I have a fourteen-year-old high school freshman at home. I have a thirteen-year-old eighth-grader and an eleven-year-old fifth grader, too. They attend some great public schools. My wife and I are active participants in their lives and educations. We’re proud of our kids.
Having said that, if I ever saw my kids participating in disgraceful displays like the nationwide climate change school walkout we witnessed? I’d surrender as a parent. I certainly wouldn’t be proud of them and I’d have to wonder where I went wrong.
The young climate cultists’ screaming, stomping, ranting, and in some cases tears of fear conjured in me not what these young protesters were aiming to achieve. They didn’t inspire or animate me. They made me feel deep sadness and pity. Not for the atmosphere or the Earth, but for them.
I don’t hold my own kids up as particularly unique. Nor is my parenting. To be very clear, my kids aren’t perfect and I’m a flawed parent. I often ponder my behaviors and words and how they might impact the course of their history or frame of mind as they grow.
Constantly I’m self-auditing, hoping to set a good example but also to catch and correct the bad examples I set. Of which there have been too many to count. Despite what I do for a living both on-air and here in writing, I don’t lecture my kids on my political beliefs over dinner or in the car.
If my kids learn a left-leaning concept from a relative or teacher and we overhear it or they ask us about it, my wife and I never attack the messenger. We diplomatically and respectfully walk our kids through questions to challenge the point of view they’ve been fed.
Critical thinking is what it’s called. Not a new concept to you if you’re reading this, I’m certain. It’s not teaching people what to think, but to challenge them how to think. It’s simply reasoning, deduction, and the humility to know what we don’t know.
My friend, meteorologist Joe Bastardi, has become a lightning rod for daring to simply question the orthodoxy of climate change alarmists. The true believers of man made climate change viciously attack him simply because he questions. Rather than even debate the merits of the argument, Bastardi once said something that really hit home for me.
“I’m willing to admit I could be wrong. I’m willing to admit there are things we don’t know. Why aren’t they willing?” Those are questions rooted in humility. You must possess humility to even entertain the possibility you’re wrong or don’t have all the answers. But humility isn’t natural. It’s taught. It’s learned. So what’s the source of humility?
It’s the thing my wife and I work harder at than anything else when raising our children. It’s THE thing central in our lives and we hope it will be for them throughout their lives as well.
Our family’s humility is found in the worship of our Lord.
Please don’t read this as a suggestion there’s a right way or a wrong way to be a good person or to be humble. If you’re someone who finds your source of humility in other ways, that’s great. If you don’t believe in God or something greater than human kind, I have no beef with you.
As for our home, we always operate from the assumption He’s bigger than us and is fully in control at all times. He formed us and the place we call home and while we believe in being good stewards, not polluting, etc. – we certainly are not ready to surrender our quality of life because of the false religion that our cars, hamburgers, and light bulbs make hurricanes stronger or cause fires in the Amazon.
I want my kids to have a sense of something bigger and respect for things vastly out of their control. Those kids weeping and screaming about the climate need something more in their lives. They need adults to explain the majesty of nature and the billions of years of violent climate change on this planet before we ever arrived.
That we even exist in this perfect balance is nothing short of a miracle. We can no more destroy this perfect balance than we could’ve created it.
Our time on this planet is less than a grain of sand in an hourglass, and we are but a speck while we’re here. But to the culture of political and social media mobs, the entire world seems as if it’s at their fingertips and in their total control with a click of a send button.
Can you imagine being a pre-teen or early teen and thinking there’s no point in dreaming about your future? It’s one thing if it’s natural depression, which is very real struggle. But it’s quite another if that depression is learned and adopted because of fatalistic, political indoctrination from adults.
Hyper-partisan, political adults are misleading, abusing, and scaring our children leaving them feeling hopeless and desperate. The alarming rate of suicide and depression among America’s youth is skyrocketing. When you’re a kid and told you have ten years to live and the adults don’t care to save you, it’s not hard to understand.
American kids shouldn’t be filled with despair over secular, fake news when they should instead be filled with hope and joyful expectancy of the Good News.