“The world stands to have a far tighter grip on teenagers than it does on little children, and yet many parents I speak with basically give up on governing their sons and daughters around 8th or 9th grade.
They give them phones and video games and glumly report at parent teacher conferences that their children are addicted to them, as though the situation is fated, futile, hopeless.
What is odd, though, is that these same parents give their children food and clothing and beds and a home to live in, but worry about “sheltering” them.
If you shelter a child’s body, you need to shelter that child’s soul, too. If you shelter a child’s body because they’re not old enough to do it, then the child is certainly not old enough to shelter its own soul.
Parents, the fact that teenagers are too old to spank does not mean the most difficult part of your work is over. If you do not help your children develop good taste, they will develop bad taste. At seventeen, you should still be telling your sons and daughters, “Don’t listen to that. It’s wretched,” and, “Don’t watch that. It will rot your soul.””
-from the lecture I’m giving for Classical Academic Press tonight, which you can register for here
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. 