Tim Wildmon

AFA president

April 1999 – As I’ve mentioned in this space before, Alison and I have three children. Wriley, 11, is my daughter. Wesley, 9, is my older son and then Walker, 5, is our youngest. Alison birthed them all. I played a supporting role.

Like any good parent, I have great expectations for our kids. And, in a lot of ways, we have seen many of these great expectations met. But one of the things I’ve learned about raising children is this: it’s always two steps forward and one step backward. Now if I were a negative person I might say one step forward and two steps backward but I am not a negative person. Now granted, raising children sometimes seems like four steps backward and no steps forward but, thankfully, those days are rare.

Recently I experienced the extremes of this thing we call “raising children.”

First the bad news. As is my custom I arrived at Harrisburg Baptist Church at 11:35 to pick up Walker from pre-school. The little cotton-topped fellow usually gets in and asks where we are going to meet mom for lunch, or shows me something he made during the morning. But on this particular morning he climbed in and sat down quietly.

“How did it go today, little man?” I asked as we exited the parking lot.

“Dad, I’ve got something to tell you,” came the soft voice from the back seat.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Well, my teacher told me to tell you that I said a bad word at school today.”

“Do what?” I said. (This is a common expression where I live when one hears something one doesn’t want to believe he heard. “Do what,” can be translated to “You want to repeat that one more time, because I know you didn’t say what I thought you just said.”)

“I said a bad word at school today.”

“Well, what did you say and who did you say it to?”

So he told me. It was indeed a word of profanity. I couldn’t believe it. My little son. Five years old. Last name Wildmon. His granddad founder of American Family Association. His dad –me – vice president of AFA. I pulled the van over and turned around to look him in the eye.

“Unbelievable! You said that in your class?”

He nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Well what did your teacher do?

“She made me go to the principal’s office.”

“Well, we’re going to have to go back to the school right now and talk with your teacher. Unbelievable! What’s wrong with you?”

So we went back to school, I made him apologize to both his teacher and the director and told him in front of them what would happen to his little rear end if this ever happened again. He learned his lesson. He got it. On the way to meet Alison for lunch I asked him where he heard this particular word.

“I heard it on that movie Wesley and I watched the other day,” he said.

Wow, I thought. My son had learned a profane word on something he saw on my television set. I talked to Alison about it. As it turns out, she had rented a movie we thought would be safe, but obviously we were wrong. We felt really bad about it. But vowed to be more careful – really careful – about what we allowed the kids to watch in our home.

But of all the words in the movie why did he remember this one? It just goes to show you the powerful impression that television can have on children. A message AFA has been preaching for 21 years now.

Now for the good news.

Looking back I can’t ever remember receiving any kind of award for my academic achievements in elementary, junior high, high school or college. Perhaps you can remember my receiving some award back there somewhere, but I can’t. I don’t feel it’s right, but sadly, I’ve learned whoever gives out these awards doesn’t even give consideration for those of us who make lots of Cs. In this world we – those of us who give of ourselves to make others look good by comparison – get little respect and, based on my experience heretofore, no awards. No awards. Zilcho.

But the great news I learned that day was that Wriley–my little girl – had been selected Student of the Month for her fourth grade class. This award was based on both grades and character her teachers told us. They told us she was a model student. Wriley’s picture was in the paper. That’s my girl, I thought. I was one proud father.

“We must be doing something right,” I told Alison.

Whatever my kids do in school, whatever it is they choose to do in life, the one thing that matters most to me is that they take the Christian values Alison and I have tried to teach them and apply them to every area of life. From how they talk to others to the effort they put forth in school or on the job. At the risk of being out of step with the times, I’m going to teach my kids that in our home, indeed, character does count.