Parents It’s Your Job to Teach American Values

Parents It’s Your Job to Teach American Values

Parents It’s Your Job to Teach American Values

American parents have long assumed that public schools would teach the same values to their children that they had learned growing up. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case, writes Karol Markowicz.

She began by referencing the recent Wall St. Journal poll which showed that traditional values of patriotism, religion, having children, and community involvement are on the wane.

Markowicz writes:

What happened to us? How did the idea of loving your country, placing importance in worship, growing a family, and helping your community become things we feel “meh” about? ….

If you don’t fill in what matters, and teach your children what your family’s priorities are, don’t be surprised to discover that someone else has.

Stop expecting someone else to teach your children values.

We’ve surrendered the teaching of values to schools and organizations we’ve trusted.

And if you don’t teach them at home, don’t be shocked when they tell you that they’re inherently racist simply because they’re white. Or that they’re helpless victims if they’re members of a minority group. Don’t be surprised if teachers have told them that the United States was founded merely to promote slavery, as in the New York Times “1619 Project” — even though historians have debunked it.

Nor should it surprise parents if their high school student comes home with an assignment to describe their sexual fantasy, as this Oregon father discovered.

There may be a tendency for parents, especially if they live in the Midwest as I do, to assume that this is the kind of stuff that happens on the “Left Coast.” It can’t happen here, they think.

But it does. Moms and dads here in Kansas have found sexual and critical race concepts within their children’s curriculum. As a result many of them are running for local school boards. Some are also running for the KS Board of Education or the legislature. And many are winning, too.

 

Parents Should Be Promoting Faith

There’s no magic potion to give your child moral values. Nor can anyone wrap them in a blanket of invincibility to protect them from perversion.

But it can start at home, especially when parents demonstrate their religious faith early.

A recent Pew poll revealed that only a third of parents said it was important to instruct children in their faith. Not only does religion teach moral values, but a 2019 Pew poll also found that religious people are more civically involved, too.

My husband and I sent our children to parochial elementary and high school from the late 1980’s into the 90’s. I had attended a parochial school as a child, and I wanted my kids to have the same experience.

My mother-in-law, however, was not so keen. It was not that she was anti-religious — far from it, she was an extremely devout Christian. But she thought it would be a waste of money. “Our kids went to public school, and they turned out fine,” she told us. And she was right — for back then.

We sent our children anyway. Our oldest daughter married a boy she met in her Catholic high school. They married after they graduated from their respective colleges: she from a small school in Iowa, and he from the US Naval Academy. They have two children, and both of them attend a parochial school — because their mom and dad also saw the value of religion.

 

Teach Them Love of Country Too

Here’s Markowicz on what progressive elites are telling children:

Loving your country is bad, they tell us; patriotism is dangerous: This is a standard opinion now among our country elites, who enjoy spending Thanksgiving and Independence Day reminding us of our great country’s flaws.

Markowicz loves America  — perhaps because she’s a Jewish woman who was born in the former USSR. And if you’ve ever known anyone who has come to the US from an oppressive state, you know that they often love this country with greater fervor than American-born citizens.

My maternal grandparents loved America. They were ethnic Germans who grew up in czarist Lithuania and immigrated to Chicago as young adults. My mother recalled that prior to World War II, a friend of my grandfather invited him to join the German-American Bund. But he refused. “I’m an American,” he said. Indeed he was, having become a citizen in 1927.

And our grandchildren? They have learned respect for the United States.

During the NFL conference championship between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals, our grandson and his friend watched the game on TV. When the National Anthem was played, they both saluted the flag. So did our granddaughter, who did her best to mimic her big brother.

parents patriotism

Personal image/faces obscured for privacy.

Perhaps our grandson learned to salute at school. But probably not. Our son-in-law is a Navy commander, and he teaches his children to respect America and her flag.

Meanwhile, Markowicz admonishes American parents:

You can’t raise a generation of children in a brand new way, without the values that have grounded so many people who came before them, and feel optimistic about the future ….

To save American society, parents have to be braver in telling their kids what they believe.

Who are children’s first and most important teachers? Not those in the classroom. It’s their moms and dads. And kids learn best from their parents.

 

Featured image: Photo, cropped, by frank mckenna on Unsplash

 

Written by

Kim is a pint-sized patriot who packs some big contradictions. She is a Baby Boomer who never became a hippie, an active Republican who first registered as a Democrat (okay, it was to help a sorority sister's father in his run for sheriff), and a devout Lutheran who practices yoga. Growing up in small-town Indiana, now living in the Kansas City metro, Kim is a conservative Midwestern gal whose heart is also in the Seattle area, where her eldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live. Kim is a working speech pathologist who left school system employment behind to subcontract to an agency, and has never looked back. She describes her conservatism as falling in the mold of Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles. Don't know what they are? Google them!

4 Comments
  • Scott says:

    Spot on Kim! Sadly, my parents failed to do this.. The did raise us with religion, and sent us to catholic school (prior to moving to a state / area that did not have one), and they set a good example for us, but they never talked about politics, or why religion was important, other than some traditional catholic explanations, which caused more resistance than acceptance… and don’t even get me started on the current pretender pope..

    But this lack of conversation and explanation in our house (as well as my mothers untimely death from cancer) led to all of my fathers other children becoming unthinking liberal drones… ooh, they think they’re supremely intelligent and superior (one or two are actually very intelligent) but they are completely incapable of critical thinking… the true hallmark of a leftist…

    • GWB says:

      Progressivism worships “reason”, Scott. They’re very religious. But the religion is called Progressivism and their god is their own minds.
      I feel for you.

  • Cameron says:

    To save American society, parents have to be braver in telling their kids what they believe.

    And to disregard the opinions of those who try admonishing them for instilling values in their children.

  • GWB says:

    What happened to us? How did the idea of loving your country, placing importance in worship, growing a family, and helping your community become things we feel “meh” about?
    What happened? Progressivism happened. It seductively pulled Americans away from their Christian roots and replaced God’s morality with “reason”. It did it by infiltrating our schools, our culture, then our churches, and finally our government (openly).

    If you don’t fill in what matters, and teach your children what your family’s priorities are, don’t be surprised to discover that someone else has.
    I have encountered so many people over the years who stupidly said things like “We’re going to let little Jimmy decide what he will believe; we won’t prejudice him.” Well, quite simply, if you don’t think enough of your religion to actively proselytize your children into it, then you don’t really believe it either. And Progressivism spent a lot of effort pushing that “morally neutral” crap. It’s exactly why Deuteronomy says (TWICE! – chapters 6 and 11) that “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” If it doesn’t matter to you enough to pass it on, then it won’t matter to them, either.

    Stop expecting someone else to teach your children values.
    More importantly, stop believing that education can be morally neutral. Another of the Great Lies progressivism taught us. Abdicating the teaching of morals (religion, really) to another person is bad, yes, but believing your children can be taught without teaching them a value system is STUPID.

    Nor should it surprise parents if their high school student comes home with an assignment to describe their sexual fantasy
    Remember that sex is a virtue in Progressivism. It is pleasurable, and therefore should be able to be engaged in with no guilt or hangups or any expectations other than pleasure. (This is called “hedonism”.) And keep in mind that most of the groomers in public school aren’t grooming your children so they can have sex with said children, but so that said children can have sex with each other. They want sex to be as meaningless (outside of a momentary pleasure) to the kids as it is to them.

    A recent Pew poll revealed that only a third of parents said it was important to instruct children in their faith.
    Because they really don’t believe it themselves. Oh, hey, I already said that.

    “Our kids went to public school, and they turned out fine,” she told us. And she was right — for back then.
    Not really. See, Progressivism is… well, progressive. It works incrementally. And Progressivism has been working in our public school, insidiously, for over a century, very gradually turning each generation further from the truth. Her kids turned out ok because she’s measuring against a standard that isn’t that different from her generation, which was measured against a standard not that different from her parents’ generation, which….

    they both saluted the flag
    Ideally, they should have used the civilian salute. A uniformed salute is not appropriate when in civilian attire. But at least they know to respect it.

    To save American society, parents have to be braver in telling their kids what they believe.
    Oh, but they are. They are teaching their kids exactly what they believe (what they were also taught to believe). They think they’re Christian and American, when really they believe none of it. And not valuing what they think they believe, they actively do not pass it on to their children.
    And there is the problem. It’s not the schools (though they are a cause). It’s not just the culture (though that is part of the problem). It’s not the gov’t (though the problems manifest there).
    The problem is the very people of the United States no longer believe in the things that make Western Civilization possible and made America so good. And we’ll only get our Republic back when we move those people back towards the light, valuing Christian morals and American ideals.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead