The man I want my daughter to date *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Feb 03 2010 at 9:40 am | Filed under: Children, Sex
This is an entirely hypothetical scenario, because my daughter is only 12, and I’m not planning on her dating for at least another fifteen or twenty years, if not more. However, the sad fact is that, contrary to my entirely reasonable wishes, the dating scene is going to start in three or four years — and that’s just the stuff I’ll know about and can control. Thanks to the parent grapevine, I’m completely aware that the more precocious kids at my daughter’s middle school (meaning 12 through 14 year olds) are already getting into trouble with sex.
The school is trying its best. When Valentine’s Day became too sexualized, the school simply canceled it. Students are not allowed any Valentine’s Day observations on campus. I don’t know how effective that cancellation has been, and I don’t know whether it happened before or after the two 8th grade girls were caught in the bathroom at a dance orally servicing a long line of boys, but I still appreciate that the school is trying.
You really can’t blame the children. They live in a hyper-sexualized culture. At home, I’m preaching self-respect and abstinence (and backing that up with classic movies in which the women were strong, charming and virginal), but at their schools, they’re discussing Lady GaGa (whose costumes are so revealing they’ve sparked rumors she’s a hermaphrodite); obscenity laden rap songs (which the 11 year olds know by heart); the fact that Miley Cyrus has become a “slut;” and the sexual escapades of John Edwards. No matter what I do, my kids are exposed to a sexual morality I find disturbing and demeaning. Fortunately my kids are still young enough to be disgusted by these various behaviors, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re being steered into thinking sex is simply a commodity, with anything short of actual intercourse falling into the “innocuous” category.
All of which explains why I’m so taken with Tim Tebow. Here you have a young man who is handsome, charismatic, and an extraordinary athlete — and he’s also proud about saving himself for marriage. Despite the manifest temptations that being a star athlete must present, he’s open about his virginity. The jaded press may giggle in shock and embarrassment but I, as a mom, am deeply impressed:
What’s so important about Tebow is that people cannot claim that he’s a virgin simply because he’s too pathetic to get a girl. Instead, this moral dynamo is a virgin because he’s taken a principled stand that is inextricably intertwined with respect for himself, for the women he dates (and I assume he does date), and for the woman he will eventually marry. I can’t think of a better lesson for young people. And that’s why I want my daughter to date a man like Tebow: someone who has principles every mother can love, and who, in a culture obsessed with sex, is proud of those principles.
Incidentally, despite the fact that 99% of the families in my ultra liberal community would draw back in revulsion at the thought of their child dating an evangelical Christian, I can guarantee you that 100% of them would be dancing on air if they knew that their daughter’s date, because of a deep commitment to and reverence for women and the sanctity of marriage, wasn’t trying to get his hands in their daughter’s pants.
I’m also very appreciative of the fact that Tebow’s sudden prominence outside of football circles (I, for example, wouldn’t have heard of him but for the Superbowl kerfuffle) coincides with a solid study showing that abstinence education is the best way to prevent kids from having sexual intercourse. You and I have always understood that if you give kids step by step instructions, complete with condoms and cucumbers, in how to have sex, they might be inclined to have sex. For the educated class, however, it took a vast study, complete with a large control group exposed to those condoms and cucumbers, to establish what we knew intuitively: if you emphasize that our bodies are precious, that modern science cannot protect people from diseases and unplanned pregnancies, and that there is a deep measure of self-respect and respect for others that goes with abstinence, you will have healthier, safer children.
UPDATE: And here comes the perfect example of the media’s constant desire to turn our children into sex objects. These are twisted people who seek to validate their unsavory approach to life by co-opting our children. People like Tim Tebow are vital to counteracting this cultural rot.
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Just to make sure you’re prepared…
(Each page has a link at the bottom to the other page. These links are to each of them)
http://www.smilespedia.com/10-simple-rules-for-dating-my-daughter-2/
http://www.smilespedia.com/application-for-permission-to-date-my-daughter/
Book,
The discussion about abstinence ed always portrays it as telling kids what they should not do. In reality, the discussion should focus on what kids should be doing and how that is hampered by early sex. I think kids should be learning how to build friendships and relationships based on shared values. This means learning that a girl doesn’t have to follow the dress code or behaviour of the dedicated cool girls, that she learns to appreciate the humor and support she gets from the quiet mouse at the back of the classroom. With boys, she must learn which ones respect her opinions and are protective of her feelings, which ones do the right thing and which ones follow the crowd. Boys must learn that the friendship of a girl is more important than being able to brag about conquests. Both need to learn how to deal with a broken heart. They need to learn how to share their feelings with others and how to handle things when their trust is abused.
It seems like many so-called adults have forgotten how hard it is to figure out who you really are. Or else they are willing to sell out kids for fame and record sales.
Here’s a good read on the topic via Neo-neocon:
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2010/02/abstinence-education-works.html
Expat – that is a beautiful thing you posted. The girl is the one with the power to determine which way the relationship goes, and always has been. What boys and girls need is parenting by adults who are willing to sacrifice their own time and energy to instill the virtues that Tebow exemplifies. And I don’t mean values, which constantly change, but virtues, which do not.
[...] and working (under some cover) in a “progressive” enclave has declared that Tebow is the sort of man she’d like her daughter to date: I can’t think of a better lesson for young people. And that’s why I want my daughter to date a [...]
The book, The Game, by Neil Strauss spells out an interesting narrative in which clueless and extremely shy people ultimately seek societal or self validation through learning Pick Up Artist skills to get women.
It is not about the hookup culture, which was instigated by the Left as a social experiment in order to wage war against defenseless individuals, but a parallel culture that has much of the same attributes.
Human beings are vulnerable to external pressure, control, and manipulation. This is true whether we speak of verbal or physical violence, propaganda in advertisement or in psychological manipulation. If you teach your children how to defend against these methods, that will require that they learn how these methods work. Like the Greatest Generation, they were not willingly to teach the arts of war and sacrifice to their children, so their children ended up longing for a security that they were never taught how to maintain or obtain. War was not their path and so they went around aimlessly looking for another and they found it: Leftism. Or rather, it found them, like the shadowy monster creeping along the ocean bottoms.
For example, there are people out there that specifically learn or teach others how to break down the restrictions and inhibitions of young girls.
To Grim:
Who teaches these young men this?
Single mothers, who have driven the fathers of these children out of their lives? Or the absent fathers? Both of which have been taught by this society that fatherhood is irrelevant, and a father is fungible, replaceable by any old man or even woman?
A school system which regards male behavior as aberrant, or even toxic, and which medicates this?
Barks of “Man up?”
Attached women assuring them that “Some Day” it will come to pass that “Some one” will see their value?
A lonely twenty-something is lonely. Now. His reward for virtue – now- is loneliness, while all around him bad behavior is being rewarded with companionship, attention, affection. However fleeting this is, he does not have the benefit of experience
Every young man of that age will look at us old coots and will think “So you say, pops. In case you missed it, the world changed. You are lone voices preaching this gospel while almost every other voice snickers at you.”
I don’t have to like or defend this reality to report it. While we were saying “So what?” this reality happened.
While we’re being parochial because “*I* don’t know *ANY* people like that” (Of course not, because we all have a small circle of acquaintances no matter who we are and excise such people from our lives) the “Real Men” are mocke, and ridiculed in media and culture, We get the Doofus Dad stereotype, and we can show no rewards for it.
Before I left teaching you would not believe the amount of times I tried to mentor young men to be told things that could be distilled down to “Yeah, I’ve seen how well that works for my dad/uncle/brother/cousin. He doesn’t get to see his kids, he gave up his dreams, and got a second job and a bachelor apartment, and he’s lonely too. That’s what I call being a sucker.”
Be a nice guy, be a real man, and get ridicule and loneliness. Be a cad, and get rewarded. No matter how short term we with the benefit of age and experience can say those rewards are, those are the lessons learned, because those are the lessons taught.
The PUA can show these young men the different hottie on his arm every week, but I can’t show him the emptiness in his heart, nor the self respect in mine.
Pete Jensen | 01.11.10 – 1:21 pm |
Now, what is a “pickup artist”? We’ve all known them: they are men who have learned how to make a living by preying on the vulnerabilities of insecure young women.-Grim
They don’t actually become alpha males with the Game, but just ape its superficial characteristics. I think they fell into the public education trap where in the definition of dominance simply means power through emotion. The main designers are right that young males have lost the institutional knowledge of how to be men. But what they substitute in its stead can’t help those that really need it the most.
Bill mentioned the difference between assertive and aggressive. That’s a concept that I’ve only ever heard on one website. They’d be good cannon fodder material, though, equivalent to suicide bombers. Wouldn’t you say.-Ymar
http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/how-to-nail-a-virgin/
I think it will benefit your children Book, male or female, to understand as completely as possible just who is involved here, what their goals, and what the methodology (attacks) they can use. Then you won’t have a problem convincing them that it isn’t in their interest to go along with this, because they would already have figured it out. You won’t have to reinforce their views because they will reinforce it themselves, after having obtained the tools to do so.
Search for this datestamp on the site
December 16, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I won’t paste the comment, you’ll have to go look for yourself if you want to see an example of what I am referring to.
Here is an interesting site. Explore the whole thing, but click on student essays and scroll down to the last one.
http://www.bestfriendsfoundation.org/index.html
Ymar…
You didn’t post a site. I went to the one from the previous comment and searched as directed…nada. Went to the City Journal article mentioned in the first comment, and while I agree with it…no December 12 comment either.
However…enjoy this little goodie.
http://www.smilespedia.com/finding-a-husband/
Book…I know you are not a religious Jew. Nevertheless…the type of man you want for your daughter is more likely to be a church attender than not. I’d recommend that you find a synogogue – or church – that you can deal with and join. And include your children. Certainly there are good men out there who are not church members, but the odds that you’ll find men who will be good husbands and fathers increase if they’re church goers.
You understand what I’m saying…there are certainly good men who frequent bars – but if I were looking for husband material, I wouldn’t start by looking in the bars. It’s a numbers/odds thing.
Suek is right, Book….I’m quite sure that your daughter, lovely as I’m sure she is, wouldn’t have a chance with Tim Tebow, because he’s a committed Christian, and isn’t likely to be dating someone who doesn’t share that with him. A big part of all those things you find so attractive in him is the result of his religious commitments….there’s a lesson there!
One more thing….you don’t *have* to resign yourself to watching your daughter “date”, with all of the angst (and sometimes pain) that goes with it. My sweet girl decided she would not – mainly from reading a book about courtship….I think it was one by Jim Ryun, but I can’t find it on Amazon. Here’s a different book whose author interviewed Ryun, though:
http://www.amazon.com/What-Daughter-Needs-Her-Dad/dp/0764228706/ref=sr_1_47?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265249208&sr=8-47
It’s about the importance of a father in a girl’s life, and you need to remember that Mr. BW is going to have a LOT more to do with how things turn out for your little girl than you are….it’s the way things work.
Anyhow, here’s a book similar to what Laura had (I’m going to ask her if she remembers which one she read, and report back):
http://www.amazon.com/Kissed-Dating-Goodbye-Joshua-Harris/dp/1590521358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265249267&sr=8-1
I will include your family in my prayers — it’s SO important, and our culture isn’t helping decent families these days – it’s actively working against you. I tremble a bit for my sweet Sophia…..
Not to trivialize, Book, but my approach towards my (hypothetical) daughters goes something like this:
1) If you make her cry, I will make you cry.
2) Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in front of your parents. In church.
3) I have ten acres, a shovel, and this shotgun. Capiche?
And yes, that works for sons too. I’ve coolly turned away young women pursuing my brothers since I can remember. A cold look and a snide remark can do wonders for restoring some much-needed decorum.
Anecdotal evidence leads me to believe that would-be suitors of both young girls and young boys have their ardor substantially cooled by hard evidence that Mama knows her way around a 9 mm.
http://moviesfoundonline.com/sexy_inc.php
This movie is in perfect alignment with your opening salvo. Free to watch online–about the hypersexualization of our youth (it’s Canadian, and a bit graphic at times, but excellent).
[...] Bookworm has a great post about Tim Tebow. In it she writes that she would love it if her daughter dated a man like him someday because of [...]
Planned Parenthood responds to Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl ad…
Planned Parenthood has issued a reaction to the yet-to-be-seen Super Bowl ad Tim Tebow and his mom have made. This a pretty lame response, too. Even though this ad uses……
Suek is right. Your daughter is far more likely to find this kind of guy in a religious community, whether observant Christian, Mormon or Jewish. There the value system supports sex within marriage (but often young marriages), girls dress modestly -and look really beautiful- and there isn’t that kind of sad desperation you describe of middle schoolers performing sexual favors on campus to a line-up of boys. How sad, empty and pathetic. Parents MUST teach their children values. Having our kids associate with others with shared values helps a lot.
Suek, copy and paste the html link. For some reason, the link actually goes to the haloscan comment page of Grim’s Hall, rather than to Rossy’s site.
I don’t know if this was planned by my school system or not, but it kept me from having sex at least until I was out of high school. In seventh/eighth grade health classes, we had the VD movies–people with syphilitic sores and horror stories about becoming sterile and having parts fall off, complete with grainy video.
That was followed up my sophomore year in high school with the childbirth film that, from a front-and-center point of view showed water breaking (one girl fainted), the episiotomy (two more down), and followed with the whole enchilada (we lost another one at that point I think). With both of these in my consciousness, it made for a very effective abstinence program.
[...] a little reminder that I think very highly of Tim Tebow, not just as a football player, but as a human being. I hope this doesn’t mean I have to [...]