We had a situation come up this week that made me realize how hard it is as a parent sometimes. Don't get me wrong- I LOVE being a parent, I just don't take that responsibility lightly (as I'm sure most of you don't as well).
Here's what happened. We got an invitation to a birthday party. Come to find out, they were going to be watching a PG-13 movie there. We don't even let our boys watch PG-13 movies here at home. We decided that our son won't get to go (or he will go for part of it and then leave early). Seeing his tear-filled eyes and the disappointment he was feeling about being "left out" , I realized that it's hard to be different.
We could have let it slide, right? I mean, it's only 1 movie?
But 1 movie can lead to 2 movies and then so on. I realize that we can not shelter our kids forever. I also know that we can while they are living in our house. They can get exposed to those things when they are older! Plus knowing our kids as we do, I know that this movie would have affected him and stayed with him.We just try to use the best judgement possible.
Please note: we realize that we don't have it all figured out and probably never will :)
We had a great talk with our son last night about how we are called to be "different" from the world but not place judgement on them. I think he got it. There are so many places in life and parenting where there are gray areas. I guess we will just take them as they come.
What do you think about this? Do you let your kids watch just about anything? Or are you very aware of what they watch? What other "gray" areas are out there in the world of parenting? How do you handle it when situations arise and you have to make the tough calls?