McBloggy's Blog

From high-fructose corn syrup to a higher power and back again

Posted by: Katherine McDuffee

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:15 PM

Like all parents I spend quite a bit of my time wondering how I am doing as a parent. If I give my daughter juice will it deplete her insulin supply thereby making her more vulnerable to the diabetes that runs in our family? If I refuse to give her the juice when she is sick will she become dehydrated? Those are just the easy questions.

We all hope to instill in our children certain values. We all carry a value system that in one way or another defines who we are. We are charged as parents to impart our wisdom to our children. After that it is up to them.

Teaching our children about our faith is simple in some ways. Our children watch us every second. My daughter has already started to pick up my grammar issues. She zeros in on the exact word you hoped she had not heard. The thing is she manages to pick up more than just the bad stuff.

When she sits down to “read” her Bible she takes a few moments to pray first. When my husband and I speak of the need to pray for someone she insists that we do it right that instant. She refuses to go to bed until mommy or daddy prays with her (that is at least in part a distractionary tactic). She will tell you that God made the birds, the trees, and even the pigtailed girl in front of you.

She picks up more than just that. We are Christians though my husband and I practice our faith in different ways. She sees the difference in the way we pray. She knows that daddy takes Communion at one church and mommy does at another (we always go to both churches as a family). We hope one day we will be able to worship in a more unified way. We pray our way through the divisive doctrinal issues. There are thousands of small ways in which we differ in our faith and a few big ones. Our goal is the same. We worship the same God.

We do not prescribe to the all-things-being-equal philosophy that everyone is equally right.  We believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. Faith requires you have faith. We hope that every parent and every person takes their beliefs seriously no matter what those beliefs are. We are not demoralized by other beliefs. We will respect you all the more for it even if we disagree. (That said you are welcome to come to church with us and find out what we are about. Try it! You might like it.)

In the end we hope to wind up with kids that love God and their neighbors. After all, those are the most important commandments. We want them to love their brothers and sisters in Christ (even those that worship differently) and love others regardless of their chosen faith or lack thereof. We do not believe in tolerance. Tolerance is for wimps. We strive not to merely tolerate, but to love.

And to limit our children’s sugar intake.

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