"Protecting" the Kids From Dating

Part Two in a series on emotional modesty. Part one is here.

The very first line of the CD's very first post struck a chord.

The really old Italian priest at the Latin Mass chapel I attend when on the West Coast gave a sermon once about how parents shouldn't discourage their teenagers from having boyfriends and girlfriends. I thought it was pretty funny, and it didn't occur to me until about five minutes ago that maybe he was talking about that whole emotional chastity movement.

 When I read that paragraph I immediately thought of two concrete examples of this sort of idea taken to extremes. A family that I know quite well did not let their children date at all in their teen years. They were tacitly encouraged to be attracted to movie stars, fictional characters, etc. but crushes on other teenagers were implicitly forbidden. The girls, even into their twenties, were convinced that it was a mortal sin to like a guy, unless he liked them first.

In another family I know, the 21 year old son is still not allowed to drive female friends home by himself. There must be someone else in the car with them as chaperone.

The rationale, such as it is, behind both of these attitudes seems to me to be well-intentioned, at least on the most basic level. The parents grew up continually exposed to sex, drugs and rock-n-roll in their teen years, and so have a very acute awareness of the dangers of such temptations. They desire to protect their children from these temptations, so they make rules that perhaps they wish they had kept when they were young. They draw lines, thinking that as long as their children do not cross those lines they cannot be drawn into sin.

Unfortunately this approach is not true to human nature. There are a couple of major flaws in it:

1)    First, it gives the wrong impression. It assumes that boys and girls cannot behave when they are alone together, and therefore must constantly be under supervision. Often there is an unstated emphasis on the boy in the situation, as if the girl needs to be protected from his boyish nature, and he needs to be protected from himself. This is a terrible assumption. Not only is it unjust, and it has something of the nature of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is just as wicked and dishonest as the worldly version of manhood that tells boys that they need to lay as many girls as possible to be a man, and it has the same root, and the same effect. The root is the assumption that “That’s just how men are,” and “Boys will be boys.” The effect is to give men the impression that we are helpless slaves of our biology, and consequently we should either despair of ever being pure, or just laugh off our sins as simply “boys being boys.”

2)    Second and more foundationally, we were not put on this earth to avoid sin. We were put on this earth to know, love and serve God and our neighbor. This means that we must live. Sinlessness is not a requirement for entrance into Heaven. Love is. Avoidance of sin is a crabbed, stilted, pitiful imitation of the boundless energy, the joyous vitality, the fierce, unconcerned freedom of the pursuit of holiness. Sometimes simply avoiding sin is the best we can do. I admit that. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t. However, categorically basing the raising of teenagers on the principle of merely avoiding sin is dangerous. It gives sin more power than it ought to have.

3)    In most societies prior to ours, teenagers of 16 or 17 were regarded as adults, and expected to behave as such. It is our society that keeps pushing the limits of adolescence further and further and further, by not requiring maturity of teenagers, then of highschoolers, then of college students, and now we do not even require maturity of grown men of thirty years old. My entire adult life has been spent as a leader in the military. Because I could keep my nose clean, I was put in charge of my peers right from the beginning, and told to keep their noses clean as well. I have over ten years of experience in leadership, and the one rule, the only thing I have learned with any certainty, is that people cannot be pushed into maturity. They can be pushed or coerced into meeting a standard, as long as that standard is mediocre enough, but no human being can be forced to mature. They can only be invited, and then allowed the chance to succeed or fail. In my experience, more often than not young people rise to the level of trust placed in them, but there are no guarantees. Sometimes people fail, and a leader must give them that opportunity. 

4)    As with anything having to do with people, you cannot fight nature and expect there to be no consequences. Teenagers are designed to be interested in the opposite sex. God made them that way. It is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. It draws people into relationship with each other. Does it also provide opportunity for temptation? Yes. But to quote Catholic blogger Seraphic Singles "Eros… is above everything else an impulse to escape the prison of one's own ego to connect with someone or something else." To hear a lot of Catholic speakers, writers and leaders on the subject, (and my younger self was guilty of this at, say, 15 years old) one would think that the burgeoning of human sexuality in the teen years was a bit of a mistake. A miscalculation on God’s part, if you will, which puts all of us in a devilish awkward position, what with having desires that can only be satisfied by marriage, and yet being too young to marry. Best thing to do is teach the kids to ignore those desires for relationship, lock them in a closet until your 21^st birthday, and then let them out when they are mentally, emotionally, and financially ready for marriage.

There are consequences for stifling these budding romantic attractions. Most of the time it is done by making the kids feel that there is some sort of stigma attached to those feelings, or even that they are somehow dirty or bad. Whether the parents intend this or not, that can be the result.

I think what is needed is to recognize things for what they are. Here are three facts that I can think of off the top of my head which ought to be recognized:

1)    The truth is that teenagers are going to have crushes on other teenagers. If they are not that is probably not healthy. Something is very wrong when young men and women are not attracted to one another, or have no desire for relationship with each other.

2)    Teenage crushes are not permanent, nor are they necessarily very profound. This does not mean that they are not real. It is one thing to remind a teenage girl that her crush on a boy is not on the same level as the love Grandma and Grandpa have for each other. All kids need to be reminded of this, and the perspective is priceless. It is quite something else, however, to laugh at her feelings, or to make fun of them. Her feelings are real. She is really feeling them. They are probably immature, and perhaps a bit silly. Perhaps they are a lot silly, but they are the best she can feel for now. No one makes fun of a toddler for falling over while learning to walk. Why should we make fun of teenagers for bumbling clumsily about while learning to love?

3)    No one (except the teenagers themselves) expects teenage romances to be permanent. The kids are going to get their hearts broken. There is no point in deliberately courting heartbreak, but neither should parents be overly concerned with protecting their kids from it. We learn from heartbreak. It presents us with a choice, whether to grow or to shrink back into ourselves, and this choice is the meaning of our very lives.

I think all parents fear for their children. They think about their children falling in love with other children, and they see all the worst case scenarios: STD’s, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sin, and disgrace. They try to shield their children from these consequences by shielding them from the relationships that could be a temptation to them, without realizing that these relationships are also opportunity. We fear the possibility of failure, so we have a tendency to pass up opportunity for victory.

On a larger scale, that is why our culture is the way it is. We Christians are not going out and living and loving fearlessly. We are isolating ourselves in communes so that we will not be corrupted, rather than going out and carrying the gospel into the very teeth of the world.

Re-Examining Emotional Modesty

Charming Disarray has started a series of posts on “Emotional Chastity” which I have been following since the first one appeared, and periodically going back to re-read. It is of great interest to me because I have written an entire book about modesty for women (a fact which I am sure does not recommend me to CD at all) and in it I actually spoke about emotional modesty; and also because I have written a book about manhood for young men, in which I posited a sort of emotional modesty for men.

Emotional modesty for women could very simply be defined as not sharing on an intimate emotional level, or allowing a man to share on such a level, unless he had openly declared his commitment to that relationship.

Emotional modesty for men could be defined as saying only what you mean, and no more. This means don’t act like you are pursuing a woman unless you do intend to commit to that relationship. I also discouraged the idea of dating without a clear intention of discerning marriage, and hence discouraged dating for young men who were not ready to get married, personally or financially.

Like all of my theories, they were formulated in response to a perceived problem. As I saw it, the women that I knew tended to be too ready to commit their hearts to relationships that very clearly weren’t going anywhere, because the guy was not committed at all. He, for his part, more often than not, was well content to let things go on, enjoying the attention and emotional (and/or physical) attachment, but apparently unable or unwilling to get tied down. That was the most common scenario that I saw, and so it was the scenario I wrote about. I was aware at the time that both theories could be taken too far and hence tried to balance them in my writings, but there is only so much you can do.

Three or four years later I am revisiting those theories, interested in finding the flaws. Surprisingly, I don’t find too many obvious flaws in formulation in the books. As I said, I was quite careful to balance out my theories with common sense. What I find, however, is that those theories play right into the hands of a certain attitude, which I have come to call “Fear Based Ethics.”

What is a “Fear Based Ethic?” It is an ethical proscription put forth out of fear of the possible consequences. I oppose it to “Love Based Ethics” which are embraced for love of the good that comes from them. A fear based ethic is, “You had better go to Mass on Sunday or you will go to hell.” A love based ethic would be, “I go to Mass on Sunday because I want to grow closer to God.” Currently (I am only 27 and my ideas are constantly under renovation) I am a bit suspicious of fear based ethics. They are suitable for two year olds, “Don’t run into the road or Daddy will spank you,” but hardly for adults. I recognize that sometimes a little fear of damnation is all that stands between myself and… well… damnation; However, I believe the ultimate goal is to move away from fear based ethics, and move towards love based ethics.

I recognize that fear of evil consequences is an inevitable component of any system of morals. The question is how much, and for how long, and how do we move to love?

It is not enough simply to avoid evil. We must learn to pursue the good with all our hearts. Even that is not quite love based. If I could write well enough, I could portray the good as it really is, and I the writer and you the reader would fall in love with that good, and be consumed with desire to pursue it. “Should” and “Want to” would be synonymous.

With that in mind, I want to take a cue from CD in examining the concept of “emotional chastity.”

What Men Think (Language Warning)

These are real quotes from real men that I know and work with on a daily basis.
"I think England was where I saw yoga pants for the first time."
"Mmmm... Yoga pants!"
"Yep! Best invention ever."

"I hate all these hippie faggots out here. (There were a lot of hippies at the state park we were climbing in.) I know they can hear me, but I don't give a f---, cause I'll still stare at their hippie women all day long."

"Check it out. Six-o-clock, 500 meters, pink shirt across the canyon. Yep. I look over that way and all I see are pink boobs."

"Did you see that one at the camp site? So much potential, if only she would wash and do something about the dreadlocks."

(Me referring to a couple of highschool or college kids climbing next to us.) "Man, those kids could climb!"
"Yeah. They were pretty good. Of course both of them together weigh about as much as you do by yourself, but the chick had a nice ass. I know because I was staring at it the whole time she was going up the rock."

Different group of guys, this time at a fairly nice Italian restaurant:
"Dude, did you see her breasts?! She walked right in front of our table, dawg, that's like dragging a piece of meat in front of a den of lions."
"That one over there! You don't wear yellow pants unless you want to get spanked, that's all I'm saying."
"Oh, she looked over here! She wants it, dawg, you know she wants it."
"I heard her say she's divorced. You know how those over forty and divorced chicks get. Experienced and desperate."
"Dude, she would spread her legs so wide!"

I have, of course, carefully selected only the most PG-rated comments.

I'm not sure why I am posting this. It isn't my usual style to post about things like this, and I think afterwards I will try to write something beautiful to cleanse my palate. This post feels almost like vomitting. You know how it is when you throw up. It is hideous while it lasts, but afterwards you feel a hundred percent better.
The temptation for me is to despise the guys who look at women like this. I can't help but think about the women that I know, and care about. I imagine what these guys would say and think about them, and I get angry. And after all, these random women, climbers, hikers, hostesses, waitresses, fellow diners etc. are someone's sisters, or friends, or girlfriends. They are people that you could get to know. You could have a conversation with, you could listen to their stories, you could know them, love them, respect them. Instead they choose to reduce them to a possible sex fantasy.
I am tired of dealing with it. I am tired of being around them. But I can't despise them for it, because no matter how hard I try to see women differently, no matter how much I legitimately hate that way of looking at women, I still know exactly what they are talking about. I don't have to follow their eyes or their nods. I have already seen her, and I've already made my own decision on how to respond to that sight of her. I hate being around it because it drags me down, perilously close to half-thinking the same sort of thought. Even more I hate it becuase it reminds me of how little difference there is between me and them.
And I am supposed to be the witness in all of this!
Heaven help us all.

The Lady at the Beach

The Thai people, as far as I can tell, tend to be conservative dressers at the beach. Despite, (or perhaps because of,) the influence of Western tourists and ex-pats, most of the locals I have seen at the beach don’t seem to follow the gag-inspiringly liberal beach attire of their European guests. In fact, they seem, so far as I can tell, not even to have any idea of specific “bathing attire” at all. They just go down to the beach and have fun, at least the particular beach that I happened to be living on at the moment.

Today I went down and sat on the rocks and read T. S. Elliot’s “Four Quartets” and watched the waves and the wind and the people. There was a small Thai family who stopped by for about half an hour or so, a little further down the beach, a man, woman and their son, and a little dog. The humans all went into the water and tried to get the dog to go in with them, but that poor little quadruped was having none of it. The dad finally chased after the dog and caught him, and they took him out until the water was waste deep to the humans, but even at that depth the waves can swell up to head height or even higher. He was just a little dog, and as soon as they let go of him he headed for shore with a much put upon attitude.

They were all wearing ordinary, everyday street clothes, (except for the dog, who had no clothes). The man and boy were wearing shorts and polo shirts, and the woman was wearing a dress, and there they all were, splashing around up to their necks at times in the warm salt water. There was something achingly beautiful about the woman especially, quite apart from the beauty of wind, water and billowing hair (which is a magic combination in its own right). It was somehow enhanced by her unapologetically feminine attire, and even more so by her obvious enjoyment of time spent with her family. She seemed valuable, infinitely so, possessed of a playful dignity, not only evident in her but also in her husband and her son. The way the little boy ran splashing through the waves to bury his face in her stomach with a flying leap/hug and the way she returned it struck a powerful chord of recognition in me. When she stumbled through the surf and put her hand on her husband’s shoulder to catch her balance, he caught her around the waist with a laugh and spun her round in front of him as if he had half a mind to send her tumbling into the water and dive after her himself. He probably thought about it for a second. I know I would have. But she took it with good humor (I could see her laughing from where I was) and was not the least bit nonplussed. You just don’t dunk someone with that much dignity.

Why did the dress make so much difference? I am not sure. Certainly nothing would have changed within that family’s inner dynamic if she had been wearing shorts and a t-shirt or a bathing suit. But there it is. Somehow it enabled her to recapture a little bit of the unconscious queenliness that Eve had before clothes were ever invented. The fact that she was wearing a dress to the beach was amazing, and the fact that she wore it to go tumbling in the water with the two most important men in her life was even more so.

Blessings upon that family.

Including the dog.