Parenting With Words of Grace

William P. Smith

If you weren’t spending last month on sabbatical in Tibet, you probably saw that notorious Gillette ad that set the internet watercooler buzzing. The razor blade manufacturer, which once modestly promised the finest shave a man can get, now pontificates on how men can be their best—and what’s wrong with that?

Headlines like “The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting” always grab my attention. The New York Times article spotlights a divorced, middle-income mother who feels daily pressure to be there for her 11-year-old son. “Being there” means nightly supervision of homework and daytime ferrying to piano lessons, soccer practice, swimming lessons, martial arts competitions, and enrichment classes of all kinds (starting at age 4).

I will not buy a smartphone for my children because …

1. The assorted evils in all of world history await them in seconds.

Every wicked thought of man is waiting to be uncovered by a child on a smartphone in isolation. The perversion of every goodness lies twisted for youthful minds like a lion in blood-thirsty stalk. In the history of mankind, this is unprecedented, immediate access to both good and evil.

Amanda Serenyi’s father told her almost nothing about his four older children from a previous marriage. But one of them found her name on her grandmother’s obituary and then on Facebook. Then, that half sister revealed a family secret: Before Serenyi was conceived, her father had a vasectomy.

One hot August day in 1902, a farmer was walking beside the Iron Mountain Railroad in Washington County, Mo. He paused when he heard the #4 approaching Big River Bridge, and when the clatter and rumble of the train had passed, he heard a weak wailing from the river. Climbing down to the bank, he noticed a “telescoping valise,” a kind of long squared suitcase, washed up in the shallows. The sound was coming from inside. It turned out to be a baby boy, about 5 days old, bruised and dented from his 50-foot fall off the train, but not seriously injured.

The Chinese government is contemplating ending all birth limits on its citizens. The proposal would end a nearly 40-year policy that has led to millions of abortions, abandoned babies, forced abortions and sterilizations, and “hidden children” who live without documentation or access to healthcare, schooling, or jobs.