As4Me Thinking through the process of finding wisdom.

One of the challenges that mom has given me is to anticipate the lessons our children need and teach them before that time. She points out that in many ways its easier to teach a fourteen year old how to drive than a sixteen year old. If I don’t want my sixteen year old daughter comfortable in a bikini, then it’s wise to teach her why when she’s four. This is why my young daughters don’t wear bikinis: not because they are sensual on a preschooler, but because my daughters won’t always be preschoolers.

This is also why I feel strongly about teaching my children to choose good and wise friends, long before they have the ability to choose their own friends independently of parents. Skateboarding is inherently fine by me, but I’m not going to encourage my son to become a professional skateboarder. Why not? Because the skateboarding culture is godless, drug ridden, and at odds with Christ and His Word. In keeping with my mom’s encouragement to think ahead, I want to ask myself what I want my children to look like when they are adults. How do I want my daughters to behave around young men, and my son around young women?

This brings me to the question of femininity and masculinity.

Here’s an experiment: Make a list of ten activities or interests you would likely not want your ten-year-old son to pursue because they are too feminine, in some way. Now make a list of ten activities or interests you would likely not want your ten-year-old daughter to pursue, because they are too masculine. Did you do it? Did you have a harder time with one list or the other? I realize that this isn’t a challenging task for some parents, but it was for me.

That’s the trouble actually. I can think of a number of “feminine” activities that I’m not comfortable with my son doing, but I don’t tend to have the same reluctance when it comes to “masculine” activities and my girls.  That puzzles me.

Now, I don’t think that climbing trees is inappropriate for a lady of any age  but I’m particularly asking myself about neutral activities like this. If I encourage my daughters to pursue activities and habits that are in our culture understood as masculine, am I making it more difficult for her to transition to a feminine adult?

I’ll talk tomorrow more about femininity and masculinity.

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Continue reading Should Girls Climb Trees?

We’ve been listening to the Little House on the Prairie series in the car.

Since I enjoy children’s literature, I find the development of spirited heroines in the twentieth century to be greatly interesting. We like Laura, who speaks her mind and isn’t content to sit in a corner to sew demurely. Mary seems pale and uninteresting, and so she is, because the author saw her that way.

Here is my question, and I’ll spend a few days discussing what I’m thinking.

Is my perception of the development of femininity shaped more by the children’s literature I’ve read than Scripture and biblical principles?

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Continue reading Tomboy=Biblical?

I’m always interested in non-clothing examples of immodesty, and this might be a good one.

At a school in Maine this year, students who engaged in attention-getting behaviors were denied their diplomas. They were warned ahead of time, apparently, perhaps making this situation at its heart not about modesty, but about submission to authority (as so many examples of immodesty are).

I’m not really interested in whether they followed the rules or whether the rules were clear. Apart from the root issue of submitting to authority, I’m curious about the behavior. What if nobody had issued an edict against grandstanding? What then?

Perhaps this student interviewed really was intending to draw attention and give credit to his mother, as he states. In reality, he drew attention to himself. Since modesty deflects attention away from self, he might have been unintentionally immodest, but he was immodest all the same.

Now, it could be argued that if there were any time to applaud the individual, it is at graduation. It might be argued that the school should allow a little attention getting behavior, since, after all, these students have worked hard and achieved something. The problem with this argument is that the organization of graduation ceremonies tend to balance recognition of the individual with consideration for the group. A small graduation of 10 seniors wouldn’t be adversely affected by cheers after each name is called. A graduating class of 100 would be. Cheers for one student make it hard to hear the next student’s name being called.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with an informal graduation. Dispense with the cap and gown, if you like, give each senior a shout out, and let them all scramble up to a table to receive their diplomas.

But if the occasion is a ceremony, solemnly giving respect to the accomplishments of students, then the attention-getting cheers and behaviors actually show disrespect for the students and the audience. There is a time for serious reflection. Taking the time to be serious actually heightens the recognition and respect for the individual. The day is set apart. It is not thrown together in a jolly sort of impromptu scramble.

Just thinking.

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Continue reading Modesty at Graduation

I announced to the children that they would henceforth be disallowed from changing gender when they pretend to be animals.

I hesitated about this for awhile. I don’t want to draw attention to something that right now is of minor importance. And yet, I do want them in the habit of being thankful for the gender that God created them to be.

The decision was received without much ado.

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Continue reading Executive Gender Decision

I have a five year old son, and I want him to grow up to be a man of God. For a long time, now, I’ve been thinking about characteristics of godly masculinity, and I’ve recently been thankful to watch godly masculinity in action.

• A man who fears God more than he fears man.
• A man who stoops to right a wrong, regardless of the consequences. One who defends the defenseless, and is willing to inconvenience himself to help someone in need.
• A man who takes the time to teach what is right, rather than simply affirm or enforce what is right.
• A man who is passionate about truth, even at great personal cost. Someone who doesn’t just not tell lies, but who is a faithful truth teller.
• Someone who has the humility to admit when he is wrong, and who isn’t afraid to change when change is the right action.

Recently, I’ve been thankful for my brother, who isn’t perfect, but who has recently had opportunity to demonstrate the integrity I want to see my son emulate. Thanks, Tom, for the encouragement. Truth has not completely fallen in the streets.

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Continue reading Masculinity and Integrity

David received some money for his birthday, and decided to purchase an airplane model. I took him to the model store in town, and started reading off all the plane titles and telling him which ones he could afford. After a short minute, I could sense his frustration. He didn’t want mom telling him what to buy, and he wanted to shop in peace.

So I stepped aside and chatted with the wife of the store owner, while David navigated his purchase. Later I thought about the quality of taking initiative and developing a sense of leadership as a masculine trait. I was pleased to have a situation where I could safely allow him to exercise some autonomy.

But then I started thinking that for every masculine trait I could think of, it seemed as though I could think of the same trait either commanded to Christians in general (including women), or directly to women. Am I turning egalitarian? Yikes!

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Continue reading Complementarian/ Egalitarian

Since I’ve had several questions about this post, I decided to make some explanations a regular post. [The real reason is that I spent a lot of time on this topic, and I don't want to waste the energy, so to speak.]

To clarify, I don’t at this point forbid our children from hugging family friends or adults. I have discouraged physical affection among peers.

There are two issues here. First, I recognize how vulnerable young children are to abuse. Second, I am attentive to the patterns of relationships they are establishing from an early age.

We know that most children who are sexually abused knew their abuser. They are more at risk from a relative or close family friend than a stranger driving by their house on a whim and grabbing them. That doesn’t mean that I’m suspicious of any and all male relatives and friends, but I am careful.

Everyone is going to draw the line in different places. Specific family situations will make a difference in the comfort among one’s own family. I’m much more concerned about people, even good friends, whom I know far less about.

This is one reason I don’t encourage our children to hug and kiss dear friends, but it is not the main reason.

I don’t want the place of affection between my children and unrelated peers and adults to be common and normal. Realistically, when you have two eighteen month olds hugging and kissing, it’s sweet. At some point, it will cease to become sweet and become instead troubling to a parent. Ditto for bikinis on toddlers. The only difference between my position and other parents is that I am drawing the line at an earlier age than other people. I don’t intend to start teaching modesty and purity when my child hits puberty; I want these concepts to be a normal part of our family now. This makes the most sense to me, although certainly sensible parents make different choices than I have. Their situations are different, and God must give each parent the wisdom to respond accordingly. Even in my own situation, I’m addressing the issue earlier than I would like. Ideally, I’d be teaching by example and what I encourage (or don’t encourage). That would probably be sufficient with most children.

The age of my children, the particular set of peers they have (saved and unsaved), their personalities all have influenced the timing of our discussions. My conversations have been directed primarily with my five year old.

From my experience, I cannot say that an awkwardness with affection among unrelated persons necessarily translates to a difficulty developing physical intimacy with a new husband. We are an affectionate family. My husband regularly expresses physical affection with his children and me. Because I was taught a context for physical affection (i.e., marriage), when God gave that context I was quite comfortable making the transition from single life to married life.

I think the teaching of my parents by example and word was critical. Affection and physical intimacy are good, and they never communicated that these things were sinful and shameful. I want my children as they get older to develop the discernment to understand appropriate contexts for touch. I don’t want them to jump when a friend pats them on the shoulder. I don’t want my son to turn his back on a young lady who has slipped on the ice. I am praying for wisdom to know how to communicate these things as well.

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Continue reading No Hugging?

Awhile back, we talked about good touching and bad touching.

At one point, I said, “It’s not good to touch someone…” and Bethel finished “when you have dirty hands.” Yes, we’re off to a good start.

I started out talking about mommies and daddies. They like to touch each other. They kiss, and sleep together because they are married. Mommy doesn’t hug other daddies at church, does she? [Yes, I realize that some mommies do] The idea is that God made a context for touching. Touching is good in the right context.

We want to prepare ahead of time for responding to inappropriate touching. It means that some innocent touching is discouraged, but especially when children are young, they are vulnerable.

This is what I told our children they could say “I want to be your friend, but I don’t want to hug you.”

One child responded, “But I like to hug them.” All right, hug your cousins, then.

I’m reminding myself that teaching is a process, not merely a series of lectures.

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Continue reading A Girl/ Guy Talk