Good Christian Parents

I was fearing the worse when I looked on IPlayer to see a show called The World’s Strictest Parents, this week they go to Alabama… “Naomi and Ross must spend a week under the strict regime of the God-fearing Garnett family in Alabama.” I feared the worse because they put God-fearing in, you know it’s going to just bash the Christian stereotype, it’s going to be Ned Flanders and everyone’s going to laugh at him. To be fair that’s how it started off. Very conservative family, strict rules, room searches, curfews etc. But as the show goes on the impression changes.

Two British teenagers, Ross and Naomi go and spend a week with this family because they’re dysfunctional. Ross is obsessed with MySpace and has big issues with self-esteem and sexuality. Naomi is struggling after bereavement and divorce in her family. At first they hate the rules, the apparent lack of trust, but by the end they are struck by the Dad, Mark. He actually cares about them, he has their best interests at heart, he loves them. He takes Naomi out on a Dad-Daughter date and talks with her, and takes Ross on a Father-Son fishing trip. He talks frankly with them about their struggles and problems, and they open up to him, he doesn’t judge them, he just loves them and wants to help them change.

The point of this post isn’t so much to talk about Christian parenting (what would I know?) or about God, our great Father, but simply to say that there was for once a documentary about American Christians where the stereotype was challenged, in fact they were quite stereotypical, but we saw love, we saw what it means to be a good dad!