Parents may be uncomfortable to read the latest blog post by my friend Matt: but he's telling it like it is. This should be required reading for all parents, in my opinion. An excerpt:
I'm finding that very young teenaged girls will go to amazing lengths to sneak out. They will meet up on cell phones. They will meet up on websites like Tagged.com (shudder). They will meet up on social networking sites like MySpace. They will bring home prepaid cell phones that their parents have no idea that they have. They will make arrangements at school, then carry them out after lights-out. They will walk. They will bicycle. They will steal the family car. The drive to expose your gametes to their opposite number is very, very strong, between the ages of 12 and 25.
I've caught teens lying on the grass behind a south-facing market, having sex without so much as a blanket or a coat, as a bitter 20 mph wind blew in a 30 degree norther. No condom, no fears, and neither could recall the others' last name.
Conversely, I've caught teens camping in tents that they erected in the back yard of their paramours for that "special" night with someone they'd just met.
I've caught teens feeling each other up on neighborhood playgrounds, in full view of the street. I've caught girls taking their date to the school dance around to a dark corner behind the school, where I found them on their knees and unzipping their dates' trousers as I rounded the corner.
I say this not out of amazement, or disgust with "how it's gotten to," but just in acknowledgement of how hard the task is, to rear kids that can make it to full adulthood without becoming parents or infected with a disease, first. The tools to meet others are very powerful, these days. Our ability to contain kids is much harder, with so many leaks in the security system.
Go over to Matt's blog and read the whole thing. It's important.
I find myself afflicted by two strong emotions, reading this. The first is an immense sadness that the beauty of a love relationship should be so cheapened, so negated, by the modern emphasis on sex, lust and instant gratification, that the physical act has become something tawdry, of no account or importance, something to be exchanged in passing with relative strangers. The second is immense anger that parents don't spend enough time with their children, and teach them the basic values of life, in order to 'inoculate' them against the temptation to behave like this!
I can virtually guarantee this, though. Matt's own girls will have grown up knowing that he and his wife love them very much; they'll know what to value about themselves and their own, personal integrity; and they'll be as well-equipped as he and his wife can make them to avoid this sort of utterly destructive, pointless, instant-gratification existence.
Thank God there are still people like Matt and his wife, to set the right example to their kids! Let's say a prayer - now, and repeatedly - for those teenagers who haven't been fortunate enough to have such parents . . .
Peter
4 comments:
"The second is immense anger that parents don't spend enough time with their children, and teach them the basic values of life, in order to 'inoculate' them against the temptation to behave like this!"
Sometimes anger is warranted, and sometimes not. I've seen some outrageous behavior from sons and daughters of very involved, caring parents, who often have managed to successfully pass on the values to their other children.
While we cannot guarentee success through good parenting, we can come very close to guarenteeing failure from bad parenting. :|
Point taken, Matt, and you're right. Very sadly, I've had the same experience: having to tell good, sound, upright parents that their kid has done this or that, or is going to jail. It's horrible when they blame themselves, and ask, "How did we fail him/her?", when in fact they haven't. Sometimes, kids just make dumb/bad/fatal choices.
*Sigh*
Teens to day are only following what they see the adults in there life doing.Our culture is very sexualized. I personally know of a catholic priest who has slept around hence why not our teens look to there enviorment. So sad.
My brother and I were raised in an *extremely* strict household. Children from those kinds of households have a 50-50 chance of going the opposite direction out of spite. While I've stayed on the straight and narrow, my brother has resorted to cheating on his wife (now divorced), stealing, burying himself in debt, spoiling his daughters, and sponging off the taxpayers. His girls are growing up believing that immoral behavior is normal and acceptable. And that scares me. When you are raised with poor parenting, it just increasing the risk you'll end up making poor choices.
I'm going to do the best I can to raise a son with good morals, but whatever path he chooses in the end will be his decision.
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