Right On Course

As I watched the moon rise, I thought about the, earth being on its course, orbiting around the sun, the different constellations coming into view in different seasons. Even the galaxies are on course, moving away from each other at incredible speeds. I also thought about the history of man, especially in the last century, and how it shows that man is also on a course.

Our society has changed radically. Even in my short existence of 38 years I have seen major changes. A hundred years ago women wore long hair, her desire was for her husband, and she allowed him to rule over her. She gave birth to children in pain, with no thought of going to the hospital and getting anaesthesia.

Now woman cuts her hair short, which is a great blow to her conscience for she knows instinctively that her hair should be long. It is natural. It expresses her feminine qualities. It has been the tradition of mankind for thousands and thousands of years.

Liberation from the Home

One thing that started the change was woman going to hospitals to deliver her babies. She was given drugs that made her forget what happened during her labor, and more drugs to put her to sleep. She would wake up not knowing which baby was hers. Bonding and imprinting were greatly damaged as a result. The brooding instinct in woman suffered a crushing blow. Little wonder that it became easier for woman to leave home and have her own career and work. Times were changing. Woman was liberated from the home and the bondage of raising many children. Bottle-feeding came in. Woman left her children with baby-sitters, nannies or day-care centers. Fifty years before that, the only women who had careers were teachers and nurses, and they were usually single. Once they married, thoughts of a career outside the home were put aside. There wasn't anything more important for a woman than to mother her children and run the household. The job was too important to consider anything else.

Changing Roles

But as time went on, woman also started to rule the family. She refused to let her husband rule over her. Instead, she became the dominant one. The father became more and more distant. Role models for children became confused, so they grew up not knowing who they were. This led the way to a great evil in our nation - homosexuality.

Eighteen years ago when I took a course in psychiatric nursing, homosexuality was considered to be a deviation from what was normal. Now it's considered a variation of what's normal. I remember hearing in a lecture that there was a very common family pattern of men who were homosexuals. Often the mother was domineering and overprotective, and the father was distant and aloof. The instructor also spoke about lesbianism, and my mind raced ahead, imagining that the family pattern for lesbians would be the opposite of the pattern for homosexuals. To my surprise, it was the same.

I feel that the changing role of woman from being at home with her children, mothering them, to not being at home and not having that mother-child bond has had a tremendous effect on our society. The changing role of the husband and father from being the authority and stabilizer of the family to a non-caring, distant, emasculated man, has had the same devastating effect.

As a child I can remember hearing light conversations about who wears the pants in the family and about hen-pecked husbands. But really it's not light, it's disastrous. Who would ever have guessed that role changes would have any effect on a person's sexuality? Role models are very important to children as they grow up, shaping their very character and personality. Some people convince themselves that they were born a homosexual, or that it is in their genes, but in actuality they were affected in their childhood through improper role models.

Media Influences

Yes, human history is on course. Times are changing. Just look at the media, how it has changed and how it has changed us. As a child, I can remember adults talking about going to the movies. It was a hot controversy. Preachers were protesting against movies from their pulpits. I grew up in a mountain area of Tennessee where my grandparents' generation was somewhat isolated from the progressive trends of American society. They agreed with the preachers. But then TV came into the home and I grew up watching it. I couldn't relate to the thought that movies were evil or harmful. There was a normal standard being taught in my home, and seeing a slightly different one on TV didn't seem to matter, because it was fiction anyway. A slight twist or a subtle undertone went unnoticed. Besides, there was a switch that could turn it right off if something came on that was unacceptable. It was pretty difficult to judge this in a thrilling movie that totally captivated your interest, though. It was easy to allow a little this and a little that to go by, because whether or not you believed it was bad or good, those things really did happen in the real world.

What's shown on the air today is much different than what was shown on the air in the past. If one-tenth of the evil on TV and in movies today was shown forty years ago, why, people would have taken their TV sets outside and burned them, and boycotted Hollywood until it went out of business! But over the years our morals have eroded to the point that our society allows all kinds of evil to be shown on TV and in the movies. Even the 6:00 news has had a great effect on us. Good news is not news, but bad news is. Hearing about murder, scandal, rape, war and theft in an emotionless tone night after night has had a stifling effect on our conscience, making us passive and dull. So now, very little can surprise or shock us because of all that we have seen. We see soldiers being blown apart in war, and view their dead and mutilated bodies on the screen. We have become accustomed to hearing and seeing such things through the media.

Unnatural Childbirth

Growing up with the moral standards of the day, I thought it was normal for woman to cut her hair, to have a career even if it meant neglecting the family, to bottle-feed her babies, and to have anaesthesia during childbirth.

There is a great evil in giving pain medication during normal childbirth. There is a helplessness and a void sensed during labor that is not felt at any other time. It causes a woman to examine herself and to turn to God for help. Her suffering also causes her to be sensitive and compassionate towards others. Yet these things are taken away from her through anaesthesia.

In times past when a woman suffered during childbirth, respect was imparted into the children for their mother. How could her children be disrespectful to the one who suffered to give them life, or to their father who is the source of their life? There is truth in the cliche, "Easy come, easy go." If a woman is prone to take the easy way out and avoid all suffering in childbirth, she will be more likely to overlook or tolerate disrespect in her children rather than do something about it.

When a woman has a child naturally, without drugs, something very wonderful happens between the mother and child. It is called bonding. The mother becomes emotionally attached to the child in a way that can't be done in any other way. The use of anaesthesia only interferes, and the bonding instinct in the mother is damaged. If this bonding is not formed, her interests are led away from her children to other things.

The pain of childbirth can have another wonderful effect, too, strengthening the bond between husband and wife. Nothing can touch a man's heart more deeply than for him to see his wife suffer to give birth to his children. It makes him love her all the more. To take the suffering out of childbirth can disrupt the family pattern. As you can see, many changes have occurred over the past hundred years.

Yes, mankind is on a course. Just like the movements of the heavens, it is predictable: that course is headed for destruction. But no one needs to follow that course, there is a way to escape.