The Message

I decided not to put an entry in for a specific date. Part of my reason for this is because for the last three days my ISP has not allowed me to upload to Geocities. This has aggravated me and frustrated me beyond belief so this morning I cancelled.

Over the past few days I have been in a rhetorical debate on a message board with a hyper-Calvinist. He wants to bring back an Old Testament Theocracy, kill all non-Christians who deny Christ and have a country that will dominate and control all other countries through whatever means. I feel pretty sick every time I read a post from that hideous person. I have been struggling with my "faith" for sometime. Questioning, doubting my beliefs in God, and the whole Christian perspective. Pursuing debates with weirdos does not help my struggle with this at all.

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The children have been driving me absolutely nuts. MsEm decided that she was going to test me by defying me right after I got onto her for chewing her nails. I had told her that if she continued chewing her nails (which were at the point of bleeding and she id 4) that I was going to take away her computer privileges and turn off the movie she was watching (Wild Child was viewing it too). No sooner had I said it did she have her fingers back in her mouth chewing her nails. I promptly turned off the movie and told her she had lost her privileges. Then the sobs started, saying how she wanted to watch the movie. I explained to her that because she disobeyed, not following my rules that was her punishment. Wild child who really didn't care about the movie went on to play something else, when MsEm told me that I needed to turn the movie back on so Wild Child could watch it. I told her that wild Child could not watch the movie either. MsEm whined and cried that I wasn't being fair to Wild Child since she had not done anything wrong. So I did the best parenting maneuver I could think of, reflecting on the events of last week in Colorado, and said "Sometimes when we make bad choices, when we get in trouble for doing something wrong, it hurts innocent people." This stunned her and then whined that it wasn't fair. "Life isn't fair Em", I told her.

I think training children to take responsibility for their actions while they are young, explaining to them that the choices they make now will and often do effect others will help in producing moral adults. I often wonder while watching CNN or the nightly news on Littleton if the parent's of all the children in that school taught their children and explained to their children that the choices they make, the words they say effect others, whether it be positively or negatively. I not only wonder this about the shooters' parents but those of the children who shoved, picked on and ridiculed those in the "trench coat Mafia". I know a lot has been said about this horrible incident and so I will I not write on this further.