The Trouble with Vampires***

In my "past life" (pre-SAHM/pre-Catholic Homeschooler) I was a Reading/Language Arts teacher for eight years and prior to that I spent four years in the Elementary classroom. Therefore, I know LOTS of teachers. Either as previous co-workers or peers at college, or a friend of a friend....most of my friends are teachers. Over six years ago (I think it was right before I got pregnant with #2), a group of them started a "Book Club" and the first book was great. When time came to read a second book, everyone voted on The Davinci Code. Most of the teachers in this group were Catholic School teachers in either Middle or High School. Much to my dismay, I read it...but when we met up, everyone's interpretation of the book was warped by what society teaches...not what they know as FACT from our Mother Church...these ladies were all supposed to be Catholic....I was appalled, to say the least, and once the next book was announced, I slowly but surely exited stage right from this little group. Maybe I did it to save my "friendship" with them because I just couldn't listen to my friends of many years speak such uneducated and false interpretations of our Lord and our beautiful Church. Fast forward years later and now living in a different state, my only form of contact with these ladies, most of whom are English teachers, has been via Facebook. (This is the background story to the purpose of this discussion.)

The past two months on Facebook have been bothersome to me...not just because ex-students status and posts but also because of adults my age (married and all) where acting like obsessed out of control teenagers....all because of the Twilight series! The adults were, yep you guessed it, the SAME LADIES from my book club 7-8 years ago. One post or two I can live with, but when they continued to post things about this series and one who recently divorced posted this status, "I am leaving my window open tonight, maybe Edward will pay me a visit." well, my jaw dropped!

In addition, it brought flashbacks of when Harry Potter came out and all of my students went nuts! I must admit I did read books one and two of the series until I stepped back and thought
about the whole thing and something bothered me about it. I even had it as one of my required reading books in my seventh grade class at the charter school I was teaching at. Sad to say, not one parent objected to my selection! So the Twilight books are also being devoured by
teenage and adults of the female species alike...something about these books just didn't sit right with me! Then I came across this article: http://www.patrickmadrid.com/vampires.pdf A little long but so well written and if you have a teenage girl wanting to read Twilight, it's a MUST READ!

I have not read them....I must confess...but I have to say that the pattern of "LOVE" for this series, like that of Harry Potter, kinda worries me. Ladies, the Devil comes in many ways and we MUST call him at it...please don't think I sound kooky...read the attached PDF and give me your thoughts on this and PLEASE pass this on to any mom with a teenage/pre-teen girl....

*** I am no expert on this subject AND I had no time to go back and re-read or edit this piece...so please excuse my errors, and point them out if you'd like! ;)