Tonight, one of our students reposted a video of a young girl on Facebook. The caption posted above the video read "If I get 1000 likes, I'll take it all off!" I didn't watch the video. I didn't have to watch it to know I wouldn't like it. I am tired of seeing this junk. I am tired of seeing our teen-age girls sexually exploited and I have a bone to pick with young, socially conservative Americans, and I know it’s something that will get under your skin. Just sit tight, though, and hear me out, because the elephant in our tidy little room is starting to tear things up. It’s time we acknowledge his existence, and maybe even call in some animal movers to take him back to the zoo.
If you attend Shepherd's Valley or have heard me speak on the subject of dating, this post will not come as a shock to you. It is no secret that I view dating the way our culture pursues it as practice for divorce and do not approve of the practice. Let me explain why I feel that way.
I have been given opportunities to speak into the lives of young adults for over 16 years now. I can count on my fingers the kids I know from the many who have come across my path whose parents have never been divorced. I’ve witnessed reactions of genuine surprise and envy from students who hear that my parents are still together and have been married for over 40 years or that Rachel and I have been together for over 17 years, and we still love each other. Not only do we love each other, we actually like each other and enjoy each others presence. In any given conversation with groups of teenagers, I can expect to hear continual references to step-parents, step-siblings, and half-siblings. Divorce is a way of life in America today – albeit one that has taken its toll in the lives of the young people that will make up the next generation.
However, while I could certainly write extensively on my experience with the negative effects of divorce on children and on society at large, I actually want to address something else entirely. I have concerns about the number one way that our culture chooses to perpetuate the cancer of broken marriages and failed relationships– underage dating. You can follow them on Facebook – the failed attempts at love, I mean. Somebody is always changing their status from “in a relationship” to “single.” Unfortunately, a huge number of these disappointed lovers are too young to be legally married. I wonder sometimes if I am the only one who winces to hear a thirteen-year old speak with cavalier abandon of his or her “ex?”
Since when is it considered healthy and acceptable for underage people to be in “relationships?” Just what do parents and educators expect to be the result of the romantic conquests of these middle-school children and young high school students? The results I’ve witnessed personally are beyond disturbing; they are downright sinister, and have caused me to question whether or not those who claim to champion marital fidelity and family values are paying any attention at all to the standards we are passing on to our children.
The trouble with underage dating is that it presents an entirely faulty view of what interaction with the opposite gender should be about. Rather than placing emphasis on building one strong relationship with one person at a stage of life when a marital commitment is feasible, dating encourages young people to pour their energies into consistently seducing other young people at a time when neither of them are capable of making any long-term commitments. Their “relationships” are destined to fail from the get-go because they are founded on unhealthy perceptions of love and not backed by any real necessity to stick it out.
The beauty of marriage, as it was intended to be, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to learn to work through incompatibilities and give of themselves. In the same way, the great ugliness of dating as it is practiced by our culture and portrayed by our media, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to be selfish by giving them an easy “out” when things don’t go according to their initial feelings. I believe it is fair to say that this form of dating is a training manual for divorce, because it encourages young people to grow accustomed to giving their hearts away and then taking them back.
Sadly, parents who should know better continue to display shocking naïveté regarding the absurd practices of driving their twelve year olds out on a “date,” or purchasing provocative clothing for their sixteen-year-olds, or sympathizing with their broken-hearted fourteen-year-olds by assuring them that they’ll “find someone better.”
“They’re just having fun,” they’ll tell me, rolling their eyes at what they consider to be my tightly wound principles and unfair approach to teen-age dating. I implore you to go visit with some of the volunteers at the Cleburne Pregnancy Center or the Hope Mansion in Cedar Hill (or any crisis pregnancy center for that matter) where they witness every day the ruined lives and broken dreams that “fun” has left with our teens.
Another defense often offered for the ridiculous habit of underage dating is that the kids are “just learning how to relate to the opposite sex.” It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that what they’re really learning is how to recover quickly from a break-up and set their sights on another gorgeous and equally hormonal person. The culture of dating is a culture of hunger and unsatisfied eyes that are always looking around for affirmation via someone or something else. But perhaps the most ludicrous and most willfully naïve assertion is that “relationships” between young teens are “not really about sex.” Just what do we think such relationships are about between people too young to be interested in any of the other things (family, stability, home-making, etc. ) that come out of a romantic involvement with the opposite gender? Contrary to such half-baked assurances, it is all about sex for these young people. Whenever they forget that, the pop-culture is quick to remind them of it. In the media, girls are unfailingly presented as having value to boys only in proportion to their physique and their manner of flaunting it. Boys are presented as bestial and incapable of responsibility.
Overwhelmingly, this is the primary message being offered to our kids by the movies, magazines, music artists, and commercials directed at their age group. It is inexcusably irrational for us to suppose that their relationships with one another are untainted by the stereotypes that surround them. If the situation is so straightforward, why is there not a greater resistance to this cultural trend that trivializes relationships and produces jaded and cynical people who have already been through the warm fuzzies of love and are ready to settle for mere physical gratification by the age of eighteen?
While we may proclaim the virtues of pre-marital abstinence and fidelity, our actions don’t line up with our words. We behave as though we expect our young people to embrace or at least abide by the values we preach to them, all the while continuing to direct them in lifestyle choices that foster the opposite principles and attitudes. And we wonder why 95% of Americans admitted to having premarital sex in 2006? Or why it was estimated that nearly 50% of all US marriages end in divorce? Or why 4 in 10 children are born to unwed mothers? It’s time for us to wake up and make the connections between the dating scene and the deterioration of the stable American family.
If you attend Shepherd's Valley or have heard me speak on the subject of dating, this post will not come as a shock to you. It is no secret that I view dating the way our culture pursues it as practice for divorce and do not approve of the practice. Let me explain why I feel that way.
I have been given opportunities to speak into the lives of young adults for over 16 years now. I can count on my fingers the kids I know from the many who have come across my path whose parents have never been divorced. I’ve witnessed reactions of genuine surprise and envy from students who hear that my parents are still together and have been married for over 40 years or that Rachel and I have been together for over 17 years, and we still love each other. Not only do we love each other, we actually like each other and enjoy each others presence. In any given conversation with groups of teenagers, I can expect to hear continual references to step-parents, step-siblings, and half-siblings. Divorce is a way of life in America today – albeit one that has taken its toll in the lives of the young people that will make up the next generation.
However, while I could certainly write extensively on my experience with the negative effects of divorce on children and on society at large, I actually want to address something else entirely. I have concerns about the number one way that our culture chooses to perpetuate the cancer of broken marriages and failed relationships– underage dating. You can follow them on Facebook – the failed attempts at love, I mean. Somebody is always changing their status from “in a relationship” to “single.” Unfortunately, a huge number of these disappointed lovers are too young to be legally married. I wonder sometimes if I am the only one who winces to hear a thirteen-year old speak with cavalier abandon of his or her “ex?”
Since when is it considered healthy and acceptable for underage people to be in “relationships?” Just what do parents and educators expect to be the result of the romantic conquests of these middle-school children and young high school students? The results I’ve witnessed personally are beyond disturbing; they are downright sinister, and have caused me to question whether or not those who claim to champion marital fidelity and family values are paying any attention at all to the standards we are passing on to our children.
The trouble with underage dating is that it presents an entirely faulty view of what interaction with the opposite gender should be about. Rather than placing emphasis on building one strong relationship with one person at a stage of life when a marital commitment is feasible, dating encourages young people to pour their energies into consistently seducing other young people at a time when neither of them are capable of making any long-term commitments. Their “relationships” are destined to fail from the get-go because they are founded on unhealthy perceptions of love and not backed by any real necessity to stick it out.
The beauty of marriage, as it was intended to be, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to learn to work through incompatibilities and give of themselves. In the same way, the great ugliness of dating as it is practiced by our culture and portrayed by our media, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to be selfish by giving them an easy “out” when things don’t go according to their initial feelings. I believe it is fair to say that this form of dating is a training manual for divorce, because it encourages young people to grow accustomed to giving their hearts away and then taking them back.
Sadly, parents who should know better continue to display shocking naïveté regarding the absurd practices of driving their twelve year olds out on a “date,” or purchasing provocative clothing for their sixteen-year-olds, or sympathizing with their broken-hearted fourteen-year-olds by assuring them that they’ll “find someone better.”
“They’re just having fun,” they’ll tell me, rolling their eyes at what they consider to be my tightly wound principles and unfair approach to teen-age dating. I implore you to go visit with some of the volunteers at the Cleburne Pregnancy Center or the Hope Mansion in Cedar Hill (or any crisis pregnancy center for that matter) where they witness every day the ruined lives and broken dreams that “fun” has left with our teens.
Another defense often offered for the ridiculous habit of underage dating is that the kids are “just learning how to relate to the opposite sex.” It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that what they’re really learning is how to recover quickly from a break-up and set their sights on another gorgeous and equally hormonal person. The culture of dating is a culture of hunger and unsatisfied eyes that are always looking around for affirmation via someone or something else. But perhaps the most ludicrous and most willfully naïve assertion is that “relationships” between young teens are “not really about sex.” Just what do we think such relationships are about between people too young to be interested in any of the other things (family, stability, home-making, etc. ) that come out of a romantic involvement with the opposite gender? Contrary to such half-baked assurances, it is all about sex for these young people. Whenever they forget that, the pop-culture is quick to remind them of it. In the media, girls are unfailingly presented as having value to boys only in proportion to their physique and their manner of flaunting it. Boys are presented as bestial and incapable of responsibility.
Overwhelmingly, this is the primary message being offered to our kids by the movies, magazines, music artists, and commercials directed at their age group. It is inexcusably irrational for us to suppose that their relationships with one another are untainted by the stereotypes that surround them. If the situation is so straightforward, why is there not a greater resistance to this cultural trend that trivializes relationships and produces jaded and cynical people who have already been through the warm fuzzies of love and are ready to settle for mere physical gratification by the age of eighteen?
While we may proclaim the virtues of pre-marital abstinence and fidelity, our actions don’t line up with our words. We behave as though we expect our young people to embrace or at least abide by the values we preach to them, all the while continuing to direct them in lifestyle choices that foster the opposite principles and attitudes. And we wonder why 95% of Americans admitted to having premarital sex in 2006? Or why it was estimated that nearly 50% of all US marriages end in divorce? Or why 4 in 10 children are born to unwed mothers? It’s time for us to wake up and make the connections between the dating scene and the deterioration of the stable American family.
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