Published: May 16, 2007 04:14 pm            

Apathy has to go

It’s easy to get in the flow and just drift, but I want to warn against that.

I think the biggest threat to the family today may be apathy. Parents are busy and it takes effort to capture our kids' attention, so we have a tendency to just make it through each day. We wake up in a flurry, and we may let day after day pass without teaching our kids what’s really important.

Apathy is defined as “lack of emotion or feeling” or “lack of interest or regard; indifference”. If we are indifferent to the social ills of the world, we teach our children to follow our example. If our attitude is “me and mine and I don’t care what happens to anyone else,” it will eventually catch up with us. That’s because we don’t live on an island or in isolation. We are one big family on this planet and it does matter what happens on the back of the world. It matters to them and it will eventually matter to us.

When I think about apathy, I blame selfishness. We want leisure and luxury, and we don’t want to soil our hands with other people’s problems. But, as I said, I think this is a major threat to the family because we are in danger of raising a generation of socially blind and selfish guppies, destined for the shallow end of the pool.

We don’t want to raise a generation who seldom look up from their cell phones. A generation of us versus thems. A generation that is blind to anyone who doesn’t entertain them or make them happy.

Apathy will let someone else elect our next president. Apathy will let the media say whatever they want about our values without our defending them. Apathy will let society tear apart the family without a fight. It will let movies and TV shows project beautiful and dangerous lies without a word from us. Apathy will accept whatever is handed to us. It will let someone else fix pollution and poverty. It will wink at pornography and stand silent when our faith is shredded by falsehood.

Do you know what picture comes to my mind when I think of apathy? A young woman saying, “Oh my God,” over and over. She says it when she is happy, when she is upset, when she’s showing contempt for something, or just as a filler between thoughts. It’s such a popular phrase, it is even a text code: OMG. But I despise that phrase. It belittles God’s name; it breaks the Third Commandment, and people say it all the time. They don’t even realize what they are doing, which is what apathy is. Some parent not only didn’t stop it, he probably taught it.

You may say, “But I don’t care about the 10 Commandments.” Then you’re off the hook as far as this issue is concerned. All I ask is that you find something to believe in – some moral compass – then follow it and teach it to your children.

This is exactly why God said he would rather us be hot or cold, but being lukewarm makes him sick. (Revelation 3:16) God hates apathy, too. He knows how dangerous it is. I have much more respect for the atheists who write me to call me names than the hoards of men who just sleep in on Sundays with no solid beliefs in anything. Find something to believe in and show some emotion about it. Teach your children to be passionate about something. Apathy has got to go.



Harris writes a weekly parenting column for the Palestine (Texas) Herald Press. You can contact him at http://lcraigharris.blogspot.com.

        

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