clarification

I just wanted to clarify a few things from my last post. When I was talking about how we try to be good role models, I used a few examples from our lives. I want to be clear that I/we do not think that people that do those things are "bad". They are choices we have made in our lives, and I used those examples because I think those are things that the parents of the youth kids want their kids to have modeled for them. I do want to expand on a couple of them.

~alcohol. We do not like the taste of alcohol. It is expensive and we don't want to spend our money on it. We have no problem going out to dinner with friends and them having a drink or 2 over dinner. Some of our friends do enjoy the taste of alcohol. We don't. I love "lava flows" in Hawaii, but I prefer to order them without alcohol. It tastes better (to me) and it is cheaper. I also want our kids to grow up with a awareness of alcohol. I want them to see adults drinking alcohol in moderation and not becoming drunk on it. It seems that so many "church" kids are told to stay away from alcohol and that it is "evil", but when they get out on their own they have no idea how to handle alcohol responsibly. I don't want that to happen to our kids. I don't know how that will look in our lives. Maybe a bottle of wine at holiday dinners? I really don't know, as we don't like alcohol. :)

~movies. We are careful about the content of movies we see. I have no tolerance for nudity or sex scenes in movies. For me personally, I find that very offensive and uncalled for. And we choose not to support those kinds of movies. But we do watch some R-Rated movies. Braveheart (and those types) are great movies and have a lot to teach us. Yes, they are often violent and have swearing in them. But we feel that the importance of the lesson taught in them outweighs the other things. My favorite movie at this point in time is "Born into Brothels". It is set in India, which if you know me at all you know I LOVE India! And it is a documentary about children raised in brothels. There is A LOT of swearing in it. And it is swearing that I would find offensive. But it is real life. These are parents that are calling their kids worse things than you could imagine. I can't picture the movie without the swearing because it is part of the life that the kids there are living.

I just wanted to clarify those things. I don't ever want to come across as legalistic. We are not that at all. :) If you know Justin you know he would never allow our family to be legalistic. :) But I thought that those examples could have come across as "being uppity" or something. That was not my intention.