Its all my fault - reflections on parenting!

Back to the things that came from Greenbelt -

Tabi went off to the youth things, hoping to catch up with people and hear some good things on justice issues. Well that was not to be and after going to hopefully do some acting in what she expect to be very powerful, which according to her was not, she gave up.
We finished up though seeing Matt talk about horror stories in the Bible and what we tell our children. If you look at some of the stories we read to our children and what the Bible says they are horrendous, but we sanitize them and make them easy both to read and for a child to listen to.
I wonder if become a Christian after a very pessimistic past and at an older age has made me want my kids not to miss out, or whether at times I am just naive and think if God says it then they can read it. Anyway we did all the Children's Bible story books but when Tabi was about 6 we had a very wet camping holiday in Wales and she spent her money on a version of the Bible that was very much a no holes barred one, but written in simple enough language for her to read. I have also always let my kids read what they feel they are ready to rather than "age appropriate" and have then used it as a chance to talk about various things. But she sat in the back of the car reading this Bible going "they lied to us in Sunday school", "oh they never told us that bit" and so on.
Because of this and because of being homeschooled we have always worked to where they are and what I think they need to hear at the time. And what it has produced is 2 young people who find a lot of what they get fed in church youth groups very tame Interestingly Matt's take on this was that often those leading the youth groups have never really read into the Bible stories, do not like what they see and so ignore it, come from church backgrounds where there are people who don't certain things in the Bible and so skip them out, and so they, these youth leaders, just carry on from where they have been taught. He even gave an example of an intern (he never gave the age) who did not know the story of Deborah.
The trouble is now that actually Ben has got to a point where he wont read his Bible because he wants to conform with his group, whereas Tabi wont join a group but still reads her Bible.

The reason for the title of this blog is that I always said that being a single mum for 10 years and home schooling too that my 2 would only ever have me to blame for things. I have also often been their youth leader or Sunday school teacher too, and Ben did tell me I was the best youth leader he has ever had. Some compliment indeed!
Now I have to just hold my breath and see where they go with what God and I have placed in them!

Do try to check out Matt's talk on his blog which is on the side about films with Biblical themes.