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Discussion Forum : News and Current Events : A Secular Perspective on Covid-19

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savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 A Secular Perspective on Covid-19


New York Post
March 2020

Coronavirus is Providing the Course Correction Kids Desperately Needed

Silver linings are hard to come by, but maybe this could be one.

With the cataclysmic coronavirus upon us, it is just the tiniest bit possible that, in terms of child development, something good could come of it: A way to press the reset button on child anxiety. Yes, even during — and precisely because we are in — these insanely anxious times.

Before the virus changed everything, childhood anxiety was one of the worst things facing today’s kids.

Over the past several decades, the rates were spiking to the point where today, according to the National Institutes of Health, nearly one in three adolescents has an anxiety disorder. Pre-COVID we were hearing stories about students too scared to even put their name on a quiz without precise teacher instructions.

“Do you want our full name or just our first name? Do we have to write the date?” Kids had gotten so used to micromanagement they’d come to crave it. They were terrified of screwing up.

Being driven to school, supervised on playdates and participating in a boatload of adult-run extracurriculars meant that many kids just didn’t have much chance to gain the confidence that comes from actually making something happen, or handling some roadblocks. Across the economic spectrum, parents were trying to make their kids’ lives perfect — and accidentally depriving them of the chance to punch through some problems on their own. And grow up in the process.

What would it take to reverse this trend?

Ahem.

School closings and the cancellation of almost every last clarinet lesson have left households in a tizzy. The moms on social media sound like they’re feeding vocabulary packets to the dog and splashing the Frosted Flakes with vodka.

So while obviously the parents are right there on top of the kids (not to mention worried out of their minds), they are not right there to organize 15.7 hours of structured activity each day. Nobody can do that. Instead, these days are crazily free-form — ironically more free, under lockdown, than many kids have ever been.

Thrown from the soccer-Kumon continuum, kids are starting to do all the things they didn’t have time to do or weren’t trusted to do before. We’re already hearing about marathon Lego sessions, cookie baking, sibling-sitting and the videos kids are making in their unleashed time.

During the regular school year, which feels like a lifetime ago, our non-profit encourages schools do the Let Grow Project, where kids take home the assignment, “Do something new, on your own, without your parents.”

We’ve watched kids blossom like crazy once they were nudged into simply making pancakes, or riding their bikes. One middle-schooler told his teacher that thanks to doing a bunch of new things on his own, he was no longer taking his anxiety meds.

Amazing. Now, with a whole country’s worth of kids at home and school only taking up a fraction of the long, long day, it’s a whole new (indoor, trophy-free, child-organized) ballgame.

As for parents worried that all this non-academic time is dooming their kids’ futures, research at the University of Colorado at Boulder found that the kids who have more free time to create and structure their own activities develop stronger executive functioning skills — that is, better planning, problem-solving and follow-through — than kids whose lives are more continuously structured by adults.

Executive functioning skills are exactly what kids need to succeed at school and in real life (that thing we used to partake in, before Zoom).

When disruption occurs, learning is inevitable. It’s the same reason we’re all suddenly experts on viruses, curve-flattening and Italian geography. We are alert because we’re in new territory — a whole new world we have to navigate.

The kids are navigating, too, solving new problems, adapting (not like angels, but like growing humans) and muscling through, because they have no choice.

Childhood needed a course correction. In a million trillion years, this is not how we would have wanted it to happen.

Nonetheless, here goes.

 2020/4/24 10:44Profile
savannah
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Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: A Secular Perspective on Covid-19 + 2:5 and Titus



WOMEN NOW LIVING SIMPLY AT HOME
April 2, 2020
by Lori Alexander


“Women should be required to stay home permanently after this. Give their jobs, that they now don’t have, to some fathers and husbands who need them. God finally forced what is natural because women won’t choose to do it. And they are all finding out they don’t HAVE to work. Yank the money away and they are still surviving on one income. No more excuses.”

This was a comment from a man on my Facebook page. His comment has a LOT of truth to it. No, I don’t believe women should be required to stay home permanently,but it is God’s will for women to be keepers at home. Free governments can’t force these things upon their people and should not, but women being home full time is sure what is best for marriages, families, and culture.

Now that many women are home full time, they are learning to bake bread, cook from scratch, sew, cut their husbands’ and sons’ hair, and not waste food. They’re wearing fewer clothes and less to no makeup. They’re not getting their hair cut and dyed or their nails done. They’re learning to garden and take care of their yards. They’re cleaning their own homes. Many are even teaching their own children. They are learning to live simply and frugally at home. These are all GREAT things!

Being truthful, women in the workforce ARE taking jobs away from men. God created men to be the providers not women. There is very little good that has come from women entering the workforce, only harm. They are out of their God-ordained roles and only chaos comes from this. God is a God of order. His ways create order.

Undoubtedly, people will ask about widows, single mothers, and single women. Concerning widows, I will just tell you what the Bible says. The younger widows are to marry, bear children, and guide the home (1 Timothy 5:14). Older widows are to be taken care of by their families and relatives. If they have no families and relatives, the churches are to care for them.

What about single unmarried women? Bloom where you’re planted. Become domestic, home centered, and hospitable as much as you can. Help those in need. Serve others. Enjoy your family and community by being productive and fruitful right where you are. Grow spiritually. Never feel guilty for wanting to be married. Give those desires of being a wife and mother to the Lord. Find ways to make money with domestic skills such as cooking, catering, and decorating. Use your time wisely.

What about single divorced mothers? If your ex-husband isn’t remarried, do what you can to win him back especially if you were the one to divorce him simply because you weren’t “happy.” This would be the best case scenario. If he is remarried and he divorced you, I believe you are free to marry. But in the meantime, seek the Lord in prayer and ask Him to make a way for you to be home with your children. They need and want you! There are many ways to make money from home these days.

 2020/4/26 21:08Profile
wildhorse86
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Joined: 2005/5/20
Posts: 87


 Re:

With respect, that's a faulty statement, especially when some struggle with one income. There's no issue with women working but both partners/parents need not overwork to the point of neglecting their relationship or children.

I don't believe there is a biblical basis for women not to have a job if it helps contribute to the household.

 2020/4/27 10:55Profile
savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: persuaded to call it 'faulty'


With respect...


"The speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

All laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature, and therefore of no force or authority.

The women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation, by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

That inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is pre-eminently his duty to encourage her to speak, and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her."
written by E. Stanton (ca. 1848)

_____________________________

Genesis 3:1-6

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

________________________________


Now the serpent was more subtle than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must stay at home and take care of your children and your household?”

The woman answered the serpent, “We may have careers of our own, but we must not neglect the taking care of our home and children is what God meant."

“You may hire a cleaning lady, send your children to daycare and then send them to the public school when they're 5 years old” the serpent told her. “For God knows that in the day you realize your full potential and purpose, you will feel such freedom and be liberated just like the man, experiencing satisfaction and happiness.”

When the woman realized how fulfilling this would be and the limitations that had been placed on her, and that she was just as qualified for any career choice in the workplace as a man, she grabbed hold of the idea and ran with it. She then went and told her husband her intentions, and he agreed.

 2020/5/1 8:23Profile
wildhorse86
Member



Joined: 2005/5/20
Posts: 87


 Re:

All you've done is make as mockery of scripture and re-wrote the word of God to try and make an unscriptural argument.

There is nothing in scripture that says women working is bad. Some couples need to both work and it's a fact of life. What is important here though is that they have balance, both know when to rest, when to attend to family and worship God always in all they do.

Working to survive as a family is different to focusing on upping your career, neglecting family and God. That is idolatry. Don't mix the two up.

 2020/5/1 8:42Profile
savannah
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Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: young stallion



In your post I noticed the words, 'unscriptural argument'.

Would you please furnish me with some of the didactic scriptures giving instructions to the genders in regard to the role they've been given by God in His order of creation.

Please direct me only to the didactic where God instructs the genders regarding their roles, rather than Biblical narrative.

If you don't understand what I mean by the didactic as opposed to the Biblical narrative, please ask.

Thanks for your time and consideration of this monumental issue.

 2020/5/1 10:18Profile
wildhorse86
Member



Joined: 2005/5/20
Posts: 87


 Re:

As long as you do the same. I only see posted opinions of other preachers and a rewrite of the fall of man.

Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Titus 2:4‭-‬5

So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander.
1 Timothy 5:14


Okay. It says women should manage her home. So what does that look like? I suggest one can manage home and work to get supplemental income when needed.

Proverbs 31 references working.
She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.
Proverbs 31:16‭, ‬18‭, ‬24‭-‬25

Now.... Let's look at the spirit of these verses. These are verses which shows women need to be focused at home and help raise children and the support their husbands. But this doesn't mean women can't work if needed to bring in additional income in order to survive. I'm taking about situations where mortgages are high and living costs exist and dual income is needed. If the wife/mother and husband/father comes home and puts work away until the next day and both contribute to the house hold there is no issue.

There is nothing that forbids women working. If a wife and mother is off pursuing worldly riches instead of using work as a way to simply support their family, neglecting it, then we have an issue. This goes for men too. As times change and dual income becomes a necessity to sustain a family, what's the alternative? Starve? Homelessness? Over burden the husband to the point of exhaustion?

I see it as all about the heart. Those that focus on their careers and don't treat their work as being honourable to God and as a means to providing for their family, whether man or woman, are committing idolatry.

Done properly a woman and her husband are able to tend to family and work evenly. Usually the women work less hours though.

 2020/5/1 11:38Profile
havok20x
Member



Joined: 2008/9/14
Posts: 980
Pineville, LA

 Re:

Savannah,

Will you do me a favor? Can you build for me, from the ground up a description of what a biblical family can look like. If you don't mind, address the following issues:

What is the function of the husband?
What is the function of the children?
How are the children educated?
What can the day-to-day life of the wife look like?
Can the wife earn income? If so, in what ways?

Feel free to supply any additional information. This isn't a test, but I think I will get a better feel for what you are saying if I have a complete picture to look at.

 2020/5/1 12:18Profile
savannah
Member



Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: A Biblical Portrait of Marriage


I will gladly answer your questions, as well as address the issues you've listed in particular.

But first, I'd direct you to this series which is my favorite on the subject.

Here's the link to the whole series online;

https://www.rightnowmedia.org/Content/Series/380


Again, I will personally post addressing your post, but I wanted to pass this along right away as it is a 'complete picture' as you requested.

Thanks.

Afterwards, I'd like your thoughts on the series and your "description of what a biblical family can look like."

 2020/5/1 16:21Profile
wildhorse86
Member



Joined: 2005/5/20
Posts: 87


 Re:

We need to pay for that resource. I'm getting married soon so I may look at it when I can budget for it.

Are you able to summarise without us needing to pay and listen to the material?

 2020/5/2 2:29Profile





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