Sheila Wray Gregoire's Blog, page 124
September 21, 2017
My HUGE Announcement I Can Finally Share with You!
But I couldn’t, because it wasn’t my story to tell (though it affected me greatly).
But now the story has been told. And so I will share it with you all!
That’s right; my baby is getting married!
She and David actually got engaged back in July, but he took her completely by surprise that day. And she hadn’t really “introduced” David much on her YouTube channel, so she didn’t want to go public with the engagement until people had seen him a little bit more, or else it may seem strange. (Such is the world when your ministry is online).
So I couldn’t share it with you! I did hint that last week I was off somewhere doing something important, and so I ran a quick post. What I didn’t tell you was that we all went wedding dress shopping (and got a fabulous dress!)
The wedding is in February, almost a year to the day that they started dating.
Let me tell you a little bit about David and Katie. David is Rebecca’s age; he and Rebecca have been friends since junior high. David has always known who Katie was, of course, but she was off limits because she was “Becca’s little sister”. David was a big part of everything Rebecca went through as a teen. When a guy broke her heart, David volunteered to punch him for her (she politely declined). Rebecca’s diaries are full of David, and when Katie and David started dating, she looked back and read them and said, “Even back then I was talking about him as my brother! I’m just so glad I never had a crush on him!”
David and Rebecca both drifted away from their youth group circle after high school, but they remained close to each other, and David was one of the few from her teenage years who was invited to her wedding. He actually gave the first speech when the open mic started, and talked about how Rebecca had always been his sister. So looking back, it’s really cool how he’s always been there.
For Katie, he was far more there when she was about 11-15. She had the hugest crush on him (though she never really told me much at the time). After that she moved on, and David kind of went off the rails a bit (he alludes to that at the end of the video). Katie would never be interested in someone who wasn’t totally sold out for Jesus, so when David did start to notice her, she said no.
He relentlessly pursued her anyway, at the same time as he was pursuing Jesus again, and he and Katie became quite good friends. He wanted it to be more; she kept turning him down. Until, 2 1/2 years after he’d started asking, she finally said yes.
That was last February. They were engaged in July.
Some would say it’s fast, but when they started dating they already knew each other so well. And I’m not a huge believer in long engagements, if you already know each other.
They’ve got some great pre-marital counselling, so I’m happy. David is a medic in the military, and could easily be deployed at the end of 2018, so she has a huge adjustment to make. And she’s a little worried about it. But she can already see how God may be opening up doors for her for ministry there.
It’s interesting, because we hardly knew Connor, Rebecca’s husband, when they began dating because she had met him at school. With David, we know everything–including his family–really well. In some ways that’s good; in other ways it makes it much easier to interfere. In fact, a few years ago at church David used to call Keith and me “Mom” and “Dad”; Keith has been his mentor for a while and we’ve always kind of encouraged him. I pulled back a ton when Katie kept turning him down because I wanted him to get the message; but now we’re all good again.
David and Katie are very different. But they work together. So this will be a fun year as we gear up for her wedding! I’m not doing as many big speaking tours this year to get ready for it, and I’m really looking forward to a big family day.
My baby is getting married! Wow. And now I can tell you. 
September 20, 2017
I Figured Out Why So Much Marriage Advice is so Trite!
I’ll be on Pinterest, and I’ll see something interesting: “What to do when you find your husband watching porn.” And I’ll think to myself, “Okay, that might be really good! Let’s see what she has to say.”
And I’ll click through, and I’ll read about how the wife needs to get on her knees and pray.
Then I’ll see a post about “What to do when you feel lonely in your marriage.”
And I’ll click through, and I’ll read about how the wife needs to get on her knees and pray.
And then I’ll see a post on “What to do when you disagree with your husband on how to raise your kids.”
And I’ll click through, and I’ll read about how the wife needs to get on her knees and pray.
Then I start to wonder why people read marriage blogs at all.
I know I’m being really sarcastic here, and I really don’t mean to be. I actually believe in prayer, after all! It’s just that I finally was able to put into words this week something I’ve been feeling for a few years, and it’s this:
Instead of seeking out God’s will for our individual marriage, too many people think that we must seek out marital stability.
Ironically, we are sacrificing our marriages on the altar of marriage.
Are we sacrificing our marriages on the altar of marriage? Why marriage shouldn't be an idol: Click To Tweet
I wrote recently that we need to be careful that marriage doesn’t become our idol. Well, I think that applies in a broader sense, too. I think that the reason that there is so little practical help for the nitty gritty in marriage is because we are aiming for the wrong thing. We are aiming to preserve a certain view of marriage rather than trying to see God’s will done in marriage. And we feel very threatened by anything that may rock the boat of what we believe marriage should be.
Are we aiming to see God's will done in our marriage, or to preserve a certain view of marriage?Click To Tweet
Let me explain how this works, and it’s going to take a little bit of a history lesson.
In the 1960s, when the feminist movement grew in strength, it was aiming specifically to attack male privilege. And one of the places where male privilege was so obvious was in marriage. Marriage, feminists said, was a trap. Men basically owned and used women, and women were chattel. The solution was to let women choose relationships on their own terms. Abortion was a huge part of that (I have control over my body).
Christians felt like their whole value system was being attacked. In response, the Christian evangelical church started writing more and more books about what a Christian marriage should look like, and started trying to preserve marriage against the onslaught of feminism and secularism.
Whole evangelical movements grew up in the 1980s fighting for “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” and biblical marriage, where a husband leads and a wife submits. The movement tried to position itself as the opposite of feminism. This was the ground we were going to hold at all costs. This was the hill we were going to die on. Christianity was being attacked, and the family, and marriage, became the focal point for that fight. We began equating our faith with preserving our view of marriage. The two became hopelessly intertwined (so much so that the doctrine of the Trinity was rewritten to promote male headship).
It reminds me of this tweet I saw recently:
The greatest problem in Christian education today is that doctrine rather than character transformation has become an end in itself
— DallasAWillard (@DallasAWillard) August 15, 2017
We’re promoting marriage over godliness. It’s scary.
Growing up in the 1980s I read less about wives doing a husband’s will than I do now. It’s way more prevalent today. The whole quest for “biblical womanhood” just wasn’t there in the same way in the 1970s and 1980s. And because it’s such a strong Christian cultural current, many people have based their whole identities, and even their faith walks, around living up to this ideal of marriage (just like we talked about in making marriage your idol).
There’s just one problem. It doesn’t work, because it’s entirely the wrong focus.
When you pray the Lord’s prayer, you pray, “Your will be done, Your kingdom come…” You pray for God’s will to be done.
When it comes to marriage, though, we seem to be saying, “the husband’s will be done.” We could look at a given marriage and think, “even though God wants oneness, humility and health, this husband would rather be a workaholic. And since God demands that wives honour the husbands, then God obviously will be pleased if the wife puts up with his workaholism.”
The husband’s will now trumps God’s will.
That is the underlying assumption in so many marriage blogs and marriage books. That’s why when they’re confronted with a problem of a husband’s selfishness or sin, they have no answer. Sure, no one actually wants him being a workaholic. But ultimately, it’s his choice, because he’s the man. That’s how we glorify God, you see–by letting males choose how to live their lives.
When confronted with a husband's sin or selfishness, many Christian leaders have no answer.Click To Tweet
But this isn’t just a problem when husbands sin. It’s a problem when wives sin, too.
As I wrote last month, men can be victims of emotional abuse as well. Wives can treat their husbands in horrible ways. I do believe that this is a more acute problem in one direction than the other simply because our theology says that a husband’s will goes, not that a wife’s will goes. But in this quest to make marriage our idol, we’ve put men who are in difficult marriages in a bind, too.
We’ve told those men that their marriages matter more than anything. We’ve told them that if their wife is treating them badly, it’s because they aren’t leading their wives well enough or praying for them properly or loving them as Christ loved the church. If they just did all of those things, then the marriage would be better. And we’ve told these men that marriage is a sacred covenant, and so they need to preserve it all costs.
Then what is a husband supposed to do when his wife won’t lift a finger around the house, overspends so that they’re heavily in debt, or is verbally abusive towards the children?
You know what makes all of this so much clearer? Asking the question: What does Jesus want from this situation?
We tend to ask the question: “How can I fix this marriage?” That really limits our options, because it’s all about not rocking the boat.
But if we ask, “what does Jesus want in this situation?”, the answer is quite different.
Jesus wants God to be glorified. And when is God glorified? When people look more and more like Christ.
How is that supposed to happen?
By loving mercy, acting justly, and walking humbly before our God. (Micah 6:8)
That was what I was trying to hammer home, over and over again, in 9 Thoughts That Can Change Your Marriage. God does not want marriage to look great. God wants GOD to look great, and the way that that happens is by loving mercy (showing love and grace, first and foremost); acting justly (standing up for what’s right and not enabling sin); and walking humbly with our God (getting our relationship with God right first so that we can tell what actions are appropriate in each situation).
When we’re having problems in our marriage, then, the question becomes, How can I look more like Jesus, and how can I act in such a way that those around me are led more to Jesus? It’s not about how can I protect the marriage. It’s about how can I bring God’s kingdom here on earth.
And ironically, that’s the best way to preserve the marriage! The only way to really solve marriage issues is to allow sin and selfishness to truly be confronted.
Let’s just look at a few scenarios where this plays out.
Let’s say that a husband is watching porn all the time and won’t stop.
If we ask, “What glorifies Jesus in this situation?”, the answer is obviously that the husband stops watching porn. So the question becomes, “how can we confront sin and do something about this?”
If we ask, “How can we honor male leadership in marriage in this situation?”, though, there’s really nothing she can do about his watching porn. She’s stuck.
Let’s say a wife is overspending on credit cards and driving the family into debt.
If we ask, “What glorifies Jesus in this situation?”, the answer is obviously that the wife stops her materialism and selfishness and cares for the family. So the question becomes, “what should the husband do to protect the family’s finances and help the wife stop this addiction?”
If we ask, “How can we preserve the marriage in this situation?”, though, there’s really very little the husband can do. He has to love her and cherish her, and that’s taken to mean that he may be able to talk to her about it, but do little else.
Or what if it’s something more mundane?
What if we’re simply wondering, “I’m better at looking after money than my husband is, and God has gifted me with attention to detail. So is it okay for me to look after the finances in our marriage?”
If we ask, “What glorifies Jesus in this situation?”, then the answer is, “that each person use the gifts they’ve been given by the Holy Spirit to help build the family, and that each participate as they feel called.”
If we ask, “What preserves a husband’s headship in this situation?”, we may answer, “that the husband bumble through doing the finances while the wife is frustrated.”
You see, the questions we ask matters. If we’re aiming to glorify Jesus, often the whole situation becomes clarified, because we know that Jesus is not glorified where gifts are not used, where sin is enabled, where families move further and further away from him. But if we ask, “how can we preserve a given view of marriage?”, then we’re often left with a very empty and unsatisfying answer of what we should do in many situations.
And that hurts marriage.
Whenever we put something before God, we ruin that thing.
If we’re asking “what does Jesus want here?”, and that conflicts with what you think about marriage, then that is a problem. God does not contradict God. If you know Jesus wants something, and then you choose to work only for marital stability, then you have made marriage an idol. It has come before God, and that’s simply wrong.
Let God be God. Pray for HIS will to be done. Act as Christ wants you to act, not to fulfill a certain role. Let Him in. Until we do that, we’ll never have real answers for the real messiness of life.
And, ironically, we’ll likely never save a marriage.
If we put marriage before God, we'll end up wrecking marriages.Click To Tweet
Can you all do me a favour? I’d honestly love to hear your thoughts on this, because I’ve put a LOT of thought into this post this week. The comments have been a little quiet lately. But I’m feeling a little alone. So let me know what you think and let’s talk!
The post I Figured Out Why So Much Marriage Advice is so Trite! appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
September 19, 2017
10 Things To Know About Staying Sane When Parents Divorce
We often think of the effects of divorce on children. But divorce affects adult children, too.
It’s Wednesday, the day when we always talk marriage, and lately I’ve had a number of emails from people whose parents are in the process of divorce, while at the same time I’ve had friends walking through this, too. And I thought it may be a good idea to talk about it.
One woman wrote:
My parents have always been together and I felt had a very strong love through all of the ups and downs of life. Lately, though, they’ve been under such stress. My brother has a drug problem. My mom’s sister is terminally ill. My father’s father died. Now my dad isn’t acting like himself. He called me and told me out of the blue that your mother and I don’t have anything together any longer things have changed between us and I am not in love with her like I used to be. I don’t desire her in that way and I’m just telling you so you won’t be shocked if I make a change for awhile. I’m so upset. I told him to not make any big decisions and that I felt he was grieving a huge loss. He says it’s not anything like another woman. Just says they don’t have anything together. My mom is a great wife great mother and was the best to his parents and even took care of his dad the last few months. Why is my dad acting like this? He even told my mom some of this. She is so lost.
I was expecting to write a big, epic Top 10 Tuesday post about this myself, but last month I asked on Facebook about any lessons people learned from their parents’ divorce when they were adults. And so many of you left such insightful yet heartbreaking comments that I decided to let you all speak for yourselves!
A Parents' Divorce hurts ALL children--even children who are adults themselves.Click To Tweet
1. Be Very Clear to Your Parents about How You Feel
I was joking with my girls last week that Keith and I would never be able to get divorced because they wouldn’t let us. Obviously that’s not entirely true–parents can go against their children’s wishes. But I actually like knowing that if our marriage ever got rocky, the girls would sit us down and say, “this is ridiculous. You’re not going to do this.”
This dad may need his kids to sit down with him and say, “we will not support you in this. We will not help you get settled elsewhere. You will have lost our respect.” They need to feel the consequences of their actions.
2. Don’t Take Sides–But We Know It’s Hard Not To
Over and over again commenters said, “don’t take sides.”
Sometimes it’s obvious when there’s a victim. But even then, you don’t need to throw your entire loyalty to one parent. That’s not a healthy dynamic.
It’s a real tragedy, but one of your parents will be going through one of the biggest tragedies of their lives–and the best thing you can do is to step back. Yes, your mom (or dad) may need you. But it’s not healthy for you to be in that situation. So don’t feel like there needs to be a loyalty test, because that’s not emotionally healthy for you.
3. Draw boundaries. It’s okay to have your own life and to not get drawn in to the emotional drama.
My girls call me everyday. We’re really good friends. I’m their support system, and they’re mine. And many of you are like that! So when parents divorce, it’s not just that your family comes crashing down. It’s that your friendship and support system come crashing down, too. And you may need to take a step back and find other people to talk to and rely on now.
And for me I had to pull away from both because I couldn’t support them, but my loyalty stayed with my mom. Remember that you need your own support system away from parents and you can’t allow either of them to depend on you too much – so BOUNDARIES are SO necessary. Remember it’s not your fault. Remember that you really may not know the whole story.
Another commenter said,
Being hurt by them doesn’t mean you aren’t loyal to them. Learn to set boundaries so their roller coaster has less of an impact on you and your family!
Parents may expect you to take sides, to sympathize, or even to be their rock. You can’t do that. Even if your mom or dad have been the victim in the divorce, it isn’t healthy for you to take the on the role of primary support. Your mom or dad needs a friend group. So take a step back and force them to find a healthier way of dealing with this than leaning on you.
One woman sums it up this way:
The other thing I did that I am very glad I did was make strong boundaries. I was old enough to take the stand that I wouldn’t be subjecting myself to running around on holidays and birthdays. Nor would I be their therapist and allow them to talk against the other parent. It wasn’t a popular stand I took but 20 years later I am glad I did.
4. Divorce Splits Siblings, Too
One woman who emailed me privately because it was such a sensitive topic talked about how for almost a decade she and her siblings had no contact with their father, who had left their mom for the “other woman”. Then she felt called to forgive and to reach out an olive branch. She did, and beautiful reconciliation happened. But her siblings, with whom she had always been close, couldn’t deal with this fact. And so she has gained a father but lost her siblings.
Know that this can happen–and put a lot of effort into finding friends to be your support system right now.
5. A parents’ divorce makes you question your good memories of your childhood
This, to me, is likely the most tragic.
When parents divorce, you look back over what you thought were happy memories, and you wonder, “Were they lying to me then? Were they just pretending? Does it mean that that fun wasn’t real?”
It’s almost as if all of your good memories are invalidated.
This may sound harsh, but I’m not sure their divorce will be over until one of them passes. That’s how it feels anyway. Their divorce made my childhood feel like a lie and I still can’t figure out exactly why that is.
Another commenter said:
I’m incredibly sensitive to the topic of divorce, and am terrified of going down the same path. It’s caused me to question everything I thought I knew about my childhood. It causes strife in my own marriage. I hate divorce. HATE it so much.
I understand. I’m watching two people I love walk through this right now. And from what I know of the situation, I would just say this: Just because a parent isn’t 100% perfect doesn’t mean that they didn’t love you at the time, or they weren’t choosing to be with each other at the time. Yes, they are choosing to live apart now. But when you look back on happy vacations, or on family games nights, or on family dinners when you were all laughing, remember: they were choosing each other then. And that was real.
People are neither 100% good or 100% bad. They are a mix. And even if someone is acting badly now, you can still remember times when they acted well. It’s hard to hold two different truths simultaneously, but give yourself permission to. You may be angry at one person now; you may know that they messed up; but that does not mean that they were 100% bad in the past.
This woman summed it up really well:
I also tried to really think through how this would impact my marriage, what I loved about their marriage and what I would do differently. I make a point not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and still try to think about positive things they both brought to my childhood.
6. A parents’ divorce feels like a “little death”
One woman wrote this:
I was 23 and had been married for three months when my parents suddenly divorced. I really struggled because I felt like it shouldn’t affect me as much as it did, because I was grown up! I think giving people permission to feel like a lost child.. or whatever other crazy feelings they have – anger, grief, confusion, hurt, is really important. When your family breaks up it really throws you even as an adult.
It’s like your foundation has been ripped away, and the whole way you imagined your future is gone. That is a death, and you’re allowed to feel that way.
One woman explained it this way:
I think when parents divorce when the kids are grown one thing that goes through their mind (it did mine), was how they will never get to return to “home” again. When they visit it will all be totally different and that link to childhood that they had (their home and married parents) is now gone.
You move away, and now you’ve lost your “home”. Your childhood is gone. That’s just plain awful.
A parents' divorce feels like 'a little death'. Even if you're an adult when they divorce.Click To Tweet
7. Don’t allow your parents’ divorce to make you question your own husband
It’s easy to bring their trust issues into your marriage.
It made me question everything about my own marriage and I realized I didn’t marry my dad and my husband didn’t marry my mom. It’s a constant moment by moment thing to deal with it as an adult.
Another woman said:
Also, how not to project your fears of abandonment etc onto my hubby (I got married during the craziness of my parents divorce).
Finally, one woman left this insightful comment, which cuts to the heart of the issue I think:
I felt everything I knew about relationships, intimacy, and parenting was dysfunctional. I guess I felt trained to just divorce after 18 years of misery.
Just because you grew up in that atmosphere does not mean that you are destined to go down the same road. You have a choice. And you can choose health instead of dysfunction.
8. Waiting until the youngest leaves home to split doesn’t seem to lessen the emotional pain
So many people said this! It seems like a whole bunch of parents divorced right after the youngest left home, or right after a child got married (it’s like they were waiting until after the wedding). And it didn’t seem to help. The overwhelming consensus?
Don’t be ashamed of the pain, or belittle it in your mind because it didn’t happen to you directly and you’re grown now.
9. Sometimes divorce didn’t come soon enough
While most comments were overwhelmingly negative, a few stood out because they said, “it was about time!” In these cases, abuse had been present throughout their childhood.
Research has repeatedly shown that children do better when parents stay married, even if that marriage isn’t happy–unless the marriage is abusive. In that case, children do better if the marriage ends. So it’s not surprising that we see the two different types of comments.
10. You can rebuild a relationship even with a parent who has done something really, really wrong.
One woman said this:
I lost 7 years with my Dad because of this. This sounds terrible, but I often feel like I have to mother my own Mother. I wish I had set some boundaries with her earlier. She talks about things that no child should ever hear, even to her grandchildren. She talks bad about him in front of them and I’m left repairing the damage. My children have learned to not bring him up around her. It’s a terrible lesson to have to learn from your own grandmother.
My biggest piece of advice is to forgive. It may be hard. It may be wildly unpopular. But unforgiveness only hurts yourself. I’m watching it eat my Mom alive. Sometimes I have to forgive him all over again, day after day, but I refuse to shrivel up like my family is doing. My sisters and Mom seem to think that his sin is worse than ours. They have forgotten how much they have been forgiven for. Sin is sin. Dirt is dirt. We were all once very dirty, but being washed in the blood of Jesus covers all sins, not just the ones they find acceptable.
I love that. Forgiveness. So many echoed it. Not because your parent deserves it, but because you need it.
To all of you who have walked through your parents’ divorce as adults: I’m truly sorry. I grieve with you. And I encourage you to move on, create your own life, and don’t feel guilty for not being there to fully support a parent. That’s not your role, and it’s okay to focus on your own family now.
10 Truths about Walking Through a Parents' Divorce--as an AdultClick To Tweet
Did your parents divorce as adults? What did that do to you? Let’s talk in the comments!
The post 10 Things To Know About Staying Sane When Parents Divorce appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
September 18, 2017
Have Marriage Questions? Here’s Where to Find Answers!
For the last few months Rebecca and Katie and I have been working nonstop creating The Whole Story: Not-So-Scary Talks about Sex, Puberty & Growing Up. It’s our video-based course to help moms have those awkward conversations with their daughters. It was a lot of work, but I think it’s great, because the girls are so relatable.
Today’s the last day of our launch period. To celebrate the launch, we put the VIP Package of the course, where you get LIFETIME access to both the younger version and the older version, plus a ton of parenting bonuses, on for $69 rather than $99. But that special is up tonight at midnight!
So if you haven’t taken a look at the course yet, check it out here!
Anyway, I’ve done all the work for the launch now, and then tonight I’m speaking near my hometown, giving my Girl Talk presentation about sex & marriage (I always have fun with that!). Then this Saturday the girls and I are speaking at our home church with the first ever of our official Mother Daughter Events. We’re doing one in Missouri and likely one in Oshawa, Ontario this fall, too, so we’ll be taking it on the road. I’ll feel so much better after the first one is done!
For the first time in a few months, then, I feel like I can see the end of the tunnel in terms of how much work I have to do. And that’s really nice.
So this morning I’m feeling kind of mellow. I’m taking some deep breaths before I have to talk tonight, and I thought I’d share a few random things that are on my mind.
First, we do get tons of emails at this blog with questions from readers. And I can’t answer them all. So here’s a solution!
I’ve written over 2,500 posts on this blog, mostly with marriage advice and parenting advice. So chances are that if someone has a question, I’ve already answered it!
But how do you find those posts? Well, two places that may help.
Check out my topics list! That’s where I list all the broad things I talk about, along with the top posts in each category.
Want to get more specific into the nitty gritty? Check out my FAQ page. I’ve got over a hundred posts listed there with the most common questions. Chances are you’ll find what you need.
Second, make sure you’re signed up for my emails.
That way I can put you in a group to get posts specifically on the things you care about. And you won’t miss anything!
Okay, now for something completely different.
I thought I’d just get chatty for a while. I was busy writing an email that’s going out later today to some of my subscribers, and I wrote about the big mistake I made talking to my daughter about puberty. It made me think of a bigger issue, so just bear with me for a minute.
Here’s what I said:
Twelve years ago, I thought that the best idea to teach my daughter about sex was to have her listen to a guy her grandfather’s age explain it on a CD.
Okay, I never said I was a perfect parent.
But there I was, knowing that Rebecca needed “the talk”. She was 10, and she was starting to develop, and I knew I had better tell her everything soon or she was going to get her period without being prepared.
Rebecca at 10 for Halloween
I also knew I wasn’t up to the task of explaining sex to her. So when I saw a program for sale that would do everything for me, I jumped at the chance!
After all, people who had been in ministry for decades and decades must really know how to explain this best, right?
Nope. My daughter was so weirded out by having an old guy explain to her what a “vagina” was and what sex was that she never talked to me about it again–until I made her when she was 14.
It wasn’t even that the guy did a particularly bad job. It’s just that it was an old man to begin with.
I was smart in one sense: I knew I needed help.
But I looked for it from the mature leaders in the church, rather than from someone that my daughter could automatically relate to.
That’s the strength of The Whole Story: Not-So-Awkward Talks about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up. My daughters (20 & 22) deliver the videos, so there’s an immediate lowering of tension. There’s an immediate sigh of relief. This isn’t going to be awkward! That’s why the course works. Daughters are immediately put at ease.
But this is actually what I want to talk about today: We need to stop assuming that only older, male men in leadership can do the important mentoring jobs.
When I woke up this morning and got my cup of tea and took a look at the comments that came in overnight, there was one from a pastor’s wife, who said this (I’m shortening the comment):
My husband is a pastor, and he gets a lot of people calling him with their problems, mostly women. Before we got married, we both had an open discussions on our boundaries. We made a decision that after marriage, we won’t talk to anyone after 10pm. We currently live in different cities and I find that for some time, my husband’s line is always busy. I decided to check his phone bill and found that there’s this particularly number he has been calling at late in the night or first thing in the morning and they speak for hours. I asked him and he said he had been counselling or sharing the word with the lady to grow in the Lord. I cannot help feeling that their frequency of communication is quite inappropriate for a married and single lady and especially the talking that late at night.
I replied to her comment, and basically said, OH MY GOODNESS THAT IS TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE. You’re right to be upset.
But let’s put aside the complete lack of professional standards or wisdom here, and take a step back for a moment. Maybe the reason that pastors get into such trouble in the first place is because women in the church have nowhere to go with their problems.
I remember in the last church I was in, which had all male leadership, the question was once asked, “If a woman needs spiritual counselling or someone to ask questions to, where should she go? How does she find a good woman to talk to?” The answer given was, “She should talk to elders’ wives or to the pastor’s wife.”
Now, in our particular case, the pastor’s wife was actually pretty wonderful. But many pastor’s wives are not good counsellors. Many elders’ wives are not good counsellors. This idea that because a husband is qualified for something that the wife automatically is is silly. And what if there are wonderful women in the congregation whose husbands aren’t in leadership?
That’s the problem with this model that modern churches have, that only official leaders should help people.
When Rebecca was hitting puberty, I thought that credentials mattered. I thought that because this man had been in family ministry for decades that he was the best one to teach Rebecca.
I looked only at his qualifications, not at her needs.
I’m not saying qualifications don’t matter; I’m just saying that other things matter too.
One thing I always told the girls when they were teenagers was that they had the Holy Spirit just as much as I did, and so I expected them to follow God in the same way I expected myself to. I believed they could make good decisions because the Holy Spirit was in them, and they were demonstrating fruits of faith.
That is true of anyone who follows Christ wholeheartedly, no matter their age, gender, race, education level, or income level. Wealth and power in the business world do not necessarily equate with spiritual wisdom, and yet the people we often put in leadership positions in churches tend to be men who have excelled in the business world. I am not saying that those people shouldn’t be elders; I am only saying that it’s very doubtful that they are the only ones spiritually qualified to be.
I believe one reason that the church does not function well as a body is because we are ignoring the spiritual wisdom and gifts of the vast majority of our members.
We think that you need a degree from a Bible college or seminary to be able to offer advice.
You know what? I have read Lydia Purple’s comments here for years, and that woman is WISE. I also know she’s a stay at home mom with several kids in her thirties. I have read Phil’s comments, and he has such humility and a heart for God, I know he could help men going through a rough road. I have read Kay’s comments, and she is a trooper. She has lived through a very fundamentalist, dysfunctional family, and she is standing firm and trying to show the proper way to embrace God in all His fullness, and she is not wavering. I know she could help many wives who feel downtrodden. I have found alchemist has made me think more deeply about many of my beliefs that I haven’t really challenged, and I would love to be in a small group with her. I think iron would sharpen iron!
And that doesn’t even cover Sunny dee and Ashley and Libl and so many more who chime in and try to help others and encourage them!
Finally, I have seen my daughters blossom. Rebecca’s book Why I Didn’t Rebel is out October 3 (the boxes arrived last week but she won’t let me open them until she’s home!). That book is simply amazing. And there’s an insight she has about families being teams vs. being clubs which is simply brilliant, and I want her to explain it to you all sometime this week or next, because it changed my thinking on how we do family and church.
I guess the point is this: There is a lot of wisdom out there. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help. Don’t be afraid to engage. Don’t be a hero-worshipper and think that you always need the pastor or that the older and richer someone is, the smarter they are. It’s not necessarily true.
It’s like what Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:12:
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
Learn from those around you. Help those around you. Talk to those around you. That’s how we grow. And if the Holy Spirit is in them–then God can speak to you through them, even if they don’t preach from a pulpit.
Okay, that’s the end of my random rant for the day. But let me know in the comments: Do you have someone to go to OTHER than someone in church leadership to help you? Do you help anyone else? How can we get back to that model?
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September 15, 2017
Preteen Hormones: 3 Important Things to Remember!
I’ve always said, as loudly and clearly as I can, that the hardest years for us parenting our two daughters were 8-12. Rebecca had hit puberty and Katie hadn’t, and Rebecca was moody. Then she got bossy. And Katie just wanted her big sister to keep playing with her! Add Katie’s eventual hormones and moodiness to the mix, and life was difficult.
This week we’ve been talking about The Whole Story: Not So Scary Talks about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up, our video based online course that helps moms have those conversations with their daughters about the facts of life. Then the older version helps them navigate peer pressure, boys, social media, and more.
As we’ve been talking in the comments and on Facebook all week about puberty, moodiness and hormones keep coming up! So I asked Rebecca to join us today and write about what it’s like.
Here’s Becca:
Hormones make the adolescent years really fun. Well, they make them a roller coaster at least and those are fun, right?
I was especially moody during my growing up years. My angst didn’t start at puberty, either–I wrote my first poem when I was just 6 years old. But when we got to Jr. High, my sister and I got sucker punched by hormones. And my parents, of course, took the brunt of the force.
As we were creating The Whole Story and as I was reading over the interviews I did for my book (Why I Didn’t Rebel: A Twenty-Year Old Explains Why She Stayed on the Straight and Narrow–and How Your Kids Can Too), I realized that there are some things about teenage and preteen moodiness that people just don’t often think about. There are three things in particular that I think preteens and teenagers wish their parents knew about their mood swings that would help the kids feel heard and understood by their parents.
So without further ado, let’s get into the post!
1. Punishing moodiness doesn’t accomplish anything
When dealing with a moody preteen or teenager, it can seem that the easiest way to deal with the problem is to punish moodiness. They get grumpy and non-communicative, and we send them to their rooms.
But what does that actually accomplish? See, the problem isn’t actually the moodiness–being sad is sometimes an appropriate reaction, just like anger and fear are appropriate reactions to injustice or danger. Punishing moodiness just punishes kids for expressing how they are feeling, and teaches kids that they’ll be punished if they tell mom or dad how they’re feeling isn’t a very helpful way to start the teenage years.
Instead of punishing moodiness, my parents focused on helping us learn ways to cope with our emotions when we were dealing with mood swings. Now, having kids make up for harmful things said or done during an emotional outburst is different than simply punishing the hormone swings. If I shouted at Katie when I was angry, I had to apologize and make things right. But I wasn’t grounded for getting angry.
In Jr. High and High School I was much worse than my sister was when it came to mood swings, and even today I still experience major emotional highs and lows. If my parents had punished my outbursts instead of using them as teaching opportunities, I would not be where I am now in terms of emotional stability. But their willingness to put up with my annoying angst and talk me through how to gain perspective and do things to help calm myself down gave me valuable life skills that allowed me to be level-headed enough to make good decisions in high school, helped guide me through bouts of depression during the end of my teenage years, and prepared me to be in a healthy marriage when the time was right.
3 things every parent should know about parenting their preteen's mood swings!Click To Tweet
2. Being moody doesn’t mean your teenager is rebelling
Moody teenagers are annoying. They’re hard to deal with, make mountains out of molehills, and they can get set off by almost anything.
But being moody is not a sin.
Experiencing hormones for the first time is not inherently wrong. It doesn’t mean your child is falling away from God, it doesn’t mean that he is actively choosing to do wrong.
But still, so many parents seem to believe that if their kid is moody it’s a sign of rebellion. I touched on this in my book, Why I Didn’t Rebel:
It is not rebellion to be a moody teenager. A thirteen-year-old girl going through all the horrors of PMS for the first time is not going to be docile, sweet, and selfless. She’s just not. She’s going to resemble something along the lines of an anaconda mixed with a tiger that has a thorn in its foot and is hunting for blood. How parents handle a child’s natural transition from kid to teenager has a lot of power. Are you the kind of parent who hugs her daughter while she cries and tells her, “I know; everything is horrible when your uterus tries to eat its way out of you,” or do you tell your cramping, PMS-ing daughter,“Honey, the Bible says, ‘In everything give thanks,’ so you really need to work on being gracious and thankful right now”? God created the female reproductive system. I’m pretty sure He has sympathy for cramps.
We need to change how we see moodiness. Instead of seeing it as bad behavior, let’s choose to see it as an opportunity for your child to lean emotional discipline. Instead of punishing harshly, work on talking about the core issue. It’s not wrong to be a teenager–it may be annoying, but it’s not wrong.
Having mood swings does not make your kid a bad kid--here's how to help your kid through them!Click To Tweet
3. This emotional turmoil is really scary for your kid
There’s a reason so many kids latch onto the emo trend in high school–when you’re experiencing all these existential questions and deep emotions for the first time you feel the weight of it crushing you at times. The problems that are overwhelming your little teen may seem silly or small to you, but for someone dealing with this for the first time it’s really terrifying.
Emotional strength is similar to physical strength. A 25 pound plate may seem like a breeze to someone who’s been lifting weights for 10 years, but for someone who only started a week ago it may be too much for them to handle and leave them sore for days. The friend drama or emotions that your child is experiencing may seem easy to handle for you, since you’ve been dealing with this for years. But they just started–it may take them some time to gain emotional strength.
Your kids needs to know that you empathize with their struggles. They need that more than they need you to say the right thing or be the cool mom–they simply need to know that you see their pain and that you care. That doesn’t mean you allow them to wallow, but it does mean that you acknowledge their inner turmoil.
What your kids need more than a parent who always says the right thing is a parent who hears themClick To Tweet
Dealing with mood swings is tough. I’m not gonna lie, it’s not always a fun time. But this is the time that your child is forming the building blocks of emotional discipline. So when your kid is getting hormonal, just take a deep breath and remember: this too shall pass!
What is one way you deal with mood swings with your kids? Did you get really moody during adolescence? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
And remember: One of the ways to help girls deal with moodiness is to help them understand why it’s happening in the first place! That’s what The Whole Story is for. The younger version helps explain to 10-12 year old girls the facts of life and what’s happening with their bodies. The older version provides guidance to help girls make good decisions about social media, boys, sex, and so much more. And you can get both together, plus tons of parenting freebies, for just $69 for lifetime access!
Check out The Whole Story here.
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September 14, 2017
Want to Laugh at Me Some More?
Then yesterday Katie made a video telling her version of the same thing. Let’s just say that I didn’t come out with flying colours….
The video really did make me laugh. Yes, I failed her in those years, but since then we’ve just gotten over it and now we can talk about just about anything, so it’s all good. And I don’t mind telling the world how bad a job I did, because I think it’s important to talk about. If people realize that even a sex blogger had a difficult time talking to her daughters about sex and puberty, then maybe we’ll give ourselves a bit of a break. Maybe other moms will say, “it’s okay if I’m scared about this.” We’ll stop beating ourselves up, and we’ll start saying, “Okay, this is tough. So what am I going to do instead?”
Here’s Katie:
(Honestly, I don’t remember fighting with her the day she got her period. I do remember Rebecca yelling, “Mommy, you need to come up here,” And as soon as she did that I knew what was happening. And I really didn’t handle the body odour thing well. That’s one reason that in The Whole Story we really stress showering and taking care of yourself!)
What really gets me, though, is all of the comments on her video (You can see them by clicking through). So many people are sharing stories of never knowing about their periods before they got it. Or being afraid to talk to their mom about it.
Parents, we really aren’t doing a good job here.
And I totally get it. I didn’t do a good job, either.
That’s why when we made The Whole Story: Not So Scary Talks about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up, we created what I wished I had had back then. If I had had this course, my kids would have been prepared.
Katie wouldn’t have gone around with greasy hair for a year, worrying that she was smelly.
Rebecca wouldn’t have been traumatized by too early talks about “purity”.
Katie would have known about shaving. She would have known how often you’re so supposed to change a pad. There wouldn’t have been as much awkwardness!
So honestly, I don’t mind you all laughing at me. Let’s get this out in the open. Let’s talk about how parents are not doing this well.
And then let’s do something about it. We really can do better!
Check out The Whole Story here.
Katie is awfully fun (as you can see), and I think many of our daughters would far prefer to hear about all of this from her. And she’s not sarcastic in the puberty videos, either!
September 13, 2017
Wifey Wednesday: How Do You Raise Kids without Your Hangups?
It’s Wednesday, the day that we always talk marriage! And one of the big messages of this blog is that it is possible to embrace sex and marriage the way God intended, no matter your past. I want to give hope, because I believe that that is what God wants for us. He created us to experience real intimacy physically, emotionally, AND spiritually.
The fact that you’re reading this, I hope, means that you agree!
But sometimes even if we’re committed to that for ourselves, we can still worry that we’ll somehow recreate our own issues in the next generation.
I’ve been thinking about that this week during our launch for The Whole Story: Not-So-Scary Talks about Sex, Puberty & Growing Up, a video-based course my daughters and I made together to help moms talk to their daughters about sex. Check it out here!
It’s our passion to help make these easier, less stressful talks for moms and kids to have, and that leads us to this reader question.
One woman wrote this to me after reading The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex:
First of all, let me take this opportunity to say THANK YOU for your ministry. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve felt validated through your words. Our sex life was such a struggle when we first got married thanks to the whole puritan view, sex is bad, sex is bad, sex is bad…NOPE, now sex is good. I was a WRECK about sex and my body did not respond in any way to sex. My parents never talked to me about becoming a woman, sex, or anything. We never said the word. I didn’t have any advice for my honey moon and it was a very painful time for me, physically. I lived in a very modest, prudish household, and I am still that way, if I’m not consciously challenging myself. I don’t want that for my children. I struggle with making sex a comfortable topic in our home. I have four children (we figured out sex at least four times, lol) and I don’t want them to have the same issues and hangups I have. I would love to hear more words of wisdom on this topic. Help me break that cycle. Your words speak to a deep place in my soul, and I often weep when I read your words. I feel validated. I feel uplifted. I feel encouraged. Keep speaking the truth to us; keep fighting to take sex back from the world and make it beautiful (and FUN!) again. Keep tackling the hard topics because your voice is SO NEEDED.
Let me first say thank you for all the kind words!
Now let’s deal with her real heart cry:
Help me break the cycle.
Gladly! I pray some of my words can help. So here goes:
How can I break our family cycle of sexual shame? Here's how!Click To Tweet
You don’t have to be healed to pass on a healthy message to your kids. You can speak truth before you fully walk in it.
I based my book 9 Thoughts that Can Change Your Marriage around 2 Corinthians 10:5:
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
In other words, every time we have a thought, we can examine it and choose to reject it. We don’t have to be carried away by the things that pop into our heads.
Sometimes those things are deep-seated feelings stemming from our childhoods (I can’t get undressed in front of my sisters because that’s somehow shameful; I can’t let the kids see me kissing their dad because it’s not good to show affection; I can’t enjoy sex or I’m not a good girl.)
When we take those feelings and deliberately replace them with truth (my body is fine just the way it is, and God made me, and there is nothing wrong with the female body; it’s good for the children to see that their father and I love each other; God takes pleasure in the fact that I can be passionate), then eventually those thoughts will become our new feelings.
Sometimes that takes a while. When we have deep hurts, like those stemming from abuse, we can choose to think new thoughts, but we often need a real healing by the Holy Spirit that comes only through deep prayer and release of shame. That can’t always be hurried.
But here’s the thing to remember: Even if the feelings are not 100% there, you can still tell them the truth. You can decide to break the cycle not because you feel differently about sex yourself, but because you know that this is not the way it should be, and you decide that you will tell your child something different.
A smoker can tell other people not to start smoking, even if they have a hard time stopping. And what they’re saying is still true.
But if you’re telling them that sex is great, even while you feel like it’s not, then is that lying?
Well, let’s take another look at what we mean by that:
Authenticity matters more than perfection when we’re talking about hard things.
Our kids need us to be authentic.
All righty, then. Doesn’t that mean that we have to authentically feel great about sex in order to teach them to feel great about sex?
No, it doesn’t. It means that we need to tell them the truth AND tell them our feelings behind it. It’s okay to tell them,
You know, honey, I had a really hard time asking my mom questions about this stuff because she was never open with me, and it made me feel like there was something wrong with me. I still feel that, and I fight against it everyday. But I want more for you. And this is really, really hard for me to talk about. I know I’m going to mess it up. But I want you to know that even if I don’t tell you this in just the right way, or even if it’s awkward, that’s my problem, not yours. And let me tell you that God wants you to understand that He made you beautifully, and He created you for so much, and your body is part of that. I’m so glad that you won’t have the same issues I did, and I hope as you grow I can even learn from you to take pride in how God made me, because that’s what I so want from you!
That’s being authentic. That’s not trying to be something you aren’t. That’s not pretending that you have it all together (kids can see right through that). That’s telling them your fears, but also telling them the truth.
Kids don't need perfect parents; they need authentic ones. Rebecca Lindenbach, Why I Didn't RebelClick To Tweet
But isn’t that telling them too much? Nope, because:
Sharing our story frees our kids to write their own.
This is going to be a little convoluted, so bear with me for a moment.
When kids know that there is something “off” about how you react to certain things, but they aren’t given a reason why, then their minds have to create a reason. Often the reason they create is worse than reality. So let’s say that you’re like this letter writer, and you find yourself clamming up whenever sex is mentioned. You turn red if anyone makes a risque joke. You feel constantly embarrassed if you have to change in front of someone, even someone in your own family.
Kids watching you are going to start assuming certain things.
My mom thinks sex is bad.
I’m her child, so I’m just like my mom.
Therefore, there must be something wrong with sex.
They may also assume that they’re the problem.
Whenever I ask my mom anything to do with sex, she clams up.
Therefore, I must be doing something bad.
It’s shameful of me to think these things. There’s something wrong with me for thinking these things.
Do you see how these thought patterns happen?
Now, what would happen if we could simply explain what was going on? Then we could change the progression.
My mom reacts weirdly whenever sex is mentioned.
My mom sat down with me and told me that her parents didn’t handle this well and made her feel ashamed, and she’s still working on that.
My mom wants to change and live out the truth, but she finds it difficult
My mom says that I’m my own person and I don’t need to follow in her footsteps.
So I can decide for myself what I’m going to believe.
You see, when children understand your reaction, then they are free to decide for themselves what reaction they will have. When they don’t understand your reaction, then they will tend to adopt it as their own.
Telling them the truth frees them to feel their own emotions, rather than adopting yours.
How I Shared My Past with My Girls
When I wrote The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, I shared in it how I suffered from vaginismus (pain during sex) when I was first married. It was hard to be so open about something so personal, but I knew that I couldn’t have the effect I wanted in the book unless I was being authentic.
But I had never told my girls.
So when Rebecca was about to get married, and was reading the book, I took her aside and told her my story. And I said to her, “Just because I went through this doesn’t mean that you will.” She laughed and said, “Gosh, Mom, I know that!” I guess I had taught her enough for the years for her not to be scared of that.
I told Katie around the same time, because some of her friends were reading the book and I wanted her to hear it from me. I think the reason I kept it to myself for so long was that I didn’t want them to think that they would follow in my footsteps–and that was a really personal thing to put on them when they were younger.
But we don’t need to be scared of the truth. Yes, you may have issues. But your own decision to fight for healthy sexuality and to defeat those issues means that you have already broken the cycle. You have already broken the idea that sex is shameful. You have already decided to fight. So just be honest and authentic, and share your heart with your kids–and they honestly will be okay.
And if you’re still having trouble starting those conversations, and you want to do it in a safe way, then let us help! The Whole Story was written for people who are scared they’ll clam up and just won’t be able to get the words out. Or for moms whose daughters seem to clam up whenever they try to start the conversation, and don’t seem to want to talk at all. Because the daughters will be hearing from Rebecca and Katie, two young women closer to their age, the stress level comes down. It doesn’t seem so weird. And then it’s far easier to continue the conversation with you!
Check out The Whole Story here.
And now, let me know: Do you worry about passing on shame to your kids? What are you doing about it? Let’s talk in the comments!
The post Wifey Wednesday: How Do You Raise Kids without Your Hangups? appeared first on To Love, Honor and Vacuum.
September 12, 2017
Top 10 Mistakes I Made Teaching My Kids About Sex
And yet I think our kids get the worst end of it.
This week I am so excited to be launching The Whole Story: Not so Scary Talks about Sex, Puberty, and Growing Up. It’s an online video based course that moms share with their daughters to teach about puberty (and sex!). And it stars my daughters! Rebecca and Katie (22 & 20) do the talks for the daughters, while I have videos and audios to give moms pep talks. And then checklists, discussion starters, and mother-daughter activities help moms to continue the conversation. Check it out here!
It’s not a REPLACEMENT for you. It’s a RESOURCE to make it not so scary!
Very few of us do this well. I was speaking about sex from the stage, and yet when it came to my own kids, I still clammed up (I got progressively better, and by the time they were 14/15 I was a champ. But it took a while to get there!)
And as the girls and I were commiserating together, we remembered 10 things that I really messed up with when teaching them about sex. I thought I’d share those with you so you can see that you’re not alone!
10 ways this Christian marriage blogger totally messed up telling my kids about sex & puberty!Click To Tweet
1. I forgot to give them the words for female genitalia
I shared this story yesterday, but it’s too good not to share again.
One day we’re grocery shopping around a holiday, when the parking lot is packed. I’m unpacking the groceries into the car, while the girls are hanging on outside of it. And 5-year-old Rebecca pipes up, really loudly, “Mommy, why do you have hair on your bum and I don’t?”
Other shoppers stared at me and started to snicker. Was I really some werewolf under these mom jeans? Did I really have hair on my backside?
I wasn’t even sure what Rebecca was getting at, until it dawned on me…
I had never given her a word for female genitalia. She didn’t know how to say “vulva” or “vagina”. She just called the whole thing a bum, kind of like a big basketball that extended from the back to the front.
Whoops.
2. Rebecca thought the penis was like a finger
But don’t worry! I was an equal opportunity offender. I gave her the wrong impression of the male genitalia, too.
When Rebecca was 10 I took her away on a weekend where we listened to a CD based course on puberty (that’s where I got the idea for our course). In it, a man was explaining what sex was. And he said that the penis was sort of like a finger. So for the longest time Rebecca thought the penis operated like a finger.
And she could just never figure out, why do guys have to scratch themselves if they already have a finger down there?
3. Rebecca thought sex involved women looking like a starfish
Along the same lines, that CD explained that, during sex, the woman lay on her back with her legs spread out while a man entered her. So Rebecca pictured sex to be a woman lying still like a starfish. She was busy taking advanced swimming lessons then, and they “starfished” a lot in the pool. Yep.
4. I pushed purity too young with Rebecca
Now, if having a finger “down there” and pointing it at a woman who is starfishing doesn’t sound that attractive, have no fear! It only got worse. So then this course took us through a lot of activities where girls were taught that having sex before marriage will ruin the beauty of sex (because starfishing, apparently, is beautiful). So girls were asked to promise never to have sex until they were married.
Rebecca was more than willing to promise never to starfish and never to let anyone get his finger-thing near her. So that wasn’t hard to do. But as she grew up and we got talking, she said that this idea of purity being so important really impacted her spiritual life. She grew up thinking that if she wasn’t perfect, she’d lose something precious. And that’s just not what I wanted her to know. Yes, we want our kids to wait until they’re married, but we don’t want to scare them into it or make them feel as if God is inaccessible if they don’t do all the right things. This one made me sad.
5. I waited too long to have Katie wear a training bra
Shortly after I went through the trauma of that weekend with Rebecca (which was rather difficult for her, too!) I started to notice something. Katie, who was only about 9 1/2, was starting to develop. There she is, this little girl who still likes polly pockets, and her T-shirts look remarkably odd. Like she’s almost become a pair of walking nipples (you know what I mean? Sometimes those develop first and it looks so ODD!).
But I wasn’t prepared for it. She was just so young. So I tried to ignore it, until finally Keith said that we just had to put her in a training bra.
6. I made Katie think sex was a horrible torturous thing
I waited too long for that. But I handled sex a little bit better with Katie, I thought. I had always decided that I would answer any questions they had, whenever they asked. Rebecca never did (hence the weekend), but Katie sure did! When she was 8, she wanted to know all about it.
“How long does he have to put it in for?” was her first question, after I told her the facts.
Then, the next morning, right after she got up, the first thing she did was to run over to me and give me a big hug and say, “I’m so sorry you had to do that to get me, Mommy! But thank you for going through that!” Obviously something was lost in translation.
7. I forgot to tell Katie how to shave.
I also forgot to tell her some basic stuff, like how to shave. I kind of assumed Rebecca would, I guess. They did share a bathroom, after all! But one day Katie’s just crying because her whole legs are bleeding, and it turns out she was shaving dry with a rusty razor. She didn’t know you weren’t supposed to shave dry. Whoops. I think she may still have a scar on her ankle!
8. I gave up talking about the personal stuff once they knew the factual details
Nevertheless, somehow we muddled through. I think I handled periods well with both girls (at least there’s nothing too traumatic they could remember). But somehow the conversations seemed to stop from the age of 11, when puberty hit and we went over everything, to about 15 when I started to become a confidante. I told them the facts; I wasn’t very good at engaging them in making it personal. What about sexual feelings? What about crushes? Nope. Ignored all that.
9. I ignored porn, because, after all, they were girls!
And I especially ignored porn! After all, they were girls, and they were REALLY good girls, and I shouldn’t have to worry, right? Besides, how would I even bring it up? (Yeah, there’s that pesky stat, too, about how the fastest growing group of porn users are teen girls…) I wrote about teens, media, and God in a post here after Katie told me about how she struggled watching Vampire Diaries.
10. I didn’t explain what boys were going through
Finally, I explained NOTHING about what boys were going through with puberty. Nothing about erections. Nothing about wet dreams. Nothing about anything. And so my girls weren’t as sympathetic to the guys in their youth group as they could have been. Rebecca was just adamant that in our course we record a video explaining to girls what boys are going through, and giving them tips to leave a boy alone if he just wants to stay seated or stay in the corner for a little while!
But here’s the good news…
I figured it out!
And as they got older, we began to laugh about a lot of this stuff. I found it easier to talk to them. And we really did get over all of those mistakes. Like Rebecca writes in her upcoming book Why I Didn’t Rebel, when you’re open and honest with your kids, you don’t need to be a perfect parent. Authenticity really matters more. Forging a close relationship where you can talk helps overcome even awkwardness!
You don’t have to make my mistakes when teaching YOUR daughters about puberty
Many of these problems were because I told them the bare minimum I could get away with…and didn’t follow up to see if they understood. And I didn’t create an environment where they felt that they could ask questions.
That’s where The Whole Story comes in! Our course features my daughters giving the lessons (because most 10-15 year old girls would rather hear this stuff from young women), but then it encourages the moms and daughters to keep talking, with lots of discussion questions and printables!
It’s YOUR discussions that really matter…but we help facilitate them in a non-awkward way.
So check the course out. It’s our prayer that it makes these talks much easier for you–because EVERYONE finds them hard!
PS: Want to see Katie and Rebecca and me all laughing about how I messed up? Here you go!
Now let me know in the comments–how did you mess up teaching your daughters about puberty? Or how did your mom mess up with you? Let’s talk!
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September 11, 2017
Woo Hoo! Everything You Need to Tell Your Daughter About Sex, Puberty and Growing Up
Every Monday I like to post a reader question and take a stab at answering it, and late last spring I started getting a TON of questions, right along these lines. I’ll use this one, but there were many more almost identical ones:
Hi! Your blog has helped me tremendously! I’m wondering, how and when did you first talk to your girls about sex, the “birds and the bees,” so to speak? I have an 8 year old daughter, and I want to do this right. I want to tell her early enough, but keep it age-appropriate, so that it’s not too “weird” when she does find out. I want her to feel comfortable talking about it with me forever. And I certainly don’t want her to think sex is dirty. How do I accomplish all that? Thanks so much for any input!
Can you relate?
As I started to see all these questions come in, I began talking to my daughters about our own experiences with me giving them “the talk”. And we laughed and laughed, because seriously--I did a horrible job.
I really did. I’m not just saying that. In fact, tomorrow’s post is all going to be about 10 ways that I messed up.
But I was much more comfortable talking about sex from the stage than I was talking about it to my daughters.
I got better as they got older, and by the time they were 14 and 15 we could pretty much say anything. But in those formative years, I did not do a good job.
Let me tell you two things, as a teaser to what’s coming tomorrow.
First, picture Rebecca at 5-years-old. Here, I’ll make it easier:
One day we’re grocery shopping around a holiday, when the parking lot is packed. I’m unpacking the groceries into the car, while the girls are hanging on outside of it. And Rebecca says, in a very loud voice, “Mommy, why do you have hair on your bum and I don’t?”
Other shoppers stared at me and started to snicker. Was I really some werewolf under these mom jeans? Did I really have hair on my backside?
I wasn’t even sure what Rebecca was getting at, until it dawned on me…
I had never given her a word for female genitalia. She didn’t know how to say “vulva” or “vagina”. She just called the whole thing a bum, kind of like a big basketball that extended from the back to the front.
And I had never even realized I was neglecting such a big part of parenting.
I tried to be better. I heard all the advice that you’re just supposed to answer their questions at age appropriate levels, and so I was prepared. No matter what Rebecca asked, I would answer.
Until she stopped asking. She didn’t ask anything at all!
So she’s getting to be 10, and I know I have to tell her about periods, and sex, and everything, because she was going to get her period soon. I looked to see if there were any courses that we could take, and I found a CD-based one done by an older couple (grandparents at the time) where the man explained sex and then the woman explained all the period stuff.
We listened to that, and I’ll tell you more about the problems tomorrow. But while there were funny misunderstandings (Becca thought a penis was like a finger, with joints and everything), the more serious one was that the focus was on purity and getting kids to promise not to have sex until they’re married. At that time, right when Rebecca found out about sex, she would have pledged to never talk to a boy again in her life. (SERIOUSLY?!? He puts THAT WHERE?!?)
So she ended up quite shamed about the whole thing.
Last year, then, when I started getting all of these requests and talking to my girls, we started wondering, how could I have done this better?
And then a thought occurred to me. What if I had had more age appropriate help? One of the things that freaked Rebecca out, after all, was hearing about sex from the voice of an old grandfather guy. What if a younger child could hear about it from someone they could more easily trust and relate to? What if they could hear it from someone like, well, my daughters?
So that’s what we decided to do. We decided to create an online, video based course mothers and daughters can do together, where my girls become the guides telling the girls all about puberty and sex, but then discussion questions, checklists, and mother-daughter activities help the moms continue those conversations.
And we didn’t just cover what happens to your body. We decided to include all kinds of information about peer pressure, and body image, and how to start taking care of yourself (“You have to actually start washing your hair and wearing deodorant now.”)
But then, as Rebecca was preparing the curriculum, we realized it wasn’t enough to just prepare them for puberty
Yes, it’s important for girls to know the facts of life. But the problem in our house was that even though I did eventually muddle through (and with Katie I did a marginally better job at some things), once they knew the facts, the conversations stopped for a few years. They revived when the girls were 14 and 15, but 12, 13? Nothing.
And girls don’t just need to know the facts. They also need to be guided about important things like dating, social media, porn, masturbation, why we should wait for sex until marriage, and so many other things. I found those conversations even harder than the ones about what is happening to your body, because they were personal. They were about what my daughters were actually thinking. And I just didn’t want to picture them having any sexual feelings.
But we can’t run away from this. Our daughters are dealing with this, everyday, with friends. My girls were homeschooled all through high school, and they had a large peer group that was mostly church based. And yet even they were hearing about porn and masturbation when they were younger. We may want to think we can shelter our kids, but we can’t. If they go to public school, they’re going to hear it in sex ed anyway.
So we decided to create a part 2 to the course–one specifically for girls 13-15.
While the younger version is INFORMATION based, the older version is GUIDANCE based. Rebecca and Katie raise important issues and share how girls can make wise decisions, but then the discussion questions steer the mom and daughter towards figuring out what their own rules and boundaries are inside their home for things like social media use, dating in high school, makeup rules, clothing choices, etc. We raise the issue, but you continue it. After all, we’re not the parents. You are. And it’s YOUR opinion that matters. It’s YOUR values that count.
But sometimes having those discussions is super awkward and difficult. And we want to take that awkwardness out!
Late last night I hit Publish on our puberty course.
It’s called The Whole Story: Not-So-Awkward Talks about Sex, Puberty and Growing Up.
It’s available in a younger version for 10-12 year olds, or an older version for 13-15 year olds. Buy one version, and you get access for a year.
OR you can buy a VIP version during this launch period, just until next Monday, when you get lifetime access to BOTH versions, PLUS a whole lot of extra parenting resources and invitations to parenting webinars.
I’m so proud of it, and so thrilled to have done this with my girls. They say THIS is the course that they wish they had had, and that’s what we aimed to create. They’re super chill in the videos, and they’re very relatable to keep the conversations with your daughter easy and open.
And I really pray it will help you!
Check out The Whole Story Puberty Course for moms to teach daughters about sex & puberty!Click To Tweet
But what if you have boys?
I hear you. We really wanted to launch one for boys at the same time, but we hit a snag. I believe that we’ll be able to have a similar course out in 2018 for dads and sons, but pray with us, because the guys we’ve got in mind just need to get over some obstacles.
What if your kids are younger now?
We designed the course for 10-15 year olds, but you can start it younger (and you should start it younger) if your daughter is starting to develop younger. But with the VIP version you do get lifetime access, and there are two special audios by me in it about talking to younger children about sex, and about how to teach good touch/bad touch.
You can also buy it as a gift!
If you have a granddaughter about that age, or a niece, or even a best friend, and you want to get it as a gift, just send me an email after you purchase it and I’ll make sure to get them the login details!
This puberty course is maybe the most important thing I’ve ever done.
Sure, I’ve written tons about how to have healthy sexuality in marriage, and about how to improve your marriage.
But increasingly I’ve realized that we have to start teaching this younger. We have to start raising kids who are confident and secure in who God made them to be. Marriage is so much harder later on if we have to repair damage or shame. So if we can start our kids off well, we give them one of the best gifts in the world.
I’m tired today, but I’m happy. And I hope that you will celebrate with me, and that this can help your family and friends!
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September 8, 2017
Innocence vs. Ignorance: Are We Stressing the Wrong One with Our Kids?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this last month as my girls and I gear up to launch our course, The Whole Story: Not So Scary Talks about Sex, Purity, and Growing Up on Monday.
We all know that talking to kids about sex is awkward. But in talking to parents about what makes it awkward, I’ve been getting some interesting responses. I talked on Wednesday about this urge to make sure kids don’t know what you’re doing! But there’s also this element of wanting to maintain a child’s innocence as long as possible.
And I just want to explore that idea of “innocence” today.
When we talk about wanting to maintain a child’s innocence, we’re likely aiming to keep them in that stage of life where they don’t know about the ugliness of the world. They don’t know about things like wars and the evils that people can do to each other. And we want them to keep living that carefree, protected life as long as possible.
I do get that. Kids have a right to be kids–by which I mean they don’t need to know all the adult things too early. They have a right to their “innocence”.
Kids have a right to be kids and to maintain innocence. But let's not stress ignorance!Click To Tweet
But I think there’s another element to it, and ironically I think the church actually makes this worse.
Because our main aim in teaching sex is to teach kids to wait until marriage, we frame kids as sexual beings far too young.
Let me explain. A while ago I wrote a post on what to do if you catch your 8-year-old son touching himself. I was making the point that at that age, when young children touch themselves, it is not sexual. It is simply because it feels good. And so we should not treat it as if they are committing some grave sexual sin. We should not say to them, “that’s only for marriage.” What a way to freak out a child! Imagine a little girl is in the bathtub and she notices that rubbing her vulva with a facecloth feels nice. If you then say, “God made that for marriage,” she won’t know what to make of that. The LAST thing she wants is some man rubbing her there. What are you talking about?!?
The problem, you see, is that we’re attributing sexual thoughts and motivations to children, when they don’t have those at all. Just look at the comments on the masturbation post to see what I mean. People were very upset that I wouldn’t treat this as a sin.
But you see, lust is the sin, and once you’re past puberty, masturbation is normally about lust. When you’re a 3-year-old or a 5-year-old and you figure out that your genitals feel nice, that’s not lust. So we need to treat them differently.
In our quest to teach kids about purity, then, we’ve often started to ascribe these sexual feelings to young children, simply because we want to get our messaging right. No wonder we feel like they’re losing their innocence; it’s we who are putting that on them!
The main message the first time they hear about sex does not need to be, “you should never have sex outside of marriage”
Of course we teach them that God made sex to be something beautiful between two married people. But I think Christians go further than that when we tell 8-10 year olds about sex.
When Rebecca, my oldest, was 10, I took her away on a weekend to talk to her about the facts of life. We had a program with CDs that we were working through, and the main message from that program was that you should choose to stay pure. They told everything, but then they took the kids through a series of exercises to show how dangerous sex was outside of marriage, and to have them pledge not to “do it” with anybody but a spouse.
Now, at this point Rebecca was freaked out enough by the facts about sex. I could have gotten her to pledge to never talk to a boy at all! And so we didn’t do all the exercises it suggested. I just felt that they weren’t age appropriate.
To start talking about how people can misuse sexual feelings before the child even sees sexual feelings as a good thing is to push too much on a child too early.
It makes no sense to ask a child who thinks sex is gross to pledge to be pure. It’s meaningless. And it solidifies this idea that sex is bad.
Waiting until the child starts to develop sexual feelings is far more appropriate.
Indeed, that’s why telling our kids about sex shouldn’t just be “giving them THE talk”. It’s a continuing conversation that changes as they grow.
In our course, The Whole Story, we have two different versions of it–one for girls aged 10-12, which is more information based, and one for girls aged 13-15, which is more emotional and social based, because the girls have matured.
I think one reason so many parents are scared of talking to their kids about sex is because they think that they have to cover all of this other stuff the very first time a child hears how sex works. Because that seems overwhelming, they balk. But it doesn’t have to be like that! You can unwrap sex little by little as they grow, and that’s far less scary.
Look, when we think our main job whenever we teach about sex is to stress not having sex, we attribute sexual feelings to children before they have them.
No wonder we feel like they’ve lost their innocence!
But there’s one more problem, and it stems from this one about oversexualizing children’s motives too early.
Another reason we associate losing one’s innocence with finding out about sex is because, at heart, we see sex as somehow sinful or shameful.
It isn’t only about preserving childhood, this state where they don’t know everything (ignorance or naivety). It’s also that we feel as if teaching them about sex is the equivalent of Adam and Eve eating the apple. Until that moment they were in this glorious state of innocence, but after that–they were sinful, fallen creatures. And we want to keep our children from that “fall”.
I do think that this is a huge reason that so many people are nervous to talk to their kids about sex.
After all, think about how we speak about sex in the wider context! We tell kids “Stay pure until you’re married.” But that implies that once they’re married they’re no longer pure, as if virginity and purity are the same thing.
No, they’re not! Purity is about living your life according to Jesus’ principles, and about claiming his righteousness for our own (sanctification). Many impure people are virgins, and tons of non-virgins are pure (many of us married folk included!). So instead of phrasing it as if purity is linked to whether or not we’ve had sex, even with our spouses, let’s just leave purity on its own. Don’t tell kids “stay pure until you’re married.” Just tell kids, “stay pure.” Because that’s what we all should be doing–married and non-married alike! We should stay pure in every aspect of our lives, not just sexually.
Here’s my daughter Katie (who stars alongside her older sister in the videos teaching girls about sex & puberty) talking about purity on her YouTube channel:
Our children can remain completely innocent and pure and still know about sex.
Let’s not confuse a loss of ignorance with a loss of innocence. Innocence is only lost when sin enters the picture. Finding out about God’s design for our bodies and for sex is not sinful, and learning about how sex works does not mean that one automatically has sexual feelings.
I know it’s hard when your children grow up and you have no idea when to tell them what, or how to tell them that (and I hope our Whole Story course can help you with your daughters!). I certainly had a horrible time opening up to my girls about it, and I’ll be sharing with you about many of my mistakes (and some are awfully funny!) next week. This isn’t easy.
But at the same time, let’s not make it harder on ourselves. Learning about sex will not end your child’s innocence. Yes, it will open up a new world where things aren’t secret anymore. But in many ways, this allows them to stay innocent because, in being more aware of what is happening with their bodies, they won’t worry so much or fret when changes come. They won’t be as inclined to act out inappropriately simply out of curiosity. And perhaps most importantly, they’ll be able to tell you more easily if someone tries to hurt them, because they’ll have words for what’s happening.
Our children deserve to hear the truth–at age appropriate times! And I totally believe that you can do this well, without wrecking their innocence at all. It doesn’t have to be scary!
We’ll talk about that more next week, but for right now, let’s discuss this in the comments.
Do you worry about your kids losing innocence if you tell them about sex? And at what age do you think kids need to know “The Whole Story”?
Have a great weekend!
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