The stark reality of the change in society
Cuts to the bone
When you look out your window and there are no children playing
No laughter or chatter, no shouts or singing,
Where have the children gone?
A mother plays at home with her children in a street of misfits.
Two women live one side, a divorcee the other,
A childless couple behind.[i]
There are no mothers to visit and no playmates for her children.
The isolation is unkind
On many a corner, there’s a childcare center
with children running riot,
Like Lord of the Flies[ii]
When they first come, they’re sweet
When they leave they’re street wise
These are our future
What hope do they have?
No loving guidance
No one-to-one care
Imprisoned in this building
Out of mum and dad’s hair
But what choice do we have?
Cost of living is high
Two workers for one[iii]
This is progress
What a lie!
Who teaches the children in these early years?
It’s left to the state and influence of peers
Parents are busy, they just don’t have time
Divorce rate is rising
And so is street crime.
What can we do when truth is discarded
God’s word holds the answers but from this we’ve departed
Even the church has lost sight of His way
And until it returns we’ll see atomic decay
Older women teaching younger to be keepers at home
To love their husbands and children[iv]
And to value this role.
But men have played tyrant and women revolted
Now society is crumbling and truth is assaulted.
Restore the family for our future’s sake
What kind of leaders will our children make
If they’re left to the mercy of chaos and crime
We’ll reap what we sow
it will show in time
A father providing,
mother keeping the home
Obedient children
And the love of God strong
The atom of society
Is the family alone
but when it is split
It’s an atom bomb[v]!
[i] In my neighbourhood as I was growing up, my street was filled with families whose children played together and whose parents had cups of coffee together and visited each other. In my neighbourhood where my children are now being brought up most children are in childcare and parents rarely see each other let alone visit each other for coffee. The decay in the family unit is also much more apparent as demonstrated by the description of my immediate neighbours in the stanza to which this note is attached. This stanza fails to mention the rest of the neighbours in my street who when analysed would further emphasize this point. (We have since moved from this neighborhood.)
[ii] Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Edmund L. Epstein / Mass Market Paperback / Berkley Publishing Group / July 1959 demonstrates what happens when children are left alone to govern themselves.
[iii] This page compares real minimum wages in the 1920s to those in the late 1990s, and concludes that real wages have dropped by more than half … “Young couples complain that it now takes two wages to live in the suburb where their parents survived comfortably on one wage… The business world, then, has acquired two workers for one family wage, where it used to get only one worker for that amount.” The Essence of Feminism by Kirsten Birkett, p23, Matthias Media 2000
3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:5 KJV
[v] By splitting the atom it is possible to use a few pounds of uranium to create the explosive and destructive power of many thousands of pounds of dynamite. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWatom.htm