“But, Mom,  everyone is doing it.”  I don’t know how many times I tried to use this excuse to try to convince to convince her that what I was asking to do was what everyone else was doing.  Of course, her response was invariably,  “If they jumped off a bridge, would that, too?”  We all want to be like everyone else in our group or like the ones we idolize.

nn    mmm

How often do we see children of dysfunctional families repeat that dysfunction in their own families?  Children of substance abusers are much more apt to become substance abusers.  Children whose parents read stories to them as infants, grow up to be better readers and actually enjoy reading.  Yet Proverbs tells us to Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.  (Proverbs 22:6)

We need to be…