How we are going to raise our child

We have become really reflective over the last 4 or so months since we found out that we are going to be parents. We look at the way that we were raised, the ways that other people are raising their kids, books about raising good kids, and our own preferences and are trying to make a plan now. I realize our plans may change, but I feel that if we don't even think about these things ahead of time we will never address them.

An easy decision was that we are going to raise our children as vegetarians. Keith and I are both vegetarians. While we are partially doing this from a practical sense (there is no way that I am going to purchase and prepare meat for our children if we aren't eating it), we are also doing this because we ethically do not agree with the way that much farming is done in America. This past weekend my father-in-law said, "Well, what are you going to do when your kid comes over to our house and eats meat?" I said, "They aren't going to eat meat at your house. They are going to be vegetarians." He is not a vegetarian, so he doesn't understand how strongly we feel about this, but he didn't understand why we were going to control our child in that way. The simple answer is that we are the grown-ups. It is our job to make decisions for our children until they are old enough to make their own decisions. I think that by the time that our kids are teenagers they will be able to make their own choices about eating meat (however, if they choose to do so, I still will not prepare it in our home), but when they are 5 years old we will be deciding for them. I don't know when the cut-off is; when are you able to make those choices for yourself? But I am guessing it will happen sometime between 5 and 15. My father-in-law may not understand our choice, but fortunately my mother-in-law swooped in and said, "You can't argue with them about this. Remember when your mom disagreed about the way we raised our kids? She even left our house angry once because we decided to do something differently than her." Thanks M-in-L!

Another big issue is television. There are some enriching things on TV, but they are few and far between. I grew up being a big TV watcher, stopped watching TV in college (I was too busy), and didn't watch very much when Keith and I were dating. However, we got Netflix earlier this year and have exponentially increased our amount of time in front of the tube. I know if we stop watching it we won't miss it after a while, but we need to take that initial step to unplug the TV and not plug it back in. We can be much more productive, well-rounded people if we would just not watch it. And I don't think that I want our kids to watch what is currently being shown on TV - it is worse than when I was a kid and I'm sure the quality will continue to decline. I haven't discussed this item with Keith yet, but it is something that we should probably make decisions about soon.

I am working on becoming more frugal. I have always had a tendency to let money slip through my fingers (Keith, however, is a good saver), and I don't want our children to be that way. Keith and I are doing a financial Bible study right now (and yes, the Bible has a TON to say about money - and not just the 10% tithe, but all 100% of it) and it has made me really look hard at the way that I see money and the way that I am using it. While I do like buying some fun things, many of the things that we spend money on in life are meaningless. I would much rather demonstrate a godly relationship to money for my kids than to spend spend spend away my savings on things that ultimately don't matter.

So I don't know how this whole raising kids thing is going to go. We have a little bit less than 4 months until my due date, so I guess we will find out soon. Until then, we have some other big decisions to make and some areas in our lives in which we would like to improve ourselves. Those little things in life that you sometimes just let slip by become a much bigger deal when you add a baby to the mix.