Parents--part 1: wag the dog parents

Most of us don't need to go far back into our memory banks to remember the film "Wag the Dog." In this film the president and his entourage are doing everything possible to please the electorate, leading on the basis of opinion polls. Needless to say, everything the president did was choreographed to please the people he was supposed to be leading.

Similarly, American parents have succumbed to the temptation of allowing children to take the primary seats at the family table. Parents make decisions based on family opinion polls. We have forgotten that it is a parent's job to lead his or her child(ren). Parents, it is high time for us to reclaim our roll as spiritual leaders of our children. If our children have learned that going to church is an optional activity, why should we be surprised when they decide that working on Sundays is more important to them than going to Sunday worship, choir, or youth group. When we model that our minimum daily adult requirement for church is one hour on Sunday, by leaving the church building as soon as the closing benediction sounds, why should we be surprised when they don't think even that even that one hour is well spent? Why should we be surprised when we awaken our children for church and have them say they don't want to go today, when we take Sunday after Sunday off to rest rather than showing our children that attending worship is a high priority for us as parents? The outcome of this wag-the-dog behavior will be disastrous. We shouldn't be surprised when our children who are looking for full-time jobs, take no consideration of how their spiritual life may be hampered by job schedules that prohibit worship. It shouldn't shock us when they choose working overtime ($) over worshiping regularly. We will have no basis to question our children as they raise a new generation of wag-the-dog children when soccer, tennis, jobs, band outings, etcetera take precedence over regular attendance at public worship and the joy of participating in a community of faith. I, for one, won't stand for it. I refuse to let the tail wag the dog. Our children are clamoring for us to show them what we think is important. They want to be led.