Ever hear that one?
There's a boy playing by a tree and his dad out of the blue commands the boy to drop to the ground. He does. He commands the boy to crawl quickly toward him. He does. The obedient boy reaches his father and turns to see a deadly snake hanging from the tree just above where he was.
Although I was a "spanker" for years...I always had a lot of "feelings" about things I should and shouldn't do with my kids, and one of those feelings was that I should let them argue with me.
Some people shook their fingers at me, "Tsk! Tsk! You shouldn't let your kids talk to you that way!"
Some people told me it was "wrong!" (as in on a Christian level it was wrong.)
Christians saw my kids being able to protest and speak their minds as "disobedience."
I'm not talking about kids being snotty, rude, or "smarting-off." I'm talking about kids who I would say, "Do this!" and they might say, "I don't want to!" or ask, "Why!?" So, people would say the kids "shouldn't talk to me that way," but, the kids weren't ever speaking "disrespectfully" to me...but they did often disagree or argue with me.
How then did "disobedience save my life?"
A few months ago I was in the passenger's seat of my mini-van. A newbie driver, aged 15, was in the driver's seat. We were sitting at an intersection waiting to turn left. I told her it was safe to pull out. I told her to go. She quickly assessed the situation and said, "No," and didn't pull out. It became immediately apparent then that the approaching car was obviously coming at us too fast for her to make it.
Had she "been obedient" to me and pulled out...she'd have learned a hard lesson about blind obedience...and so would I have. But, fortunately, she was raised to believe that she was allowed to disagree with me and to act on that belief...so, she didn't pull out...
So many parents think obedience is the highest goal of parenting...
But, obedience is only as safe as the person who you are obeying...
I'd rather have kids who can think...because 2 heads are better than just one :)
