Deep thoughts by me

Last night I was watching a lady talk about raising children up for success. I was surprised to hear her talk about a lot of the same values and ideas that I have. I guess I had assumed that non-LDS had very different values, and here was this woman who is MUCH stricter with her kids! I was amazed. She admitted to being a prude with pride. It was gratifying for me to see that I am not alone in trying to keep the world away and out of my home. She has not had a TV in her house in 7 years. Her kids do not go to slumber parties. Her 16 year old daughter is finally allowed to date, but only from an approved list, and the perspective date must ask permission from her parents. After all that, the date will be a supervised date!

I was nodding and agreeing with her thoughts until she went off on a few things that I do not agree with. And suddenly I began to think of her as too off the wall and began to discard her views. That's when it hit me. We are letting things get bad (on TV, in the media, in our movies and magazines, in the government) because we can't work together. The majority of the country may believe in God, and may want prayer in school, but all the denominations can't work together because we differ on religious details. And that's why we keep getting more and more liberal. I may think Harry Potter is fine; she may think it teaches evil witchcraft, but we can still agree that Cosmo magazine doesn't belong in front of our kids in the check-out line of the supermarket.

So, the bottom line for me is that I may not agree on all of her religious views, but I sure do agree with a lot of them. And I am really grateful to know that there are other people out there who are super-strict with their kids, who do not buy them cell phones or cars at graduation, who do not let them use the internet unsupervised, and who are not ashamed of it. It gives me more confidence to stand up and say, no, I am not going to let my children do that, and its not okay. Its nice to know I'm not alone.