Are You Living Counterfeit?
By Jeannette Webb
Counterfeit is defined as “an imitation of something valuable or important.” It is good practice for anyone to look hard at their life and ask if it is real or just an imitation of something that could be wonderful.
I find it fascinating that bank tellers are trained to recognize counterfeit bills by only handling real money for weeks. When the fakes are finally interspersed in the bills, the new bank employees can instinctively tell by the feel that the money is a forgery.
Have you ever thought about that in the context of choosing a life? Is it possible to only let genuine things into our homes during our kid’s growing up years so they can tell the difference? I believe that it is not only possible, but desirable to a large degree. Let’s look at some ways to incorporate the genuine thing into our lives.
Books – Probably the greatest gift we can give our children is to surround them with wonderful books, real books. Not the insipid garbage passed off as teen lit and little kid foolishness. By introducing our kids to the wonderful array of classics, letting them become friends with the great writers and fabulous illustrators, we train their palette.
I handpicked specific books for my children’s large library and guided their tastes until their teen years when they were on familiar terms with the difference between real and counterfeit! As an additional incentive, it has been documented over and over that those who perform the highest on SAT verbal sections are lifelong readers!
Here are some fabulous books about books that can that can help you choose the best that’s out there:
Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life by Gladys Hunt.
Honey for a Teen’s Heart: Using Books to Communicate with Teens by Gladys Hunt and Barbara Hampton
Honey for a Woman’s Heart: Growing Your World Through Reading Great Books by Gladys Hunt
You can check out all three books here.
Television – There is probably nothing so pervasive in our culture as television and it promotes counterfeit living on a huge scale. Relationships are distorted, values are undermined, and massive consumption is encouraged.
In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average person will spend nearly 5 months (3,518 hours) next year watching television, surfing the internet, reading daily newspapers, and listening to personal music devices.
Think about this: U.S. kids spend more time sitting in front of the TV than in the classroom or developing skills. That, my friends, is counterfeit living at its most potent. Our decision not to have a television in our home was not made out of fear, but out of a desire to live real.
There are so many other areas we could talk about . . .music, art . . . but this is a place to start. I encourage you to take an honest look around you and ask yourself a question. How many times do you allow a counterfeit into your homes and life and then wonder why your kids can’t tell the difference?
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