www.sandraevertson.com
9 years ago
Posted by
Victoria
comments (2)
You are so sheltered. Your children seem sheltered. You can't shelter them from everything. Homeschooled children must be awfully sheltered. I don't want my kids to be that sheltered. He wouldn't have rebelled if he hadn't been so sheltered growing up. Sheltered...
I hear phrases like this all the time. Is being sheltered a bad thing? The other day I was talking to a stranger at the park while our children played and she was talking about a TV show that I hadn't even heard of and I told her we didn't really watch TV much and she started talking about sheltering children and that she didn't believe sheltering them from the world was a good thing. She believed in showing them reality. She went on to say that shletered kids turned out to be more rebellious than "worldy street wise ones" in her opinion. She wasn't neccessarily implying that by not letting my children watch popular TV that I was going to have trouble later, and she didn't even say directly to me that I was sheltering them, but when I was driving home later I was thinking about what she had said and wondering to myself " Are my children too sheltered?"
I guess you could say I grew up sheltered although I didn't really think much about it. I went to private school for several years, I grew up actively participating in Church, I didn't watch TV ( mostly because we only had 3 channels and an antenna) When I was 14 I left the safety of a small private middle school and ventured into the uncharted territory of a huge public high school, this was when it hit me for the first time that I might have been a little sheltered. I had never heard a cuss word, never seen anyone my age smoking or drinking, I had never heard anyone openly talking about a lot of the things highschoolers talk about, I had never listened to rock music and didn't know much about pop culture. Friends joked that I was "Sheltered"... but was that a bad thing? I didn't think so then and I don't think so now. I did rebel a little, I hung out with people I shouldn't have sometimes, I listened to music my parents hated, I dated guys that had rebellious streaks ( and married one who definitely wasn't sheltered and completely agrees with me on sheltering ours) I caught up pretty quickly on what I had been missing but it wasn't really that great and it didn't really make me wish I had seen or heard or done it sooner. Rebelliousness comes from a lot of different factors and I don't believe that sheltered children are always the most rebellious. Eventually we all get our introduction to the ways of the world no matter how protective our parents have been. The Bible has lots of verses that talk about God being our shelter, He wants to shelter us from evil, from harm, from the bad things of the world. God calls us to not be like the world. He doesn't want us to be subjected to everything under the sun. He wants us to be sheltered and He wants to be the one who is our shelter.
So yes, my children are sheltered. They don't get to watch movies that are rated over their age, they don't watch ICarly and Hannah Montana, they don't know a single Justin Beiber song or who Lady Gaga is, they don't hear foul language at home, they listen to Christian and children's music, and yet the world still finds it's way in through school, through kids on the playground, through the news media, and through life, but it is in small doses that we deal with and handle one at a time. They know what a broken home is, they know what alchohol can do to you, they know that there are poor, lost people in the world who need help and love, they know there are evil people who do bad things and they know what it means to pray for those people. They also know that God has trusted their Dad and I to be their shelter here on Earth but that He is the ultimate shelter. They have their whole lives to be exposed to all the junk of the world. I just want them to enjoy the comfort of the shelter that I can provide for as long as they can.
Psalm 61:3-4 For you have been my shelter, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
I hear phrases like this all the time. Is being sheltered a bad thing? The other day I was talking to a stranger at the park while our children played and she was talking about a TV show that I hadn't even heard of and I told her we didn't really watch TV much and she started talking about sheltering children and that she didn't believe sheltering them from the world was a good thing. She believed in showing them reality. She went on to say that shletered kids turned out to be more rebellious than "worldy street wise ones" in her opinion. She wasn't neccessarily implying that by not letting my children watch popular TV that I was going to have trouble later, and she didn't even say directly to me that I was sheltering them, but when I was driving home later I was thinking about what she had said and wondering to myself " Are my children too sheltered?"
I guess you could say I grew up sheltered although I didn't really think much about it. I went to private school for several years, I grew up actively participating in Church, I didn't watch TV ( mostly because we only had 3 channels and an antenna) When I was 14 I left the safety of a small private middle school and ventured into the uncharted territory of a huge public high school, this was when it hit me for the first time that I might have been a little sheltered. I had never heard a cuss word, never seen anyone my age smoking or drinking, I had never heard anyone openly talking about a lot of the things highschoolers talk about, I had never listened to rock music and didn't know much about pop culture. Friends joked that I was "Sheltered"... but was that a bad thing? I didn't think so then and I don't think so now. I did rebel a little, I hung out with people I shouldn't have sometimes, I listened to music my parents hated, I dated guys that had rebellious streaks ( and married one who definitely wasn't sheltered and completely agrees with me on sheltering ours) I caught up pretty quickly on what I had been missing but it wasn't really that great and it didn't really make me wish I had seen or heard or done it sooner. Rebelliousness comes from a lot of different factors and I don't believe that sheltered children are always the most rebellious. Eventually we all get our introduction to the ways of the world no matter how protective our parents have been. The Bible has lots of verses that talk about God being our shelter, He wants to shelter us from evil, from harm, from the bad things of the world. God calls us to not be like the world. He doesn't want us to be subjected to everything under the sun. He wants us to be sheltered and He wants to be the one who is our shelter.
So yes, my children are sheltered. They don't get to watch movies that are rated over their age, they don't watch ICarly and Hannah Montana, they don't know a single Justin Beiber song or who Lady Gaga is, they don't hear foul language at home, they listen to Christian and children's music, and yet the world still finds it's way in through school, through kids on the playground, through the news media, and through life, but it is in small doses that we deal with and handle one at a time. They know what a broken home is, they know what alchohol can do to you, they know that there are poor, lost people in the world who need help and love, they know there are evil people who do bad things and they know what it means to pray for those people. They also know that God has trusted their Dad and I to be their shelter here on Earth but that He is the ultimate shelter. They have their whole lives to be exposed to all the junk of the world. I just want them to enjoy the comfort of the shelter that I can provide for as long as they can.
Psalm 61:3-4 For you have been my shelter, a strong tower against the foe. I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
