I’m not a parent. I can only speculate on the best ways to raise children to be productive and self-sufficient people. But as I was discussing similar matters with a friend the other evening when this thought crossed my mind.

“if children are not given some level of independence, they’ll either take it by force or never learn to want it.”

Having done quite a bit of youth ministry, I’m relatively familiar with kids’, namely teenagers’, hang-ups and tendencies. From what I have observed, kids who’s parents hover over them, or fail to give them privacy and independence, seem to cope with it in one of two ways.

First, they may be rebellious. In spite of their parent’s best attempts to protect them from social and emotional danger, the kids find a way to defy their parent’s grasp. From my experience, what usually happens is parents end up trying to tighten the reins, which almost always has the effect of further dividing the parties and ultimately diminishing the parent’s meaningful influence in their kid’s lives.

Or, the alternative seems to be that the kids have difficulty thinking for themselves. For example, a sixteen year old kid probably shouldn’t have to ask their parents if it’s okay to see a particular movie in the theaters—or in a friend’s living room for that matter. Rather, by that time, they ought to be able to have the good judgment to know whether it was a good idea in the first place.

Now, of course, all this is speculation based on a fleeting thought I had. It seems pretty accurate to me from what I’ve seen. But what do you think? What roll does independence play in a child’s development?

My crusade against children’s entertainment continues. Always. I’ve always seemed to focus on how children’s entertainment sexualizes children far too quickly. And, in the process, gives girls a poor sense of self and boys a poor sense of chivalry—or whatever the corresponding idea of today might be.

But this presents something I hadn’t considered. Most of us know that entertainment’s portrayal of love has helped lead to a void of romantic satisfaction among millions of Americans. What I hadn’t considered, however, is how early those ideas are being fed to our children.

I read an article yesterday about a massive, state-wide, high school walk out which was organized primarily on Facebook and Twitter, with the help of text messaging and other social networking tools. About 18,000 students across the state agreed to participate, though the actual number of participants isn’t clear. Among the largest protests was Montclair High School where about 1,900 students (nearly half the student body) left their desks.

The walkout was motivated by increasing cuts in New Jersey’s education budget lead by governor Chris Christie. About $820 million dollars was cut with plans to downsize further.

The demonstration is breathtakingly impressive. That many high school students willing to stand up for themselves and the future of our nation, not to mention risking real disciplinary action, is commendable (at the very least).

Also, the power of social media plainly in action is also quite stunning.

Governor Christie released a statement calling the demonstrations simple “youthful rebellion”. And, calling for the schools to take disciplinary measures. Alan Singer of The Huffington Post aptly made the point that if we’d heard reports of protests like these in China, Russia or Iran, we’d be hailing their efforts to advance democracy and freedom. But here, it’s simple “youthful rebellion” that should be put out before things get out of hand.

Now, I don’t know all the information, but from my perspective that seems pretty ignorant to me. As much as the youth have to learn from the older generation, the older generation has a great deal to learn from the youth as well. Unfortunately, the older generation usually fails to acknowledge that fact. Instead, they tend to proudly deny the input as angst, or simply something they don’t understand yet. But they often do, just with less tact and from a dramatically different perspective.

Whether or not the budget cuts in New Jersey’s education system are a good decision or not, I don’t know. But I do know that these high-school students ambition and courage should be commended, not stifled. After all, as Singer points out, “What education officials failed to realize was that the real education was taking place in the streets and parking lots… and the children shall lead.”

Ah, the never ending saga of my hatred for virtually everything the entertainment industry produces for kids. This morning while I was picking up some Dunkin’ Donuts coffee from the grocery store (it’s actually quite good), I found this in the check out isle. Sorry, it’s a little blurry. I know, I’m a photographer, but there’s only so much a guy can do in a dimly-lit grocery store with a cell phone camera.

I have a good idea, how about we let kids be kids and not infect them with an interest in “Taylor’s Ex-Friends” or Justin Beiber’s “Secret Celebrity Crushes”.

A woman in Massachusetts is being charged on murder and manslaughter claims of two children. Both were stabbed to death. That’s pretty hard to read. It’s pretty hard to write too.

Well, today was the annual March for Life in Washington DC where prolife supporters from all over the country come and show their disgust for the brutal legislation.

What does that have to do with a murderous mother of two deceased children? One of those children wasn’t even born yet!

What kind of a ridiculous double standard is this? A woman can walk into a doctors office and have her child dismembered and vacuumed out of her body. In a lot of places, your tax dollars will even help her do it. But, if she walked into her bathroom and plunged a blade through her abdomen into the child, she’d be convicted as a murderer.

Is there a reason our country doesn’t see the double standard? Ridiculous.

The public schools in our area are closed today, so my ten year old niece was home. We ate lunch at McDonalds this afternoon, along with my mother. At the restaurant, my niece ran into a classmate who also happened to be out with his family.

The boy wasn’t someone that my niece was really friends with. Just acquaintances from school. But within seconds of seeing him in the restaurant, she had struck up a conversation and staked out a seat for us next to him and his family. By the end of the meal, she’d asked to invite him over to play for the afternoon.

I spent most of the time amazed at how safe the two of them felt building a friendship with one another. It struck me that that kind of social confidence isn’t something you find very often in adults. We’ve all usually had too many bad experiences, so we keep virtually everyone at arms length until they can prove, in some respect, that being in an actual friendship with them is safe.

It makes me wonder what our personal and corporate ministry endeavors would look like if we threw caution to the wind and simply pursued relationships with one another regardless of the risk.

Because, it seems to me, that ministry and evangelism and discipleship happen both in and out of this kind of relational caution. But when we have our guard up and aren’t honest about it, I think we do a lot more damage than good. It could be argued that it’s from that kind of fear that the church got the holier-than-thou reputation. In an attempt to defend themselves from being hurt by other people, they put on whatever costume is necessary—and it’s totally inauthentic and thus, ultimately ineffective.

Although I’m far from being the one confident enough to lead this charge, I must wonder what it would look like for a small community to decide together that the risk of being hurt is less than the benefit of authentic ministry.

I don’t remember a whole lot about this story. I remember looking at the pictures, and I remember it being read to me. But I don’t remember too many other details. I was really young.

But, I remember enough that the images (as they are for many) are burned into my memory as some kind of childhood staple. Although, I can’t say too much else about it.

Well, if you haven’t heard, Where The Wild Things Are is hitting the big screen in October. It’s directed by Spike Jonez. It might be the nostalgia, or it might just be a really well done preview, but either way, every time I see it I get very excited.

Another element of this clip that I can’t seem to get enough of is the featured song. It’s called Wake Up by the Arcade Fire. Here’s a song that’s been lying quietly on my computer, literally, for four years since it’s release, but I never gave it the time of day.

It’s absolutely worth listening to. Which you can do here for free thanks to imeem.com. Seriously, go listen to it.