01 Jun 2010 Wake Up, Lazy Parents! by Mychal Massie

Wake Up, Lazy Parents! by Mychal Massie (bio)

A pendulum can swing only so far in one direction before it must return. Conservatives should take this to heart as President Obama currently swings America to the far left.

We should take heart because our day will likely come again. But I say likely because, while Obama may only blight the fabric of our republic for a short time, there must be honorable, educated and durable individuals available to clean up the detritus Obama and his minions leave behind.

In an attempt to change the laws of physics and keep the pendulum on the left, progressives have a formidable plan that must be overcome. This responsibility will fall to parents, and that poses problems all by itself.

Those protesting the Vietnam War, for example, didn’t disappear after we abandoned our South Vietnamese allies. They traded their tie-dyed T-shirts and peasant dresses for Dockers and Donna Karan. They now teach at the universities they once protested where they continue the revolution – something former leftist David Horowitz has spent the better part of his life exposing.

As our children enter their formative years, these tenured radicals seek to shape their politics. If a student rebels, the former counterculturists unleash the real wrath of the modern establishment.

We can complain about what happens to our children when they go off to college, but the question that begs an answer is what we are prepared to do about it as parents?

We must arm our children with the truth so that they are able to withstand the wiles of nefarious teachers whose goal is to make our children into replacements for themselves.

Our children can be leaders or followers. Which they become is up to us. It isn’t based on income, the car we drive or even their school they attend. It depends on how important we view our role as parents.

I am speaking specifically of equipping our children with sound biblical, constitutional and historical truth and a political awareness that will prevent them from falling prey to the lies and misrepresentations being dispensed in classrooms today.

But it’s more than political indoctrination that breeds concern.

Your child may be promoted to the next grade each year, but are they truly ready for advancement? If your child just graduated from college, are they really prepared for the world?

How much longer can we afford to lower the expectations of our children and remain the leader of the free world? How many times have you watched a young person in a retail job struggle to make change if the register doesn’t tell him? If young people are unable to do basic computations, how will they know the government is stealing from them?

People naturally want to do what’s important to them. That parents are doing so at the expense of their children is more evident by the day. Parents seemingly relegate their children to underachievement because, regardless of what they claim, the future of their children is not a priority.

The pendulum that now swings far left is beginning to swing back. Will America’s children be prepared to seize upon the opportunity of change and make a difference, or will they ignore it because — in the absence of proper instruction — it has no value to them?

Throughout history, societies have risen, fallen or stagnated on the preparedness of its youth. While I see and speak to young people every day who are prepared and show potential, I am painfully aware of countless numbers who are not. More often than not, they are at-risk because inept parents are content to let someone else do their job or think they are doing enough when they’re not.

One thing is certain: if we don’t prepare our children, the left will. And little portends more darkly for our future than to miss opportunities through a lack of trying.