I just got finished reading “Sex and the Supremacy of Christ” and I find this interesting after reading that book. Especially after reading what Martin Luther thought of marriage.

I really think it boils down to the selfishness in American culture. Get ahead, and a failure to launch. It is also the devaluation of marriage in our culture, which I think will damage our culture.

A lot of VERY successful people married young and are still married in their 80’s (i.e. Truett and Janett Cathy)

Clearly there is nothing inherently wrong with making money, and for sure, people can be helped when people have resources and/or systems/enterprises that produce and help others acquire resources. With that there is no question, but the overwhelming focus is not on acquiring resources to help others, but in acquiring resources to not just help but indulge themselves. Whereas you (cause I know you) can frame your pursuit of the development of businesses in God-honoring ways, I just don’t think that is the case for most people.

What we have is a focus on self-indulgence over godliness and that plays its way into needing money to acquire more things versus focusing on godliness that leads to neighbor love which includes being a good friend, spouse, parent, boss, etc.., and might also lead to acquiring money to help others as well. It is a heart level difference, but our society promotes the former, our fallen nature encourages it, and parents and children get caught in its snare. Not all of them, but too many so it is very alarming to me. I have some stats on that that I will post in the future.

What if the actions of the parents you are at least questioning, if not bashing, is not focused on the money making side, but the helping people side.

Assuming no fraud, force, or illegal activity is involved – when someone makes money they have provided help, or value, to someone else.

With that, re-read what you wrote and think – these parents are encouraging people to provide as much help or value as they can & become financially strong. Yes, only one aspect might be known, acknowledged, or thought of by the parents (the financial strong, as opposed to providing as much value as you can), and yes, the determining factor of “amount of value” is based on what society values as opposed to a standard of “what God desires”, but that does not – and this is not directed at you individually as much as a common theme among a set of Christians – mean that 100% of the value systems are incomparable.

I am not really answering the questions you pose; my childless view is still the idea that “training up a child in the way he should go” has more to do with the makeup, or individual aspects of the child, than the world views of the parent.