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Who's Got Dibs on Your Kids?

Betty Pfeiffer

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Jan 12, 2018 Werner rated it liked it

Shelves: christian-life, books-i-own

It's been truly said that the Christian faith is always only one generation away from extinction. That is to say, it's the responsibility of each generation of believers to transmit their faith, and the lifestyle in which those convictions are lived out, to the next one. That's a serious obligation and responsibility that, as the Bible repeatedly asserts, God gives primarily to parents who trust in Him. How this obligation is carried out in the face of surrounding culture that may be transmittin It's been truly said that the Christian faith is always only one generation away from extinction. That is to say, it's the responsibility of each generation of believers to transmit their faith, and the lifestyle in which those convictions are lived out, to the next one. That's a serious obligation and responsibility that, as the Bible repeatedly asserts, God gives primarily to parents who trust in Him. How this obligation is carried out in the face of surrounding culture that may be transmitting very different and hostile messages is apt to be challenging. That, primarily, is the challenge the author addresses here (which is why I classified the book on my "Christian life and thought" shelf). But the same thing is also true for other faith communities, and for parents who may have no particular faith affiliation but who want to transmit a basic cultural heritage (beliefs about right and wrong, respect for democratic values and human liberties, a work ethic, etc.), a knowledge base of skills like reading, writing and computing, and a mindset that values and is capable of independent thinking, listening to others, and researching and evaluating factual information. (Pfeiffer addresses the latter concerns as well.) So while recommending the book primarily to Christian parents and grandparents, I'm recommending it more broadly to all of those concerned about what the younger generation is (or isn't!) learning.

Robert Browning's poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," --re-telling a medieval German legend about a piper who, double-crossed by a city's adults who'd hired him to rid them of rats, took revenge by ensorcelling their children with his pipe music and abducting them, never to be seen again-- provides the central metaphor here (reflected in the cover art). Pfeiffer calls out a number of the cultural Pied Pipers on the current U.S. scene who are busily casting their spells over anyone vulnerable to their influence (which, unless we live in an air-tight bubble, is all of us!), and most especially those under 18. As she notes, one knee-jerk reaction to this information would be to dismiss it all out of hand as "conspiracy theory." (The use, and manipulative misuse, of that concept has quite a long pedigree, and could be the subject of a book itself.) A more productive way to process the information, though, is to think of it in terms of agendas. Political parties, political lobbies, faith communities, Big Business, Big Media, the government itself, people committed to particular causes --all of these have agendas, in the service of which most of them use cultural megaphones to help them co-opt your kids. And their agendas may not be the same as yours.

Biographical information about the author in the back of the book is sketchy; but she's a devout Christian (from, I'm guessing, a Lutheran background); a writer of nonfiction books and articles, including some on teaching English as a second language; a parent herself; and obviously intelligent, well educated and informed, and articulate. She's not, however, writing this in academic fashion (although she does document her source material with 17 pages of end-notes), so the language and reading level is designed to communicate with ordinary readers. She was apparently prompted to research and write the book by discovering previously unsuspected levels of anti-Christian propaganda being spoon-fed to her kids in their public schools, so this is admittedly written mainly in expose' mode. Her own review of the book states "You're bound to be shocked at some of what you'll learn from these pages," and that would probably be true for most readers who don't have any first-hand acquaintance with what their kids are being taught, seeing on social media, etc., and who get their information only from the mainstream media. (Those of us who've followed the subject in more depth for longer are already more familiar with the material.)

This is an ambitious book, covering a range of topics. As might be expected of any book focusing on cultural influences over children, much of it deals with the "education" (or, often, more in the nature of indoctrination) provided in the public school system, but it's broader than this, including print and broadcast media, the Internet, peer influences, etc., all of which are also important formative influences. No one subject is covered in exhaustive detail; as Pfeiffer herself points out, this is a starting point for becoming informed, not an ending point. Commendably, she offers some suggestions at the end of each chapter for further reading. Some of these are occasionally of material by writers on the side opposed to her own; also commendably, she recognizes that parents need to teach their kids to understand opposing views (and to understand them themselves!), in order to intelligently understand the reasons for their own beliefs, and actually make them their own rather than parroted baggage. Also, she recommends the book Teachable Moments by Marybeth Hicks as one written on the same basic subject as hers, but with a much more practical, nuts-and-bolts approach to the how-tos of countering toxic cultural influences in kids' lives. Each chapter ends with a challenge activity or activities, and the book can be used for group studies.

Critics will complain that almost all of the evidence cited here for negative influences is "anecdotal," that is, consisting of accounts of specific examples, rather than citation of statistical studies documenting exactly how pervasive these kinds of abuses are. The implication of this argument, of course, is that every such cited example can be dismissed as a rare isolated case. When we consider, though, that the landscape is in fact littered with anecdotal examples of these sorts, to the point where there are few of us who haven't stumbled over some of them in our own experience, and who don't read about some of them almost every week if not every day, that argument begins to appear more and more disingenuous. (Relevant statistical material, in many cases, has never been collected; but where it has been, Pfeiffer passes it along; and some of those stats, like the number of deaths and injuries in car accidents caused by driving while texting, are hair-raising.) I'd personally have organized some material a trifle differently --for instance, I'd have put the excellent chapter analyzing advertising/propaganda techniques near the beginning, rather than near the end. Finally, some might quibble about the inclusion of a chapter on climate change. There is no objective "Christian position" on the question of whether climate change is being caused by human activities; but Pfeiffer isn't suggesting that there is. She's suggesting (legitimately, IMO), that the question is one that educators should be exploring in all its facets, and providing students with the information to make up their own minds, rather than treating as an occasion for what amounts to brainwashing for group-think. Personally, I think that human activities do have an effect on the environment, and that the Biblical concept of human "dominion" over creation necessarily presupposes stewardship. I didn't find anything here antithetical to those beliefs. Other than that, any potential quibbles here about the book would be very minor.

I'll add two comments as a librarian. First, books from Greenhaven Press' Opposing Viewpoints series turn up in Pfeiffer's reading suggestions more than once. This is a very extensive series, covering dozens if not hundreds of controversial topics; the college library where I work has a lot of them. It's a series I'd highly recommend as a resource for instilling exactly the capacity and desire for critical thinking that parents and grandparents should want the younger generation to acquire. Second, the author gifted me with a no-strings-attached review copy of this book. Rather than keeping it, I'll be passing it on to the library I serve, because I think the information and perspective here is important enough to share with a broader audience. That should say something!

Note: my three-star rating is my usual default rating for nonfiction books that I like. Higher star ratings usually only go to fiction books, with very few exceptions (for books such as the Bible!). ...more

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