Famous online? Helping your child navigate the allure of social media

There is a story told of a sophisticated and successful nation who sought power over their own destiny; a culture that had become so self-obsessed and self-motivated that they believed that the greatest achievement of all was fame itself. In fact, their motto was ‘make a name for yourself’.

As a parent of teens, I’m often struck by how different my teenage years were to my children’s. How can I parent them well when the things they are experiencing are so foreign to me? If I’m struggling to be relevant, 30 years after I started teenage life, then what can the Bible possibly have to say about our current fame-driven culture? Incredibly, that self-obsessed nation, longing to make a name for themselves, was the ancient nation of Babylon, written about in Genesis chapter 11. They built the tower of Babel so they could reach God (they had achieved everything else, they thought) and ‘make a name for themselves’. ‘Making a name for ourselves’ is a phrase that rolls around our lexicon and off the tongue with ease. We, just like the people of Babel, are obsessed with making our own names great.