By JC
Background
Mountain Brook gets a reputation, some of it earned, for nice lawns, good schools, and a zip code people mention on purpose. What it doesn’t always get credit for is parents who care enough to show up, speak up, and ask questions on behalf of their kids.
That’s what this video is about: Mountain Brook families raising their concerns for their children, out loud and in public. It isn’t easy. It’s a lot more comfortable to grumble in the carpool line than to stand at a microphone in front of your neighbors. I’ve done plenty of grumbling. The microphone part I usually save for when there’s a guitar involved.
Through a Christian Lens
Scripture doesn’t hand the raising of children to a committee. It hands it to mothers and fathers. Deuteronomy tells parents to teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise up. That’s not a part-time assignment. There’s no clause that says “unless somebody with a clipboard would prefer to handle it.”
Jesus took children seriously when the grown-ups around Him didn’t. The disciples tried to shoo them away. He stopped everything and said let them come. A parent who speaks up for a child is doing a small version of what He did: making room for the least powerful person in the room.
And it’s worth doing the way He did it. With truth and with grace. Not as enemies of the teachers, officials, and neighbors on the other side of the table, but as people who want the same thing: kids who grow up safe, loved, and free.
If you’re a parent, you already have the job. Show up. Ask your questions. Pray for the people making decisions, and for your own children by name.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)
JC is a Birmingham-area musician, writer, and founder of We Rock Network.
