I have been reading through various blogs and came across much discussion on the subject of violent video games. I have read the ghoulish description of these games which includes decapitation, slashing eyes out, and various other forms of gore.
My first question is why? Why do video game manufacturers need to keep one-uping each other as to whose game offers more gore? And why would anyone want to purchase and play such a game? It makes one wonder about the beastile drive that needs this kind of satisfaction.
It is curious that this form of entertainment is so widely offered and accepted in the very same society that now debates what the definition to torture even is. From the average kid to the most powerful person in the world, our president, they and everyone in between has been affected by this moral blur.
It is my belief that such confusion has been the demon to overtake the mins of certain young people, directly leading to the rise in this nation's much-publicized school shootings.
A couple of years ago, I found out that my son was being exposed to movies at friends' houses that I would have never allowed him to watch. While these other parents were moderately careful about allowing movies that contained sex, they seemed to have no objection to the amount of violence. When their kids came over to my house and found me strict about not allowing movies that had a lot of violence, they thought this was very odd and I would explain to them "That's what's wrong with the world today. If more people objected to violence, there would be less wars and less violent crimes." They were left searching for a response but never being able to find one.
That was when I decided that my son, then ten years of age, was eligible to watch "Passion of Christ" despite its R rating. He had already been exposed to some gorey violence, at that time thanks to one of the popular "Star Wars" films then recently put onto DVD (funny, when I was a kid and went to see the first "Star Wars" ever released, it did not contain this kind of gorey violence and we enjoyed it so much we went back to see the movie more than once proving that this is an unnecessary ingredient for entertainment and film prosperity).
I wanted my son to view "Passion of Christ" while gore still had shock value for him, before he might become as desensitized to it as everyone else around us seemed to have become.
So my son sat with me and my husband and watched "Passion of Christ" when he was ten years old. It remains the only R movie he has ever viewed. He was very taken with the gorey suffering of Christ, and was full of questions. He said he could actually feel Christ's pain during the torture scenes. This time, it was gore with a purpose...and it stayed with him in a way that he better appreciated our Lord's sacrifice.
The great damage that can come from exposing kids to so much violence presented to them in a fun and entertaining manner as found in their video games and movies is that they will see it all as acceptable and risk becoming all together desensitized to it.
Villagers and their children watched Christ get executed in a grisly manner, but did this make it okay? We are to be struck by Christ's suffering, that is why it is called His passion. Passion and desensitzation are two different things. We parents would do well to remember this.
We cannot risk having future generations watch "Passion of Christ" and not be moved by it. Otherwise, we risk waterboarding and school shootings becoming so widespread that they are hardly considered newsworthy.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
MOM'S HECTIC LIFESTYLE: Slow Down & Turn Off TV
I am a stay-at-home mom who started blogging so as to quench my thirst for getting back into journalism. I had hoped to be a daily blogger, but last week reminded me of not only why I don't go back to work but why any daily commitment can be impossible--thanks to a very aggressive stomach virus in my youngest child who was home sick all last week.
There are priorities in life. I have heard my generation be called a "narcissistic" generation, where we put our own wishes before that of our children's or aging parents'. If, however, you are like me and you are the "sandwich generation", caught in between those two generations who need you and you are trying to be there for everyone, then like me you laugh off that description. But it can still be tough to laugh when you have a difficult time finding just a couple of minutes to yourself.
And for us sandwichers, we tend to have a lack of a support system making a mockery of "it takes a village to raise a child"--half the village is under-aged and the other half is getting too old. We are the exhausted left-over segment of the population. Not only are many of us mentally overextended (we try to be at our kid's game at the same time we try to help the other kid do a difficult school project at the same time we are trying to teach the youngest one how to color inside the lines all the while trying to fix a half-way nutritious supper for all of them and in between stirs of the pot we study the calendar in defeat as we try to figure out when to have an aging relative over), but we are also older in having waited longer to have had our children. Let's face it, a forty-year-old usually does not have the same amount of energy as a twenty-year-old.
But using the bible as an empowering tool for one's approach to the hectic life of today, one of my most favorite verses is Matthew 6:34 "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Anotherwords, take it one day at a time and don't worry about tomorrow. So relax and realize one-on-one isn't always possible so just take that aging relative to the kid's game.
Another easy way to create more time for yourself...
I did something as simple as cutting out TV viewing and discovered that this allowed me more time than I thought I had. Now I admit to being a news-a-holic, glued to "this just in" or "breaking headlines", and studying all the round-table discussions to see whose argument is the strongest (not necessarily the most honorable one). But even someone like me has realized lately that TV is on absolute overkill with the presidential campaigns. Usually, there are no new developments to report on, there is only one blasted analysis after another and too many predictions that the state of New Hampshire has already proven to be rather worthless.
A couple of nights ago, I asked my children to raise their hands on who they see more of. Is it Daddy or Barak Obama? When the unanimous vote was for Barak Obama, I hit the power off button on my remote.
So I have done what I consider to be the smartest thing in a long time, I have turned off the TV set! Not only have I found more time, my brain has been able to unclog itself and concentrate better. And, oh yeah, my kids are starting to notice and recognize Daddy coming through the door at the end of the day.
There are priorities in life. I have heard my generation be called a "narcissistic" generation, where we put our own wishes before that of our children's or aging parents'. If, however, you are like me and you are the "sandwich generation", caught in between those two generations who need you and you are trying to be there for everyone, then like me you laugh off that description. But it can still be tough to laugh when you have a difficult time finding just a couple of minutes to yourself.
And for us sandwichers, we tend to have a lack of a support system making a mockery of "it takes a village to raise a child"--half the village is under-aged and the other half is getting too old. We are the exhausted left-over segment of the population. Not only are many of us mentally overextended (we try to be at our kid's game at the same time we try to help the other kid do a difficult school project at the same time we are trying to teach the youngest one how to color inside the lines all the while trying to fix a half-way nutritious supper for all of them and in between stirs of the pot we study the calendar in defeat as we try to figure out when to have an aging relative over), but we are also older in having waited longer to have had our children. Let's face it, a forty-year-old usually does not have the same amount of energy as a twenty-year-old.
But using the bible as an empowering tool for one's approach to the hectic life of today, one of my most favorite verses is Matthew 6:34 "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Anotherwords, take it one day at a time and don't worry about tomorrow. So relax and realize one-on-one isn't always possible so just take that aging relative to the kid's game.
Another easy way to create more time for yourself...
I did something as simple as cutting out TV viewing and discovered that this allowed me more time than I thought I had. Now I admit to being a news-a-holic, glued to "this just in" or "breaking headlines", and studying all the round-table discussions to see whose argument is the strongest (not necessarily the most honorable one). But even someone like me has realized lately that TV is on absolute overkill with the presidential campaigns. Usually, there are no new developments to report on, there is only one blasted analysis after another and too many predictions that the state of New Hampshire has already proven to be rather worthless.
A couple of nights ago, I asked my children to raise their hands on who they see more of. Is it Daddy or Barak Obama? When the unanimous vote was for Barak Obama, I hit the power off button on my remote.
So I have done what I consider to be the smartest thing in a long time, I have turned off the TV set! Not only have I found more time, my brain has been able to unclog itself and concentrate better. And, oh yeah, my kids are starting to notice and recognize Daddy coming through the door at the end of the day.
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