Sunday, July 17, 2005

An evaporation of innocence??

A disturbing article was written in the Fort Worth Star Telegram today. It actually made me afraid for the future of our children. It also made me want to cry, home school my children, and sequester my son away until he is 40. What was this article? It was on the subject of "Are girls the new sexual aggressors?" They interviewed girls from the age of 14 to the age of 16 and they were talking about how sexually intense girls have become.

12 year olds are "coming on" to other 12 year olds. Girls are making guys their conquests. Girls are treating sex as a bargaining tool, they treat it as a way to become popular. They whisper promises of sexual favors into the ears of pre-pubescent boys. They wear ridiculously short skirts with little or no underwear under them, and they do this at SCHOOL!

I told Michael tonight that all kids should be required to wear uniforms to school, the skirts must be ankle length, and they can't show any skin at all. Expect arms and face. And it scares me to think that we're having a little girl. I just pray that the trend reverses itself. Plus, it doesn't really seem to matter how involved the girl's parents are, these girls do what they want, wear what they want, and behave however they want. It makes me sick. Parents are trying to be their teens' "friends" rather than their mentors and parents. They allow their children to wear clothes with suggestive sayings on them, they BUY their children $200 pairs of jeans with holes placed strategically near private areas, and exposing their bottoms.

I am afraid. I am afraid for the future of my children. No matter what we teach them at home, what will they learn at School? What will they see at their friends' houses? What will they hear from their friends? What will they see on TV, even if we don't let them watch the "bad" shows?

And while we're on the subject, I learned that the "cause bracelets" (that's what I call the "Livestrong" bracelets and all the others like them) have taken on a separate meaning altogether for some High School kids....the different colors have taken on different "sexual favors" that the person will perform willingly. This is, perhaps, as disturbing as the suggestive dress that the girls wear.

When I was in High School, I didn't even know what half of what today's 6th graders know (about the "world"). I didn't learn much about "adult" topics until I was one....actually, until I was well into College. And I wasn't sheltered. Or so I thought. I went to a Private school, but I had friends who went to Public School. I graduated 9 years ago. Have things really changed that much in so little time?

Why do girls have so little self value today? Why is their worth wrapped up in what other people can do to them? Why is sex treated as a commodity among our young people? Why isn't sex sacred anymore? Why do Middle and High School students think so little of themselves that they are willing to possibly contract God only knows what kinds of diseases?

Where did it all come from? How can we stop the madness? Is there any hope for the baby inside of me? Is there any hope that my precious son will never come home saying "Mom, some girl said she wanted to ...." I pray continually that this will never happen. But if it does happen, I pray that we will have such an awesome, open, honest relationship with our children that they will tell us. That they will know we will not judge them, but give them true and good advice.

Now, more than ever, it is important that parents take an active role in their childrens' lives. Christian parents, as well as non-Christian parents must stand together and realize that only we have the power to reverse this trend.

2 comments:

ftwskies said...

I completely understand. I realize that we can't totally disengage from the world around us, but at the same time, it's getting harder and harder to stay in the world without risking our kids becoming of it. We've chosen to homeschool our son, partly because of the moral influences (aka "socialization") of the schools, and partly because we simply think we can do a better job than any institution. So far it's been a lot easier than we thought it would be, and our son is covering material at age 5 that some first-graders never get exposed to. But it can be tough "swimming upstream" as it were -- we get a lot of sideways looks at church for it.

I firmly believe that every Christian parent's numero-uno spiritual responsibility before the Lord is the raising of their own children in His ways. I can pour myself into a gazillion ministries and lead hundreds of souls to Jesus, but if I don't get my own kid there first, I'm gonna have some serious 'splaining to do on That Day...

Btw, I've got something along these same lines cookin' for my own blog. Keep an eye out for it in the next day or two...

-Jim

Danny Sims said...

Reminds me of that old hymn, "This world is not my home..." The values of this world are so self-centered... We have a whole other direction we are looking. Thanks for this post.

I'll get to your question on my blog soon... Still thinking and praying about it...