Left to themselves, children will grow up to be self-indulgent barbarians (Dennis Rodman comes to mind). This is what theologians mean by a "sin nature."
As grim and scary as this may sound, we can be encouraged because the Bible is chock full of instruction regarding how we can raise our kids to be noble, compassionate, faithful leaders of the next generation. While parenting is never an easy task, there is an enormous amount of wisdom and insight found in the pages of the Scripture.
Regrettably, however, the Bible is rather silent on the issue of belching.
It is our two boys' obsession with belching that really drives my wife and me up the wall.
PARENTING TIP: Never let your boys have a carbonated beverage. Ever.
They will soon discover that by gulping down a soda, and deliberately swallowing extra air, they can emit a sustained burp that can exceed 25 seconds. And they will do this relentlessly. They will do this during meals, in Sunday School, during a tour of the Sistine Chapel, or in the middle of an historic address by the Surgeon General to a Joint Session of Congress -- an event to which you have been invited because you discovered a cure for cancer and you are being honored during a nationally broadcast ceremony.
SURGEON GENERAL: "And in recognition of your service to humanity. . ."
NBC ANCHORMAN: (Whispering) "It is a solemn moment indeed as the Surgeon General prepares to. . ."
YOUR SON: "BUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP!"
Boys have no shame.
But you sure will.
I don't know what it is like to be a parent of girls, but I have to believe it is easier than raising boys. Disagree? Consider the following true story.
Back when my wife Dale and I were teaching 5th grade Sunday School, we typically brought a snack -- such as donuts or Oreos or, in a pinch, little packets of restaurant sugar -- for our class.
Word got around to the high school students that we usually had extra goodies left over, so we began to get mobbed at the end of each class by a group of rowdy boys who displayed all the manners you would expect from a swarm of beggars on the streets of ancient Jericho during a famine.
The weekly raid was getting expensive, so Dale and I devised a brilliant strategy to dispense with them.
Any professional sociologist who deals with teen males will tell you that young men are OBSESSED with their image and how they are viewed by their peer group. So, armed with this knowledge, Dale and I imposed a condition one Sunday morning as the rabble began to gather at the door to our Sunday school class.
"OK," I said, addressing the first of the throng. "You can have an Oreo on the condition that you drop down on one knee and declare in a loud voice, 'Dave and Dale are wonderful and special people who are my superiors in every way.'"
The horde was suddenly silent.
The leader of the pack, who dresses way cool all the time and has each hair carefully put into place each morning by a team of professional cosmeticians, stared at us for a moment and we could literally read his mind.
These people are asking me to abjectly humiliate myself in front of all my friends for a single cookie that I can go buy for myself right after church.
He took a deep breath.
"If I say it twice, do I get two Oreos?" he asked, dropping to one knee and loudly proclaiming how wonderful and special Dale and I were, and freely confessing that we were his superiors in every way.
The rest of the herd followed suit, so Dale nervously flung cookies at the advancing assemblage as they lined up to pay us homage.
The Bible records that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup.
A few thousand years later, an entire class of high school boys publicly abased themselves for an Oreo.
There is a powerful moral lesson in this story, but I don't think you want to know what it is.
