Teen Blogging

In this article (click on the headline) it said that blogging is done predominately by 14 to 34 year olds. The "baby boomer" generation are people between the ages of 34 to 54 and these are their kids. I guess you could say I'm a child of a baby boomer. My husband, even though he's only a few years older than me, I think is a baby boomer.

I listened to an internet seminar on making money and they said that everybody knows if you want to make money, you have to appeal to this "baby boomer generation". Since then I've noticed most advertising is geared to these baby boomers and has been for years depending on what time of life these "babies" were at. Baby boomer's priorities now, because they're getting older, is the way they look. How many weight loss commercials have you seen lately? Cosmetic surgery, teeth whitening, Viagra, need I list more? Their priorities, or maybe it's what their told their priorities should be, have affected the way they raise their children.

Blogging by these teenagers could be a great thing. If we taught our children the right things to think about. Instead, they see commercials saying you need to look good, feel good and this is how you do that. I'm in a battle with my kids right now trying to change their views because they think mine are wrong. I let society tell my kids what their views should be. You can read all kinds of things into what we thought was a simple solution to entertaining even our preschool children. When mine were that age, we had every Barney video that was out there. I absolutely refuse to go back and look to see what I taught my children. I don't have time to go back and look at my mistake and analyze it to see where me and Barney went wrong in teaching my kids.

The first thing to do when you see that you've made a mistake is to take inventory of where you are now and where you should be and then work towards getting back on track. Changing the past, where you made the mistake (or planted your seed) is impossible. From where I stand now, a time machine would be a very good idea, but then we'd waste too much time going back and changing things that happened and still not ending up with the outcome we want. However, we can start making changes now in hopes that in fifteen years or less, I hope, we'll be somewhat back on track. Focusing on what is really important is a good start, which is where I'm at now.

Thinking about what kind of seeds I'm going to plant today is also a good start. When I've been told before that "you reap what you sow", I've always thought that I was planting flowers or vegetables. I look at it now as planting rose bushes and vines. If you don't trim and prune, you rose bushes get too many thorns and become unruly instead of just pretty. Your vines can grow and cover up something that isn't pretty (your past mistakes), but even they have to be cut back and attended to, otherwise they start choking your other plants or taking over to cover up things that are pretty, but soon nobody will see.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but I hope that someone sees the point I'm trying to make. If you do, please feel free to add your comment. Sometimes it helps when you see other people's point of view or perspectives, because it makes your own thoughts and understanding even more clear. Kind of like the fog I was talking about.

My prayer is that my own daughter will use her blog to write about her relationship with God and her family to reach other teens. Should we really discourage our kids to write blogs on the internet or should we teach them to use this powerful tool to spread His Word?