Mar

19

I need to be honest and say that when I first heard a talk by President Gordon B. Hinckley about pornography in a Mormon General Conference, A Tragic Evil among US,  I thought, “doesn’t he have anything more interesting or uplifting to talk about?” However, I noticed in the following months and years that he and other general authorities kept talking about this topic.

The first time I considered pursuing a PhD in Marriage, Family, and Human Development at BYU, Truman Madsen, the man who first suggested the idea to me, among other things said something like this: “the institution of the family and families in our society are not just having more troubles than in the past, they are in free fall”. It was a shocking idea to me at that time, especially because I had been in the US for only a couple of years, and too busy with school, to realize how bad the situation was in this country. Not that in other countries were a lot better, but as a non-American non-Utah Mormon, I still was under the illusion that here people knew better….

Now, a few more years have passed, and I am realizing every day more that our beloved Prophet was – and how could he not be? – very inspired in talking about this sad topic, and I am beginning to realize that pornography is one of the main reasons of this free fall. Truly, addiction to pornography is more of a symptom than the cause of the problem, but in this case one strengthen the other, especially in the case of young people.

Adults may have a hard time to protect themselves from this addiction, but children and teenagers are really too vulnerable to fight the war alone.

I was reading yesterday a book by Mark B. Kastleman, The drug of the new millennium. It is a very eye opening books, in spite of being sad at times to know more about the current situation. Among other very useful information, I was struck by this passage, about certain organizations that promote free access to pornography for children:

Organizations such as the ACLU and the American Libray Association propose that children ought to have the same rights of unrestricted access to Internet pornography that adults have. Are they serious? If they are, then they either do not understand the devastation pornography wreaks on a child’s or teen’s brain, or they do understand the impact and are completely, and irresponsibly, hardened and aloof to it. They are so narrowly focused on total unrestricted freedom that they cannot see the forest for the tree, and our children will suffer greatly as a result. (It is interesting to note in John Harmer’s book, A War We Must Win, that the ACLU receives substantial funding from the pornography promoters and producers in Hollywood).

It’s all about money. I can’t believe that these people do not understand the problem, but money speaks  louder and they sell thelmselves and an entire generation for money. We really need to listen to the prophets and work hard to protect ourselves and our families, but we need to recognize that there are powerful forces, coming straight from hell, that work in the opposite direction, and that will not stop pursuing their goals. Really we are in the last days, and we need to be prepared and fight the war.

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Oct

29

In the debate about proposition 8, (gay rights and the proposed same-sex marriage) there is one point that is of the greatest importance but that is always overlooked by the proponents of same-sex marriage:  children needs.

Research shows that children need two parents and that there are specific benefits coming from having a mother and a father instead than two mothers or two fathers.

In short, we believe that a central question in the so-called same-sex marriage debate is whether or not we collectively and legally want to promote a culture of parenting founded on parents rights or one grounded in children’s needs (Marquardt, 2006; Sugrue, 2006). From our vantage point, just because a parent desires it, does not mean a child needs it. (Carrol, J. and Dollahite, D., 2008, Who’s my daddy? in What’s the Harm? University Press of America).

According to Carroll and Dollahite,

Similar to other aspects of family-wellbeing in the United States (e.g., economic prosperity), father-child relationships today are marked by two contrasting trends that lead to strikingly divergent life experiences for men and their children. On the one hand, many American children are growing up with high levels of connection to their fathers as they benefit from a culture that has historically high expectations for men’s involvement in the everyday lives of their children…

However, despite increased norms for father involvement, the last generation has also witnessed the rise of ambiguous fatherhood in America. Many of the historical supports that have traditionally preserved men’s involvement in their children’s lives have been eroding for a large portion of contemporary families. Historically high rates of non-marital cohabitation, out-of-wedlock childbirth, and marital divorce (McLanahan, 2004) have dramatically altered the landscape of fathering, leaving unprecedented numbers of children growing up with uncertain or non-existent relationships with their fathers. While these demographic trends have changed family life in general within the United States, these contextual changes have been particularly grim for father-child relationships which have been found to be more sensitive than mother-child relationships to contextual forces and supports (Doherty et al., 1998; Hawkins, Amato, & King, 2006).

This negative trend toward ambiguous fatherhood would get a tremendous impulse if same-sex marriage is approved. These are the conclusions from the same book chapter:

1. A change in the definition of marriage will inherently alter the definition of parenthood in our society.
2. Our collective and legal definitions of fatherhood should be based on the generative needs of children. Simply put, our primary concern should be children’s needs, not adults’ rights or desires.
3. The overwhelming conclusion of more than two decades of social science research on father-child relationships is that father involvement is extremely sensitive to contextual factors. In particular, research shows that for most men, marriage and fatherhood are a package deal. Thus, fathering outside of the context of a committed marriage relationship that involves shared residential living with a child is a fragile arrangement at best for fostering generative father-child relationships.
4. As a social institution, marriage has traditionally been defined so as to provide a natural mechanism to provide for the widely held cultural ideal that children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony and to be raised by the father and mother who gave them life. This persistent core value of kin altruism is at the center of our society’s definition of marriage and parenthood.
Grounded in these perspectives, it is our contention that providing legal sanction of same-sex partnerships would increase the number of children raised in settings of ambiguous fatherhood; thus exposing a greater number of children to the risks of poor or non-existent father involvement.

The negative consequences would not only occur in direct ways but also in indirect ways. In fact,

Children raised by same-sex couples will inherently experience ambiguous father-child relationships due to the fact that they, by definition, lack a marriage between a child’s two biological parents. In short, same-sex parenting requires the intentional disregard for kin altruism as the entitlement of children and the best environment to foster the best interests of children.

The above quote refers to direct ways in which same-sex marriage will foster ambiguous parenthood. But even among heterosexual men the legalization of same-sex marriage would foster the rise of ambiguous fatherhood:

Instruction and policy in various public settings (e.g., educational, political, judicial) would be required to advocate the equality of all social arrangements for the rearing of children even though a large body of social science research belies this idea. Altering the legal definition of marriage would further erode the societal recognition that fathers matter to children. As this occurs, two primary mechanisms will increase the ambiguity of fatherhood for children, men and society.

First, the rise of a “self-defined parenting paradigm” that equates single-mothers and lesbian couples with two biological parents in meeting the developmental needs of children threatens to further disenfranchise men from family life and weakens social norms discouraging divorce and non-marital childbearing…

A second way that the legalization of same-sex partnerships would further the rise of ambiguous fatherhood is that it would support a retreat from fatherhood altogether among some American men. One aspect of a self-defined parenting ideology in society is the option of not being a parent at all. If fathering is not a cultural ideal, the potential exists for an increase in men who live outside marriage and parenthood altogether. Given the data on the negative social consequences of a large number of unmarried men (e.g., higher rates of crime and other anti-social behavior), we should be very cautious about a parenting culture that suggests that men can be viewed as “sperm donors” who’s only essential “parenting role” is conception and then women can do it alone, either as single parents or as a lesbian couple. The loss of a cultural ideal for men to become responsible fathers could lead to increased numbers of men and children who live in non-generative contexts.

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Aug

14

It is sad to notice that in many homes (even Mormon homes) parents are not monitoring their TV and Internet appropriately. Some people simply do not monitor their children, others even provide their children with a negative example of parents who spend most of their free time in front of the TV, watching almost verything that is presented. How can they teach their children? Their actions speak louder.

According to LDSMediaTalk

pornography on the Internet is a blight…I believe, however, that in many homes the Internet isn’t the worst portal for inappropriate content. For some, the TV is even worse–and many don’t know it.

Movie channels like HBO have content you’d be horrified to see your kids watching. Nudity, inappropriate language, violence. It’s all there in abundance. Even stations that come with the basic packages (like MTV) have content I’m not comfortable with my kids watching. Pay-per-view channels are awful. If you’re not careful, your kids can order movies which not only ring up your monthly bill but, much worse, bring content into your home that you don’t want there. Commercials can be the worst. I’m embarrassed at some of the commercials I see in prime time.

What can we do?

One solution, perhaps too radical for some, but probably the best solution, is to throw away our television and use our time at home interacting in more positive ways.

If this is too much, and it may not be enough since your children may be watching TV at someone else’s home, here there are a few other suggestions,

Be careful ordering movie channels like HBO and Showtime. We don’t order them at all. Second, block channels you don’t want the kids to see. You can use the parental controls on most cable and satellite services to completely remove certain channels from the list of channels that your family can even see in the channel guide. We do this with MTV and others which have content that we don’t like and we also do it with the channels that allow pay-per-view movies. If you want to allow pay-per-view movies then make sure they’re password-protected. Most importantly, P-A-Y  A-T-T-E-N-T-I-O-N. My kids have friends whose parents don’t have any idea when the kids watch TV. I don’t allow my kids to go their houses. And we always try to pay attention when the kids are watching TV. It may sound severe, but if the kids (even the teenagers) want to watch TV, they have to ask permission first. And if they don’t, they lose TV priveleges. This helps us gauge how much TV they’re watching.

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Jun

26

I have recently read a very inspiring book by Dr. Belnap, A Brain Gone Wrong – help for troubled teen.

I have noticed that on Meridian Magazine there is a series of articles about this book and I will refer to them for more information at the end of this blog post.

But this is the starting point of the book:

The twenty-first century faces a war with no name and no marked battleground. The casualties are our youth. They come from every address and ability and they are being squandered in what was once considered the lifestyle of only a degraded few.

Our feel-good culture, eroded by bad behavior, bad choices, and for many teens a succession of very bad days has drugs, alcohol, suicide, eating disorders, violence and the occult just a quick step from the corner lemonade stand. Some youth survive the onslaught; many do not.

Today’s youth face a society with blurred lines of right and wrong and in many cases, no wrong at all. Teens are raised amid decay in families, schools and the streets on which they live or roam. Gangs have stepped in to fill the void of family; media, fashion, peer pressure and popularity now dictate what were once decisions made at the kitchen table. The scenes are ugly, scarred and riddled with pain. Youth are forced to live beyond their years and to make decisions not even contemplated by their parents: Do I drink? Take meth? Smoke? Use birth control? Join a gang? Bring a gun to school or even stay in school? Do I distinguish myself by the way I dress, tattoos, the color of my hair? Or my sexual preferences? Should I consider suicide because my life is sad and hopeless?

It is hard to be a teenagers in our current society, and it is not easy to be the parent of teenagers, but still the family is where they can find the best opportunities to survive the war.

A Brain Gone Wrong – on Meridian Magazine

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven

Part Eight

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Feb

19

A week or so ago I had the opportunity to watch the worldwide leadership training of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It focused on families, how to build up a righteous posterity.

Now the training is available on the internet for all those who may want to watch it for the first time or watch it again. Archives are available in text, audio, and video formats at:

LDS Library

or you can find the video of the RoundTable at:

GoogleVideos

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Jan

24

Recently Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke at BYU-Hawaii’s graduation ceremony on December 15, 2007 about the importance of using the Internet. That talk was so important for what we do at the More Good Foundation that after writing a blog about it, I decided that I wanted it translated in several languages.

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Interestingly, a few weeks after that, I started teaching a Marriage Preparation class at BYU and I decided to modify the syllabus by changing one assignment. Instead than a traditional paper, I asked the students to create their own personal blog at blogger.com or at our new social networking website LDS.net and write 8-10 posts over the semester.

Initially I was a little concerned to ask students to do this assignment, since it is probably the first in the history of BYU, but because of Elder Ballard’s talk I felt that I could do it.

Most of the students have already blogged a couple of times and some of those entries are very interesting.

To write a journal, or in this case a blog, is useful for the students because they have a chance to think about what they read or what we discussed in class. However, I am discovering that it is also useful for the teacher, because those blog entries can give valuable feedback. Obviously, since it is a public expression of their thinking, the students will not be completely open if there is something they do not like in the class, but still, from their comments and reflections I am able to understand better what they are really learning, and what topics and discussions are most interesting for them. Moreover, I can get to know them a lot better through those blogs than by giving them multiple questions tests (and for some of them even by what they say in class).

We are just in the beginning and I hope that they will get better and better at writing blogs. I also hope that at least some of them will continue blogging about the Church and families during their lives to help others to know the wonderful principles that we learn in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church).

These are the links to some of those blogs:

http://kelseympc.blogspot.com/

http://www.melissaonlovenmarriage.blogspot.com/

http://byumarriageprep.blogspot.com/

http://www.lds.net/rackie_c

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Dec

10

As a parent of a few male teenagers and a Mormon, I was hoping that sending them on a mission would be the last big effort before they would finally become adults.

However, a few months ago someone had told me that children between the ages of 18 and 25 or even 30 may still need a lot of help and require a lot of work. I had hoped that it was not true… but I was doubting…

Now I am sure that my hopes were in vain. A new study by BYU professors seem to indicate that in fact, children between the ages of 18 and 25 are not yet really adults.

The findings strengthen the idea that a distinct life stage has emerged between adolescence and adulthood, consequently extending parents’ period of responsibility for their children. The study, which will be published in the new issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, offers a new look at parents’ expectations when children reach their 20s.

“The message parents are sending to their kids is “You may be 18 but that doesn’t magically make you an adult. There are things you first need to develop and that hasn’t happened yet,” said Larry Nelson, associate professor in the School of Family Life at BYU and lead author on the study. “It’s not that their kids refuse to grow up, it’s that they are still in the process of doing that.”

BYU study: Parents don’t view their college students as adults

In short, it look like I have many years in front of me before I can say… it is done!

 


 

 

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