Brainwashed

or...Part Two of How I Got the Perfect Husband

A couple of months ago I read an article by a father who, after being in the homeschooling movement since the eighties, saw child after child (including his own and friends') turn from the ways of his parents and embrace a totally non-Christian lifestyle. Knowing in his heart that he had done the best he knew how in raising his own children, this distressed father began a quest to figure out what went wrong. I wish I could find the article (and will post it when I do), but essentially he figured out through interviews with his own wayward son and other wayward young adults that the parents had been so focused on outward behaviors that they neglected to form inward spiritual character.

I've thought a lot about what this means to me as I raise my children. What should I focus on and what is not important in the long run? What can I do to give them the best chance at making the right choices in the future? Well, I don't really know, but I can find at least one answer in my own upbringing- brainwashing using stories!

Every night Mom would read stories to my sister and me. For several years we went through a Christian series by Uncle Arthur called Bedtime Stories (I think). The stories were usually kind of sappy and dealt with things like obeying Mother, being a nice friend, not being selfish, etc. Looking back I'm sure that these stories all had somewhat of a "moral" influence on me. However, one story made a huge impact on me and inadvertantly led me to...the perfect husband.

In this story a little girl is preparing to visit her Aunt for dinner. Before she leaves, her mother explains to her that poor Auntie is married to a man who is not a Christian. During the prayer before dinner the little girl notices that the man did not close his eyes in reverance and she is filled with sorrow. I remember while listening to the story the huge sorrow I too felt for "Auntie" and her bad choice concerning a spouse.

As a young adult, this story haunted me while I was dating a non-Christian. In fact, a portion of it was actually relived: This man visited me one morning at the school where I was teaching. We had our morning prayer and shortly thereafter a student raised her hand and asked why Mr. M hadn't closed his eyes. (Really!)

Well, obviously, as an adult I realized that not closing one's eyes during prayer was not the end of the world. But...whenever I thought about marriage to him, in my mind's eye I always saw the illustration of the "non-eye-closer" which accompianied Uncle Arthur's story and felt dread that I might become "Auntie".

Yep. I was brainwashed. But, I'm glad. In part because of it, I didn't marry the wrong guy!

And yes, I plan to brainwash my children in the same way.