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“It is a mystery to me that the most indulged society is the most discontent society, that the more people have the more they seem to be discontent with what they have and the more complaining them seem to be.”   With these words Macarthur got my thinking juices going!  

 
When you are raised in a family of eight children like I was, in the morning you are handed a lunch bag and told “dinner is at 5:30, you’re here, you eat.”  When your mother slaves over a meal and your say, “I don’t like it,” your brother beside you says “great” and takes it!
 
Macarthur’s thesis is that small families in a materialistic society breed selfish, self-indulgent children.  In one or two children families, the systems tend to bend to the child.  You end up with child-centered parenting.  
 
You end up with children ruling the home.  Children do not and must not rule the home.  The real world does not bend to us.  We all fit into a society and a world that consists of all kinds of people and situations.  We need to learn about the real world starting in our homes.  You can end up with people not wanting to invite your over because your children will trash their house. You can end up with children never wanting to leave home because they don’t want to grow up and face the reality that they are not the centre of the world.  Nobody at works says “ how would you like your office?”  The best way to ruin your son is to give him everything he wants.
 
Having lived in a large family; as well as having raised children in poorer areas of Africa, I see God’s wonderful way of balancing out our lives.  When we have very little we are grateful for what we have.  The food tastes better, there seems to be more joy in simpler and less things.  Generosity can be expressed by the poorest and the richest.  Relationships can be enjoyed by anyone and it seems more so by those whose lives are uncluttered.
 
We somehow have to show the world how to live a different life as we follow Christ.  The answer cannot only be going and living in poor countries or having eight children!  We must learn to live with a Godly contentment and in simplifying our lives here and now.  We need to train our children by example and by discipline how to grow up loving God and people more than things and themselves. I starts with not letting our children rule our homes.  It starts with gratitude, right now, for each day.
 
Leonard and Lorie Rutten