A ho is still a ho even in designer clothes is what I wanted to tell my girls this week when we were talking, and I did, in a roundabout sort of way but I dropped the ball in my efforts to engage them in a real conversation about how the adults in their lives fail them; how we tell them to do as we say but not as we do; how we don’t sit down and talk to them about what’s really going on in the world and arm them with knowledge to make better decisions.
I have listened to the girls being lectured and just verbally beat down about some of their promiscuous behavior. It seems that some of the students are sexing each other regularly and they are only in 7th and 8th grade. We have two boys (one in each grade) that are fathers, and just recently it was discovered that there was a plan in place to train some girls after school, and the girls voluntarily signed up for the ride; they had the condoms. Should they be commended for at least considering safer sex practices or condemned for just “being nasty”? (The latter of which they’ve been told countless times)
What do I say when the world tells them otherwise. A cover story of one of the magazines said Kim Kardashian is dating Halle Berry’s baby daddy, and everyone knows that Kim’s trajectory to fame came about as a result of a “leaked” sex tape with Ray J and now she’s being pushed in the public’s face as some sort of celebrity socialite. Chelsea Handler, who called Angelina Jolie a home wrecker, wrote a book on sexual exploits, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands. The list goes on. Look at the John Edwards mess. But it doesn’t stop with wanna-be celebrities, I heard stories on the radio about a youth minister whose social networking moniker was Big Daddy or something twisted like that, and a man who asked his daughter to show him how to use some of the features on his phone and while trying to send a picture of his penis to the woman he was cheating on his wife with, he mistakenly sent the picture to his daughter. Let’s not forget about Bishop Long’s predatory practice of targeting and luring vulnerable young men into his bed. Bristol Palin has a baby and ends up on Dancing with the Stars and we wonder why are children are wilding out?
These young people live and breathe sex and we allow it because the needle on our adult moral compass is awry. How can I tell them to do the “right thing” and refrain from sex when far too many of us are leading by poor example? We do everything under the sun and share our exploits with the world via call-ins to the radio stations, Face book status, tweets or just talking on the cell phone for everyone to hear. We are in a sexual free fall.
Growing up, there was a line between adulthood and childhood and the teen years were the time to try and cross that line, but we had to sneak. Over the years I have watched that line retreat and finally disappear, and now our children are thrust into an adult world that they’re not equipped to handle. So, in the midst of a societal sexual orgy, we want children to just say no, and we wonder what’s wrong with them?
Wow! You are so right. We are getting/sending mixed messages all of the time. The media is full of idealizing behaviors that we tell our kids are wrong. Parents do one thing but say another. Fame is often born out of public "misbehaviors". What can we really expect from today's youth? They have to be extremely self-motivated and full of self-control to "do the right thing". Adults must step up and lead by example.
ReplyDeleteThis is a powerful piece! Insightful and thought provoking. Keep shedding the "light".
ReplyDeleteJennifer the Mentor