More Thoughts on "How to Raise Boys That Read"

I’ve been thinking about the article I posted on facebook the other day. The article was about raising boys who read. Today, there is a growing gap between the proficiencies of boys and girls in reading ability. According to the author of the article, the main contributor to this trend is the over stimulation of boys with electronic media (e.g. video games). To combat this, parents and teachers often resort to the “gross” genre of books. These are the books that appeal to every boy’s fascination with all things disgusting, gross, and crass. The author makes the statement:

One obvious problem with the SweetFarts philosophy of education is that it is more suited to producing a generation of barbarians and morons than to raising the sort of men who make good husbands, fathers and professionals. If you keep meeting a boy where he is, he doesn't go very far.

I agree with this statement…mostly. We must raise boys who can read well so that they can accurately handle the Word of God and lead the next generation of the Church. As I read through and interacted with the comments, though, something dawned on me. This article (or the well-meaning facebook friend who posts it) could leave a parent with a tremendous sense of guilt or even pride. Let it be said that neither guilt nor pride are healthy for those who find their identity in Christ. There is much wisdom in this article, but that statement has to be tempered. It must also be stated that raising your boys on fine literature is no guarantee that they will become good husbands, fathers, or professionals. Nor is letting boys play video games or not reading them Tolstoy a one-way ticket to Idiot-ville. There is a much greater force at play than our parenting. Don’t misunderstand me; parents have a high calling to raise their children in the discipline and instruction of the LORD (Eph 6:4). But God’s sovereignty is much bigger than my effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) at parenting. God works through parents, but parents are not ultimate in determining the future of their children. I was never read good literature as a child. I played a lot of video games. Yet, by God’s grace, I’m a pretty good husband/father (I’m pretty sure Kim would back me up on this.). Let us never be lulled into thinking that a great education will make our sons more righteous. The Apostle Paul wrote, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). A steady diet of good literature will make your son more literate, certainly more intelligent, and probably less moronic, but it is no guarantee that he will be “good.”

The Blessings of Suffering

The other day I was supposed to share in class about some Devotional Classics I’ve been reading. I sat in front of the class and told them, “I’ve had a lot going on lately. It all seems to have coated my soul in Teflon and nothing I’ve read has stuck. I’m sorry, but I can’t share with you about the readings. Instead, I’m going to tell you about my last few days.” I went on to tell them about some dear friends of mine who found out they were pregnant with their first child. A few weeks into the pregnancy they learned that their baby had a birth defect that would kill their child within hours of birth if not during birth. They carried their child for several more months, enjoying their little boy for the short time they could. During those months we found out that we were pregnant with our third child. A week and a half ago, we were in the doctor’s office viewing our 20 week ultrasound. While the technician was telling us how wonderfully perfect our little baby is my phone vibrated. I instantly knew that it was the text message telling us that our friends’ baby had died. In that instant I was slammed with the heights of joy and depths of grief. I felt sad, joyous, relieved, grief-stricken, guilty, angry, happy… a flash flood of emotions washed over me in a moment.

After I shared, my professor talked about a passage from Julian of Norwich in which she prays for suffering. This is such a strange concept to my 21^st Century ears. My default setting is to avoid suffering at all cost. This is really a silly notion, though. I can’t get very far through my day before I’m standing nose to nose with the affects of suffering. It is part of living in a fallen world. As Julian lay dying, though, she thought of Christ on the Cross:

…I have never asked for any kind of revelation or vision from God – I only wanted to have the compassion I thought a loving soul would have for Jesus by witnessing his suffering. It was at that moment that I saw red blood running down from under the crown, hot and flowing freely, just as it must have been beneath the crown of thorns that pressed upon his head. I fully perceived at the moment that it was Jesus, both God and man, who suffered for me, for I now knew it directly without anyone telling me.[1]

Slowly, I think I’m beginning to see the role of testing and suffering in faith. But this understanding does little to mitigate the pain of living in a fallen world. I’ve heard many well-meaning folks talk about losing a baby like it’s a good thing because the baby is with Jesus now. While I believe the child of these believers is now with Christ because of his covenantal promises, I find that my heart still grieves over this loss. It isn’t supposed to be this way. I cannot look at this as a “happy” thing. I will not look at the deadly affects of sin on God’s good creation and say it is a good thing. But I can be thankful for it. I am thankful because there is a God who stepped into this mess. There is a God who is not only compassionate but empathetic to us in our sufferings. And through his sufferings and victory over death he will redeem this world. Death will be no more and then he will wipe away every tear. I will not like it but I will be thankful that I can lean hard into a Savior who understands the pain of death far more intimately than I do. I will not like it but I will look with faith and hope to the day when the death of Christ fully accomplishes the death of Death.

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[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, in Richard J. Foster, Devotional Classics: Revised Edition: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, Revised. (HarperOne, 2005), 75.