Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Put them to the test Two weeks ago, my daughter was egregiously late in getting home from a drive-in movie. She fell asleep in the back of the pick-up. But she wasn't alone. She was with a young man whom she had proclaimed was her new boyfriend. My wife and I had also driven at 2:30 AM to the drive-in to try and find them and to the boyfriend's home. Returning home, we found her there. I was exceedingly angry for a number of reasons. I grounded her for two weeks, forbade future drive-in excursions, and insisted on her being strict about her eleven PM curfew where I had been more flexible before. A week ago at church, though, I came up with a much better idea. I must say that I hate teenagers dating. It's pointless, stupid and bound to cause more trouble than it's worth. Why? Because dating is a form of courtship. The purpose of courtship is to acquire a mate. The purpose of acquiring a mate is to produce children. And our young people are ill equiped for that situation. If young people expect to go to college and begin a career of some sort before wanting to start a family, dating has no purpose and exists for experimenting and toying with other people's hearts, feelings, and bodies. Love is a serious thing, even with young people, and broken hearts at any age can have a lasting and negative consequence; plus the temptations and pressures to involve physical desire and curiosity into the equation is a cause for further worry and lament. Even so, when young people are very fond of another, common sense will not forestall their interest in seeing and being with the other person. Which is why societies have evolved rules to handle it - such as never letting such people out of the sight of adults. But our society has abrogated its responsibility to the young, and made it nearly impossible to monitor and chaperone our children effectively. Instead, more and more parents increase the danger by creating circumstances which encourage intimacy such as co-ed sleepovers, homes empty of parents, and other such things. It's useless to say, I trust my child. Yes, but I don't purposely test whether she will succumb to temptation or not. I try to remove temptation because I know how susceptible we all are to it. We pray "lead us not into temptation" because we know we'll fail the test most of the time. But as I was praying in church the other week, the thought occurred to me - if they are going to spend 10 to 20 hours a week in each other's company, they can spare one hour a week together in church. So, I went home and informed my daughter that if she wanted to see her boyfriend, she would have to go to church with him every Sunday. His (he's not Catholic) or her church, it didn't matter, so long as they went together. If they did so, they could see each other the rest of the week. If they didn't manage it, they would have to wait a week. Last Sunday they went to church together with me. They sat apart from me, though, a few rows back; but it really was quite charming. They sat like a young, pious couple glad in their faith and happy to practice it. I was very pleased with them both. I don't know if bringing a third person (God) more formally into their relationship will affect them very much, but I know it can't hurt, and may provide them with the armor to withstand pressure and temptation - enough to carry them through this period of excitement and delight to a more mature understanding of their responsibilities rather than their simple seeking of satisfactions. It also puts the young man to a simple test - is my daughter worth a mass to you (to paraphrase what the French king said about Paris)? Consider the requirement as a sort of a bug repellant for creepy kids. People disposed to selfishness and egotism may find the demand intolerable. Which is what I would hope for. I keep finding, though, that most parents seem unwilling to make any demands upon their kids, which is a real shame. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:27 PM | |
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