They've Come For Your Children; the Sin of Low Expectations & A New Favorite Book on Economics
They’re Coming They’ve Already Come For Your Children, With Government Funding
Well, no doubt many of you have read/watched/listened to the fury arising from the latest edge of the envelope that has been pushed by the We Love to Devour the Souls of Children Crowd aka Drag Queens. I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh back in the mid-90s talk about Drag Queen Story Hour. As a mere 19-year-old, I didn’t fully understand what a cultural phenomenon it would become to have brutish, perverted men dressed as women cavorting on center stage while traumatizing, sexualizing, and (dare we say) grooming the next generation of children who are barely potty-trained.* These are the same men (?) who are regularly invited into public schools and public libraries across our country to - get this - read aloud to children?! Reading aloud is one of the most powerful ways to pass along cultural memory, stir up affections, and create bonding; how crafty they are to choose such an effective means by which to shape affections. Every single school administrator and librarian who has ever been complicit in such a story hour should be charged with child abuse.
But I digress.
While the Drag Queens (do they have an agent? a consortium? how does one get bookings?) used to visit the “safe” places you already brought your children to, times are a-changing. Now a whole slew of duped parents are willing to bring their own flesh and blood and plop them down in chairs inches from what a generation ago would still be considered X-rated pornography. The reprobates no longer have their work cut out for them! The lackeys (formerly known as parents) have so imbibed the Koolaid that they are happily sacrificing their own children on the altar of the The Sexual Revolution That Can’t End. May God mercifully restrain his judgment against such a nation that tolerates - nay - promotes and institutionalizes such wickedness.
While strip clubs might be too much for most of middle America, the Smithsonian is a bastion of historical imagination, where educated, history-loving families go for the summer, is it not? Except when the Smithsonian puts on a Family-Friendly Drag Queen Parade. (I’m sorry, it’s so hard to write these sentences…) So can we add the the entire Smithsonian staff to the list of child predators who should be prosecuted?
Child abuse may seem to be a bit hyperbolic, but it’s not. After all, look at what Fox News promoted earlier this week: a beautiful middle-class California family who is the new face for transgenderism. Their female toddler probably exhibited tomboy behavior, and within a short amount of time, only God knows what drugs were injected into this poor girl such that now she is a 14-year-old who claims to be a boy. And her manicured family sits next to her and proclaims this to be as true as the emperor wearing clothes of silk. It is heart-breaking to watch, and a sign of the normalization efforts that are well underway to abuse and destroy children who are made in the image of God. If you watch the Fox clip, you’ll see the self-identified Christian mom claim that the reason they encouraged their daughter to “become” a son is because she is made in the image of God. Let that be a reminder of the state of the American church.
Now, since we have more than a lone bee in our bonnet - action must be taken. What action? I don’t mean protests or online petitions. I mean spreading LIGHT and creating CULTURE wherever you go. Yes, these Drag Queen lunatics should all be arrested and prosecuted. But apart from law enforcement and legislative action to protect children, what can you do - Mrs. I’m Just a Mom on Main Street Trying To Get Dinner On the Table? You can start off every single morning praying, Lord, show me how to use the gifts you have given our family. Show me exactly what you are calling each of these children to do. Make my children bearers of light, my sons honorable and valiant, my daughters faithful and focused.
The irony of all ironies is that as the Drag Queen news was roaring across Twitter-dom earlier this week, my two oldest daughters were hosting their third summer of camps for young children. They brought these impressionable souls to the feet of some of the greatest poets, storytellers, and musicians who ever lived. They poured their own loves into other children to teach them how to love what is lovely. When my teen girls share beauty with children, they are more powerful than any feminist super-hero tripe could imagine them to be. There is power in beauty that is restrained; there is power in love that is given freely; and there is power in pouring out of one needy soul to another.
We cannot panic. We can create and we can pray and thus exercise far more influence than the strip club owners can ever hope to. Because at the end of it all, Light wins. Darkness is banished. And the Kingdom is fully realized, a perfection where we never have to witness such wickedness again.
*In case you have missed the furor, here are some good links to read: here, here, and here. Beware of watching the linked videos in these articles. If you have even the slightest bit of heart, you will cry at the sight of kindergarteners giving $10 bills to strippers with a sickeningly strange fascination on their faces.
The Curse of Low Expectations
Last week my 17-year-old was re-reading Do Hard Things (which she highly recommends) and was chuckling about a section wherein the authors describe the “average” expectations for teenagers in America as it relates to chores. She highlighted the page that listed average chores that could reasonably be expected from teens, and it boiled down to: make your bed and do one more chore per week. I read this aloud to everyone and much hootin’ and hollerin’ ensued. I have often said that I’d like one of these nimrods from the Ivy League who needs a cuddly teddy bear and a coloring book to deal with a Supreme Court justice nomination to try to live in my house for 1 week. I can promise you the fragile future lawyer has never done a lick of chores in her life. Work is fundamentally tied to character. (Read the book of Proverbs if you’re not convinced,) If anyone wants to come see Burr Bootcamp, they are welcome to. Children who do laundry, scrub floors, dust, make dinner, take care of pets, mow, pull weeds, clean toilets, change sheets, organize pantries, do dishes, and help take care of younger siblings on a daily and weekly basis - these are the people you want running your homes, businesses, towns, states, and federal governments. Not some namby-pamby teenager who is asked to make her bed when it’s convenient.
Speaking of namby-pamby teenagers: as a mother of the decidedly non-namby pamby ilk, the first two monthly issues of Madeleine’s The Lavender Quill have received rave reviews from her subscribers. You can subscribe at any time in the year! Don’t like Drag Queen Hour? The Lavender Quill will be balm for your soul.
My New Favorite Book on Economics for Young People
After hearing the author interviewed on a couple of podcasts, I ordered Visible Hand, and read the book over the course of two days. It is humorous, enjoyable, insightful, and certainly the most accessible “economics” book one will ever come across. The author, Matthew Hennessey, is an op-ed editor for the Wall Street Journal, and he wrote the book for his children to read as they left the nest, as sort of a compilation of all the Dad talks/lectures he has given them over the years. Anyone who quotes my favorite living economist Thomas Sowell earns infinite bonus points, but Sowell isn’t the only brilliant thinker he quotes. I am having my rising senior and sophomore girls read it this summer. Even while I don’t have concerns about any socialist sympathizers in my house, I think this book will be excellent reinforcement for my children - and any high school or college-age student who wants a bit more ammo, in a conversational style, about why markets are God’s gift to us all, why pursuing your family’s economic interests helps everyone thrive, and why life is fundamentally about trade-offs.
Anecdote: just a couple weeks ago, my 9-year-old started crying when I stated in a very matter-of-fact way: “well, we had a massive Costco trip today so we won’t be able to eat out for the rest of this month.” She interpreted this as, “we’re all going to be living in a cardboard box eating sardines out of a tin can by the end of the month.” And then her siblings tried to explain to her, with much amusement, that because we decided to spend money at Costco, that meant we would not be able to spend money at Chic Fil-A, Pieology, Shake Shack, whatever the choice happens to be for the once-a-week night out. It doesn’t mean we are poor; it just means we had a choice to make with those dollars, and our dollars are a limited resource. I would wager that my 4th grader received a better education in economics in that 30-second conversation with her siblings than 90 percent of high schoolers are able to receive in America. :)
Favorite quotes from Visible Hand:
Life is about trade-offs.
Economic freedom breeds political freedom and keeps power-hungry dingbats at bay. Dictators hate free markets because markets don’t always do what they’re told. They only obey the laws of supply and demand.
Doing what’s good for you often is the best thing you can do for society.
To choose one option meant giving up another option. You can’t have everything you want. That’s the heart of economics.
If economics is fundamentally about choice, so is the Christian life. What will you choose to do with your life this week?
Until next time,
Allison