the music we feed our children

by Alanna

The past week of mine here in South Africa was spent on nightshift-which involves mostly cleaning, and also feeding the younger babies. During nearly the whole night the radio is on, tuned to 94.7 South Africa's version of Colorado's 107.1 (in other words, typical secular music) Although I used my ipod quite frequently and switched off the radio until someone else turned it back on, I was still subject to quite a lot of trashy music-for hours on end sometimes.
I am literally horrified by the music we listen to in our culture.
(Thanks be to God, because not long ago I was putting up with probably half of what they play on such radio stations)
Listening to this music makes my soul feel oppressed-there is nothing edifying about it. Next time you turn on the radio or your ipod, please analyze what you're listening to. If you are not willing to analyze lyrics honestly, you are most likely listening to trash. Explicit songs about perversion and using other people's bodies for your own pleasure are a mockery in the face of Christ who died to pay for such sins.
I am grieved that the babies here are subject to so much of this type of music and also grieved that I'm not in leadership and so there is only a limited amount I can do to fight it.
Anyway, someone mentioned to me that maybe we shouldn't let anything into our home on the TV that we wouldn't allow in real life. If we wouldn't want our children to see a murderer in their home, why do we allow it on TV? It was thought-provoking to me and I am concerned about the things we feed our children. Is there such a thing as movies that "go over their heads" because they are "too young to understand"? Should we play trashy music while our babies sleep?
I think that children absorb much more than we suspect. From even before birth, I wonder if children are being saturated with the kind of values we want them to hold as adults. If we want our children to grow up with their lives focused around the Lord, then why do we so often fill their minds with just the opposite?
Let's consider how we can influence our children by the things that we watch and listen to. It is more than just our words and actions that speak to them. It is the values embedded in music that w allow to soak into their little minds and hearts. Let us mold the children entrusted to us into the kind of men and women that respect and love each other rightly, pursuing God with their whole hearts.