Teenagers Are Fornicating Less

And a little child shall lead them.

Isaiah 11:6

I recently read an article stating that fewer teenagers today are engaging in sex. If this report is true, then Glory be to God. It appears that the young people are able to do what many thought was impossible, they are forgoing sex. This will come as a shock to many adults who promote the idea that teenage sex is inevitable and so we may as well not make any efforts to curb it. However, with this data many states have cut and curtailed their abstinence programs. The problem have with the studies that say abstinence doesn’t work is because they don’t take into account the 90% of other information that teenagers receive through movies, television, music, and video games. Abstinence education is just a small area in the child’s overall day. The important aspect of abstinence education is that it helps to shape attitudes not necessarily about sex, but also about marriage.

“You have to look at why sex was created,” Eric Love, the director of the East Texas Abstinence Program, which runs Virginity Rules, said one day, the sounds of Christian contemporary music humming faintly in his Longview office. “Sex was designed to bond two people together.”

To make the point, Mr. Love grabbed a tape dispenser and snapped off two fresh pieces. He slapped them to his filing cabinet and the floor; they trapped dirt, lint, a small metal bolt. “Now when it comes time for them to get married, the marriage pulls apart so easily,” he said, trying to unite the grimy strips. “Why? Because they gave the stickiness away.”[1]

While I would love to believe that all our children will grow up and save themselves for marriage, this is really not realistic. What is realistic however is that we can stress the importance of marriage to many children who have lost interest in it as an option, due to their own single parent experience. Why is stressing the importance of marriage important? Because study after study has shown that children do better regardless of economic conditions in two parent families. This should be something we want to promote as a society, for the well-being of the society. I find it interesting that we expect people who have been unable to maintain a committed relationship to develop that in our children, it’s not going to happen. Just as parents that did not complete their educations require help educating their children, so we should also help them prepare for marriage.

The institution of marriage is under an onslaught, but unlike my religious conservative brethren I don’t believe it is from gays. The current threat to marriage is and always has been heterosexuals, whether they are adulterers, pornographers, or other sexual deviants. The breakdown in the family and marriage has nothing to do with whether gays get married or not. While I find it personally offensive, my experience shows that the breakdowns in marriage are due to the partners in the marriage. I think the gay question is a smoke screen to cover the real issues which is that we are not preparing our children properly for marriage or adulthood.

For the first time, however, Virginity Rules and 700 kindred abstinence education programs are fighting serious threats to their future. Eleven state health departments rejected abstinence education this year, while legislatures in Colorado, Iowa and Washington passed laws that could kill, or at least wound, its presence in public schools.[2]

I find it hard to believe that with all the pressure our children are under to fornicate, that many find offering a counter message worthless. It’s as if we give freedom to the sex trade, but it is imposing on our freedom to offer another view. This is in part why the rest of the world finds our values so hypocritical, we allow promotion of and the selling of sex in every area of our lives, but God forbid if we show that there are other alternatives. This is crossing the boundaries of State vs. Church, we must not continue to buy into this for the sake of commerce. We are selling out our children for the sake of making money. What value are you willing to place on the lives of your children?

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/education/18abstain.html

[2] Ibid

Help For the Single Mother (Part 2)

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child,
I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11

The next idea I would like to share is about how we see our children. For many women, the child is an extension of themselves or the man who fathered of the child. In too many cases women are thinking, if I can’t have the man I will have the child; as if a child were some sort of consolation prize. I’m sorry, but too often we excuse women because they are women, I can no longer in good conscious keep silent. Women write and comment concerning my writings that I am bashing women, nothing could be further from the truth. What I am bashing is selfishness on the part of both men and women. Men for the simple fact that they are allowing their need for selfish gratification to cause them to create children they have no intention of raising and women because they selfishly have children for companionship, as if they were some kind of live doll. I know for a fact that there are women who know they are not going to be with the man that is lying with them, but for the sake of their own selfishness they want a child.

There is enough blame is this thing for everyone, but the real issue is what about the children. Who is concerned about them? Who is willing to sacrifice and lay aside false pride and selfishness to improve the lives of our children? I have women writing me saying how they are the ones who are there for these children and that is true, but what about the selfishness in putting them in that position in the first place? Where is being there for them then? I know we are slaves to our passions and we cannot control our urges, as if we were just beasts in the field with no self-control.

Women you should not look at your son as their father, they are not. They may someday resemble him, but they will always be their own unique person. God has made us all to be unique creations and worthy of love and acceptance.[1] There is a tendency to want to identify our children with the parent, especially if there is conflict in the relationship or if the biological parent has deserted the relationship. Unfortunately sometimes there is a propensity to demonize the father through the child. This can be done by denigrating the father in front of the child and expecting the child to co-sign with the assessment.

It has been my experience that no matter how bad a parent may be as a partner or as a parent, children will always rally around them. Many times I have witnessed where one parent will try to turn a child against the other parent and it backfires. Nobody wants to be told that the person they love is unlovable. It seems to be human nature that we want to kill the messenger instead of heeding the message. Children appear to be no different and maybe even more so.

The other way women can view their sons as the father is that they ascribe the same traits of the father to the son. “You are a liar just like your father”, is a good one and I am sure there are many more. Again, if there is a strong resemblance the tendency seems to increase. Many times we become what we are called or who we are identified as, especially when we are young. The attitude can be, what’s the use I will be called or accuse of it anyway. We must not break our children’s spirits. There are certain things we will have to break in them, but their spirit should never be one of them.

Take time out today to see your son as the beautiful, unique, and precious gift that God created him to be. Nurture his identity and special gifts. Water his creativity, so that they may bloom in due season.

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[1] Luke 12:7

Help For the Single Mother (Part 1)

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature.

Mark 16:15

While I believe in the Boys Town project, I am a realist and I don’t think we as a people have the courage or the will to make it a reality. Since it also does not appear like our young women are going to stop having babies. I have decided to put up some simple common-sense ideas to help single mothers trying to raise male children. I was recently contacted by a number of women who wanted to know what to do “after the cow has left the barn”, I was struck by the request because so often we ignore those who need the help most, because we are so busy concentrating on getting our point or agenda across. I would like to state for the record that I believe that my job on this earth is not to convert anyone to my religion. That is not what God has me here to do, what my job is in conjunction with God is to introduce the people I encounter to the One who sent me.

So many Churches today measure their success by earthly standards. How many “souls we saved”, how many are in Sunday school, and my favorite how much is in the “building fund”. I don’t believe that this is how God measures the success of the Church. Nowhere in the Bible have I located a passage that says convert anyone to anything. Jesus speaks of us being converted to little children[1], not little Baptists, or Methodist, or COGIC, but little children. I say these things to say that all I want to do is to introduce you to my Master; I am not here to judge anyone. I write the things I write out of love for my people, not out of judgment. It is my fervent hope and prayer that we return to our rightful place under God’s authority. The Bible talks about unless we are “born again”[2], we will not see the Kingdom of God. I don’t know of any Church that can give a man new birth, only God can do that.

So the first idea is your male child needs a male role-model around for learning what a man is. It doesn’t have to be his biological father. It doesn’t have to be a man around all the time, but it must be someone consistently in the child’s life. Someone he can count on to be there and someone he can trust and talk to. This role can be filled by an acquaintance, a teacher, or a relative. Who the person is not as important as what that person is and what they represent. The person should be a man of strong character with patience and love for children. I know it is hard to believe that are still Black men of this caliber around, it is just that they are outnumbered by the selfish ones. Any man will not fill the void, again it is not about just having someone there, it is about the character of the man there. So often, Black women are attracted to the men who are not good fathers, husbands, or providers; instead they are drawn to the flashy, smooth talkers. Look at the women of other races they will marry men who are not the best looking, best dressers, they will take the one who they know they can depend on, the one that will love them and provide for them. He may not be the most exciting and fun person, but he will not desert you when you get pregnant, nor will he desert his children.

So where are these role models? Where should you begin to look to find them? I would start at a church or a community center. I would contact male relatives that are being responsible. Remember this isn’t about you getting married or finding a mate, it is about you providing your son with a male to fashion himself after. It is to give him an outlet for his “male energy”. The reason most of our young men are in gangs or hanging out with the “homeboys” is because they don’t have any outlet for their natural male aggression. They end up channeling it in negative ways, but if they had been provided with a positive influence maybe it would have been different. I would contact Big Brothers or some other mentoring program. In our larger cities there are men who have volunteered to provide our young men with the positive role model. You have to look, but they are out there. In the rural communities there usually is a more extended family atmosphere in the community, so I have found it easier to locate role models in that setting.

I know that as a single mother you want to protect your child and I am not advocating just anybody for the role. Research has shown that boys that have regular, stable men in their lives do better. As mothers you must be willing and make the effort to provide that child what he needs. If that child needed a particular medicine what would you do to get it for him? It is the same here, he needs this companionship to mature into a strong Black man and isn’t this what you want for him?

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[1] Matthew 18:3

[2] John 3:3