it. The first step for parents who want to learn to train up their children properly is to respond to God's call to salvation with repentance and faith, to commit ourselves to love God supremely and to love our neighbors - and our children - as ourselves.
When I decided to become a physician, I did not realize how much of my day would be invested in talking to people about their family and marriage problems. It is my favorite part of my calling to be a doctor.
Here are a few examples of marriage and family problems your average family practitioner will see in his office:
> A mother of three young children is in tears, unable to cope with her grief because her husband of five years has left her for another woman. > A fifty-year-old business man is inconsolable as he weeps about his pending third divorce, with no hope for reconciliation. > A fifteen-year-old girl grieves over an incurable sexually-transmitted disease she has acquired from her first boyfriend. > A forty-five year-old woman considers leaving her husband af-ter she discovers that he has been addicted to internet pornography for years and won't give it up. > An eighteen-year-old young man who was molested by an uncle five years earlier struggles with whether or not he is a homosexual.