Raising six kids I have always been protective and wary of exposing my kids to what I thought were “bad influences”
But as I’ve rethought and challenged almost everything I had thought to be true in the past 5 years. I have come to realize that: Some of the people I thought were bad influences weren’t so bad. In fact, I myself have not always been the best influence in them all the time. Furthermore, if a child is inclined to wander as they age, guarding closely their influences is not always useful.
Truth is the worst influence on our kids relates to Jesus Christ himself. Anti-Christ influences, including traditions that we continue for generations blindly and for no real reason can be their worst influences.
In other words, I’ve come to realize that blind, thoughtless, continuation of “mommy did it that way”, or “I don’t care about much as long as I am comfortable” … TRADITION, is possibly THE WORST influence on the next generation.
It teaches mostly through parenting, at very deep level, terrible things. Things that are just not true, godless things that can seem good outwardly. Things that Jesus never taught and is not teaching now.
Tradition teaches aggressively. It teaches and influences but it does not always teach openly, it does not always even teach using words. Tradition offers subtle, but very powerful lessons, very often lessons in the continuation of religious error.
