Author Archives: Barb

Public Policy Shouldn’t Force Moms Into the Workforce

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“…we should make it a legal requirement that all parents of children of school-age or older are gainfully employed.”

It always amazes me when women think they know what’s best for other women. And this gal even thinks her opinion should become law. What is this hostility that some working mothers have for stay-at-home mothers? What’s it to ‘em if other women want to stay at home to raise their own children, often at great financial sacrifice?

Given the lack of jobs for men in many countries, including our own, I think we should be encouraging women to stay home with their children (babies or school-age) if that’s what they want to do. I also think the Fed should stop messing around with monetary policy, because that’s a big reason why so many families are struggling today. When I was a child, a large family could survive just on Dad’s income. Now the median household income has been dropping for years, but housing, food and medical care costs have soared.

Let’s get our governments to figure out what they’re doing wrong instead of trying to force every woman into the workplace so she can earn more money (and pay more taxes) instead of staying home with her children, if that’s what she wants.

 

 

Wounded by God’s People

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Have you ever been mistreated or had your feelings hurt by someone at church or in a Christian homeschool group, or a dear friend or relative? How do you deal with that pain? To be more accurate, how can God help you deal with it?

Writer Anne Graham Lotz has some suggestions. I’ve read several of her books and they’ve all been good, but I especially liked Wounded by God’s People. In it, she uses the Biblical story of Hagar, the slave who Sarah urged her husband Abraham to impregnate in order to hasten God’s promise of nation-building.

Mrs. Lotz is a gifted writer, and is also very empathetic when it comes to her subjects. I learned a lot from this book, and I think others will, too. Definitely worth your time!

 

The Curse of the Smartphone

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I’m so happy to see increasing calls for people to put down their smartphones. It’s about time. I think driving became much more dangerous once people started texting while driving. I hate seeing parents out pushing their little ones in strollers or grocery carts and completely ignoring them because they’ve found someone more interesting on their phones. Then there are the people who can no longer hold a face-to-face conversation with another person without repeatedly checking their phones. Ugh!

I do think cell phones are great for security. I bought my first cell phone about 20 years ago, and I still have a dumbphone. The beauty of it is that I can put it in my pocket on mute and hardly know that it’s there, but if my car doesn’t start, I can give my husband a call without leaving the vehicle. Occasionally, I’ll send one of my kids a text to let them know my ETA, but otherwise I rarely text and don’t really understand what on earth is so important that people need to be calling or texting each other all the time, especially while they’re shopping, at the doctor’s office, etc.

I have to wonder if my dislike of smartphones is just a sign of my impending old age. Are there any young people out there who think like I do? I doubt it.

Monasteries of the Mind

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“Monasteries of the mind are an effort to reconnect with the past and disengage psychologically from the present. For millions of Americans, their music, their movies, their sports, and their media are not current fare. Instead, they have mentally moved to mountaintops or inaccessible valleys, where they can live in the past or dream of the future, but certainly not dwell in the here and now.”

Wow, Victor Davis Hanson is talking about me! I haven’t watched network television in at least ten years. I’ve been to the movies once in almost as many years. My current musical favorite is Count Basie, but on the weekends my husband and I enjoy reruns of Casey Kasem on the radio.

When I was still homeschooling, I hung out with others who also rejected much of popular culture in favor of old books, old movies and old, well, pretty much everything. But I retired from homeschooling several years ago, and left many friends behind when we moved away from the place where we raised our family. So it’s nice to be reminded that I’m not alone.

For many Christians, I think the state of the culture is a real concern. The Bible recommends that we focus on specific things:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8 KJV)

Such things are increasingly unavailable in our modern culture. That’s why we’re forced to retreat to monasteries of the mind.