Values Versus Pop Culture
by Ellen C. Braun
Filed under Controversial Parenting Styles, Values & Ethics, Words of Inspiration!
No matter where you live and how sheltered you keep your family, Western values are infiltrating our households.
How do you prevent American values (i.e. that beauty, wealth, and power are the keys to happiness and success) from taking hold in your children’s mind?
What is an effective manner to convey that religious and family values are superior to pop culture?
How have you personally managed to hold onto what is real as opposed to what is currently glittering?
Share your thoughts here:
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Most Important Tip- Family night devotion as many nights a week as you can. Get a simple book on it, read the silly little stories, everyone use their bible to look up the key verse, and pray. It only takes 15 minutes and the dishes can wait!!
TALK not always so good!!!! I wish my parents had censored my life more and talked less!!
I read several of the blogs and saw some great tips. I thought I would add something I didnt see in my reading.
Limited exposure according to their age is a parents right and duty.
True you can talk about things you watch on tv together but the images they see are burned into their brains forever.
Example: When my son was 9 he saw breasts on TV when he was changing the channel to cartoons. I was home but not there at that moment. Several nights later he was crying at bedtime because he couldnt get that image out of his mind and he thougt he was not a saved Christian anymore. No one ever told him that was dirty or wrong and true we did TALK about it because I am definately a communicator. After that i was very careful of things that rely heavy on boy /girl relationships in movies and tv.
I believe in proving a shelter for my children, not sheltering them.
when their friends were seeing PG movies at 5 & 6 mine were not, playing nintendo or playstation rated T or worse games at age 8 mine were and still arent. It makes a difference!!!
My son will tell you every dirty word he knows some kid told him at school. I expected that, but I love the fact that he wasnt the one doing the telling. He also respects the fact that it is not allowed at home or anywhere else. When I hear other kids “slip up” and use near curse words, I rest assured that my children speak more positively because their ears were kept pure until it was out of my control.
Hello Ellen,
this is a comment to Misty’s post.
I am pretty upset how she can depict a woman’s breast as ‘dirty’.
The woman’s breast in itself isn’t the dirty thing, it is what some people associate with it.
Also, God didn’t have us ‘enter this world’ with clothes on, so if people like Misty screw up their kids head up that nudity is dirty, than what do you think children will think of themselves growing up? …. will they think that people in general are bad, dirty, despicable?
I do strongly believe in God, God-Source, Creator God for sure, what I am truly feeling sad about is when every time I hear people falling trap to religious dogma, which is man made to control man, so people are feeling bad about themselves and their insecurity can be exploited by others.
I am from Europe and I can tell you that there is a difference between nudity and “nudity”. Nudity is a natural part of a person’s Being and I feel it is better to educate our children about the differences in gender than making a big secret about it by giving them the vibe that there is something ‘really bad that needs to be hidden’.
How ridicolous is that?
God gave humans a body for a reason! How can she say that God’ Creation is dirty?
The body in itself is loving and beautiful, it is the Adult-Industry that perverts everything and man’s mind that creates the adversities, so I feel it is this lady’s own thought approach right here that is questionable, in my opinion.
I am sure all her little boy saw was possibly some shower-gel commercial and she made a big deal out of it.
I agree, we are to be very careful with what type of thought-vibes we imprint on our kids, most of all the thought-vibrations that stem from our own minds and then ‘make them believe’ what we believe is truth, and all other people that don’t share the same thought are wrong, so this way a child growing up is already stripped of the free will of choice to make their own experiences and to think for themselves.
Don’t people like Misty know that each human being has their own soul to take care of, to co-create together with God by following guidance through ones’ intuitive mind within, and that all people are protected by God through God’s Divine Love, if parents would just stop to over-exaggerate and let their children be, by refraining from becoming so called helicopter parents.
Nudity in itself doesn’t do any harm, it’s those so called overly religious people’s mind saying that the body is dirty, that cause just as much damage in a child than the Adult-Industry.
How can you say that God’s creations are dirty?
Ask yourself this, Misty?
Are you dirty? … because you walk on this planet within a body?
I am sorry, but this is truly too much ….. I feel sorry for you.
You are a beautiful Spiritual Being having a Physical Experience here on Earth. That having been said may give you some reason to think about What and Who God really is!
Please enlighten yourself with a little more educational things when it comes to the difference between Man-Made Dogma and the Truth of God that God wanted for people to understand, live and perceive according to his/her Divine Will, and not what you THINK God wanted for humanity.
Enough said,
wishing Love, Peace and Light into your Heart my Dear,
Yvonne.
PS: A wonderful Read is THE MASTER KEY SYSTEM, by Charles F. Haanel. You can google it first and get some information before you buy it.
Our famiiy takes every occassion to thank God for everything we have. The bible says, every good and perfect gift comes from God and I believe it…We’re so blessed to have what we have. We also know that money answers lots of things but it doesn’t cure terminal illness, take away depression, stop problems from coming to our lives. If we take a good look third world countries have more hospitality, spirituality and community life than us isolated, independent minded westerners…
Dear Ana,
all good things in life come from God, Creator Source, God most High!
It is the art of the human mind to be able to tap into these energies that God has provided each and every soul with. It is how one is able to control one’s mind by only allowing loving and compassionate feelings into one’s mind and therefore one’s actions are also of good nature.
To live life on the God-Level of BEING (within one’self in order to emanate outwards) it means to be healthy in the mind first. When one is healthy in the mind one is able to attract good things into one’s life and therefore is able to give back to others may this be in form of physical help, food, shelter, knowledge and wisdom and even with money! Why not Money? Money in itself isn’t anything bad. It is what one may decide to do with the money that could make things bad, just like with everything else. Money is an energy culminated by a belief system long ago, when it became common to store gold and silver by being given a signed piece of paper over the certain amount from the person that hosted the ‘store house’ of these goods. Back then it was hard to travel with so much metal in one’s pockets. It then became common to trade these papers amongst each other when it so happened that 80% of the gold and silver owners never came to pick up their goods from the ‘store house’ and rather traded with the paper that said: I OWE YOU!
The paper itself doesn’t carry any value, Ana it is the belief that makes it valuable.
So, Energy in all Forms is made by God so therefore Energy including money-energy is not a bad thing as it is neutral, until a person (the ego) decides which thought-emotion will be attached to this energy and therefore which action will result out of this. It is the Law of Cause and Effect!
God loves all the Children (and adults) the same, so God gave everybody equal opportunities to create one’s life via FREE WILL OF CHOICE.
It is the wisest human being that is blessed and bestowed by God’s Glory by being able to still understand and to live by GOD-LAW despite of all the metaphors and re-written so called ‘holy books’ and not having gotten distracted by the human ego-mind that has been fighting for eons to dominate one’s own peers, and therefore has broken God’s Laws already.
Once you know all this, none of the so called Tools that are offered to live life abundantly, in health, wealth, love, mental strength and spirituality are intentionally bad, it is what each person decides to think and to feel about them. Every negative thought means to shun what God has brought forth into one’s life, as Everything and All There Is, is of God, because God is Reality, not what we think SHOULD BE! To argue with Reality is insane and to tell God that God made a mistake. God doesn’t make mistakes, only humans do
So, if again one feels that the Pop-Culture is something bad, then don’t make it part of your life, or if you make it a part of your life make sure you utilize this opportunity to do Good with it! Teach your kids to dance and have fun with it! Dancing is healthy! Create your own songs that speak of positive messages of love and compassion, and simply help to bring about positive change within the pop-culture itself by bringing in your own ideas for example.
Just a thought.
Love,
Yvonne.
Dearest Mislead Yvonne,
Apparently you did not read my post carefully or you would have realized that you have falsely accussed me of reffering to a breast as dirty. I even stated that no one had evet said that in my household. We were made in God’s image so of coarse we are a beautiful creation. Adam and Eve sealed our fate of covering ourselves in Genesis. ( maybe they dont cover that in Europe)
I would like an apology for generalizing me and falsely accusing me when you do not know me.
i would also like to inform you that it was not a shower gel commercial it was an adult type ( not saying porn of coarse) that had a naked lady- Probably from Europe,Yvonne I am sure you would be familiar with the program.
I feel sorry for you for attacking people here when this is a terrific source of information. THe real God from the bible ( you know, right?) says to keep our minds pure and free from unholy things. He also says we are born unclean with a sinners heart until we give our lives over to him and he gives us a new heart full of his fruits of the spirit. I would be happy to talk more about this with you Yvonne.
It is sad that you have left your soul up to yourself. You will fail everytime. Please trust your soul to Jesus. He is God who came to Earth as a man, lived here sinless, died and was buried for our sin. And being God, rose agian and ascended to heaven so we could have faith in knowing that he will joyously return to Earth one day to claim his throne and call up to heaven all the souls who believed and committed to God our loving father.
Please do not feel sorry for me. I would love to hear from you when your children have graduated high school or college and compare their experiences to my own childrens’. It is my opinion that you almost can not shelter a child enough these days from the filth on TV ( yes commercials Yvonne) and the worldliness that my children live in but are not of.( that is from the bible too Yvonne in case you are not familiar.
You are precious to God.
Everyone sins. Jesus suffered much and died for your sins. Anyone can ask Him to forgive them and that they want Him in their lives forever. This is the way to true peace in God. I Have that, do you??
Phil. 4:13
We made the decision when our son was a baby to get rid of cable TV. The only channel we do get is PBS and we are comfortable with the programming there.
We also decided not to get any sort of video gaming unit. We want him to use his imagination and not get sucked into images all the time. Of course he does get the occasional exposure to TV at grandparents or friends houses. But because we’ve never had it he doesn’t complain. My husband and I are very anti-mainstream and like to think outside the box. So our son has learned to do the same.