Saturday, August 23, 2008

On the family - 2

Question 6 What do you believe are some of the shifts in family values since you have
become a parent while adhering to the Anglican moral code?

Well, I am not quite sure what the question is trying to get at... but I have noticed that people in the community are crying out for guidance as to how to be good parents. Parenting is an enormously fraught business, and it makes us extremely vulnerable in a lot of ways. I am amazed at the quality and the passion of discussion in magazines like 'Sydney's Child'. What I have noticed too is that while people might have a personal morality which is quite libertarian and agnostic, they are sending their kids to church schools in droves. They are somehow not happy with their kids being taught liberal values in the state system. I am not sure they are 100% signed up to what Christian and church schools are offering, but they can see that having 'Christian values' is a lot better than what the state systems are offering.

I have noticed that some parents are afraid to discipline their children at all for fear of crushing the spirit and expressive creativity of the child. We are not, I would have thought, strict parents: we don't smack our children, for example. And I am all for encouraging creativity and spontaneity in children, and allowing them to enjoy themselves. But we have encountered parents who don't discipline their children AT ALL.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think they are sending their children to Christian schools because of morality, or because the majority of Christian schools are private and therefore it is assumed a better quality of education?

I would have assumed the latter.

michael jensen said...

Good question... I think certainly the academic results are a large factor. But not all the church schools do well academically... the low fee paying schools in Sydney's west are attracting students in droves. Also, the better quality of education I would have thought is linked to the 'values' on offer...