Teens: Should They Court or Should They Date?
Sep 03 '00 (Updated Sep 05 '00)
I have been thinking about what my sexual subject matter was going to be for a week now and it has been tough, starting and stopping over and over. I wanted to add a Christian point of view on whatever I was going to consider writing about even though I may get chastised for this point of view I am willing to stick my neck out for the benefit of my children.
I have a preteen now and I have been reading, thinking and preparing for those teen years ahead of time. Choices to be made and values to instill and love to give. What are her choices going to be when the time comes for her to consider dating? Should I let her date? Or should I go back to the age of courting? Courting was done for centuries before dating was even considered. Dating, being the invention of the 20th century.
If dating is so beneficial in today’s society more than historically proven and biblically modeled courtship, we should expect to see our youth today walking with greater sexual purity than in previous centuries. Sadly, the opposite is true. As parents have reduced their involvement in the courtship process over the last century, premarital sex has increased rapidly. This isn’t just for the non-Christians either. Today’s Christian teens fornicate, contract AIDS, spread venereal diseases, conceive babies out of wedlock, and have abortions, afforded by “wholesome,” parent-approved, Christian dating. Something is really drastically wrong here.
If dating prepares our young people for marriage, laying them a stronger foundation, we should expect to see healthier, longer-lasting marriages than in previous times, but the troubled state of marriages Christian and non-Christian alike speaks for itself. Look at all the marriage seminars, marriage books sold by the thousands, and marriage counselors’ schedules are booked, because our marriages are in trouble. The divorce rate is skyrocketing from both ends of the spectrum. I tried to get current statistics but could only find statistics from 1970 at 4.3 million in the US jumping to 17.4 million in 1994. I don’t need statistics to see around me that it is climbing. I have 3 brother-in-laws that have been divorced 1-2 times and two brothers of my own that have been divorced and remarried and sisters that are currently separated. We have big families, produced by divorced homes. Our parents between the 4 of them have been married anywhere from 2-5 or more times. We seem to be the only couple in our family that still has the same set of parents for all our children. In addition probably 6 out of 10 of our friends have been either divorced or separated at one point or another. It’s all around us.
So the claim that experience in modern dating is necessary for a good marriage is not necessarily a truth, is it?
So when I see children becoming parents, the diseases that cause death, the loneliness, the lack of self-worth because someone has rejected them, and so on, it makes me fear for my children. Sex as a teen is an awful big responsibility to put on them. They have enough pressures as it is, with the physical changes and emotional changes they are going through, not to mention the decisions they have to make about their future in college and after college. No wonder they look to opposite sex companionship to relieve the tensions to make them feel good about themselves, but this lasts for only a moment. Once that line is crossed they can’t take it back, their God given purity and innocence as a child. So maybe we shouldn’t be throwing dating at them first before they have finished growing up.
Most everything in our society is about sex, throwing it in our teens faces, the music, teen magazines, television, advertisements, the pressure is over whelming. Now we allow them to date one on one, alone together after watching and listening to everything around them. We are in for trouble because it is almost impossible to be in a relationship and not feel lust, which inevitably results in sex. I for one, know that simple kissing and touching leads to bigger and greater things.
Lust is wonderful but God really meant for it to be acted out in a marriage. Lust blinds and clouds your judgement by virtue of chemical influences on the body, clouding your thinking.
Many trash the bible and it’s teachings but most do because it’s not what they want to hear so they discard it. I have heard many psychologists’ findings, which were not exactly their findings, because they were in the bible from long ago. Everything has been right under our noses but we choose not to listen. No matter what a person may think of the bible it is packed full of great advice for parents, children, death, life, marriage, divorce and the list goes on. The same goes for the teachings on our young and dating.
Several biblical figures have fallen to this lust. King David, a man described as a man after God’s own heart. Committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband, because he was overcome by lust. Solomon the wise king of Israel, is another blinded by lust. Despite his wisdom, was a fool. Lust was the cause of his foolishness. He took himself 700 wives and 300 concubines, despite the others feelings or the negative outcome he fell into self-centered lust. What else could it be with that amount of women? My husband has a hard enough time keeping up with one wife, let alone 700. One is all he can handle or chooses to handle.
Lust fostered by dating:
Ok so your child is on a date and every time that couple shares moderate sexual intimacies with each other, they arouse in one another desires that they cannot righteously fulfill. Their stirring lust goes no where, starting and stopping, over and over date after date. Their bodies disliking being stopped, the sexual process was not designed that way. Outside of marriage, stirred lust has no pure place for expression. Call me a prude if you must but I don’t want my daughter to have to be pressured into deciding that path for herself at 14, 15, 16, or even 17.
Ok so she decides to have sex at 15 with one boy, then that doesn’t work out and another at 16 and so on and so on. Then there comes a time when she has sex with a man and she THINKS she is in love with him. But she has no idea really because she has never given herself the chance to examine what love is for the opposite sex without the sex, knowing only what lust is.
I know what this scenario is: I just happened to get lucky with the choice I made with her father. I met him, a GI on leave and had a 2 week fling. He went back to NC called me New Years Eve asked me if I wanted to move to North Carolina with him. I didn’t really know this boy/man but I did it because I LUSTED after him and wanted him with everything that I had. At the time I thought I loved him but now that I look back I had no idea what love was. Immediately I moved out to NC and 2 weeks later I was pregnant and in my 3rd month of pregnancy we married. What a mess we got ourselves into! And the next 1 ½ years would be hell for us because he still lusted after other women and when he got on that plane for Germany (I would be there 3 mos. Later) he didn’t think he would want me back.
When I did get there he realized that he still wanted to be with me, he thought. As soon as I got off that plane, I realized I really loved the man and we had a good time in Germany, but it took 6 years and having two more babies alone, more for him to realize what love was. He still lusted for me (it wasn’t all bad) only until one day he came home from a mission and told me he wasn’t sure he was in love with me anymore. Then is when I realized that he couldn’t tell the difference between love and lust. It broke my heart to have a man that didn’t love me but I loved myself and him enough to let him go. He had to leave on another mission (I was on my way to a life without him) and this time he got to stop in to see his dad and have a talk with him. I don’t know what was said that day but some how some way he got through to him, thank you Jesus! There is no other man in this world I would rather have. Thanks to God and a little help from his father we are happier and IN LOVE…..
Nobody wants their children to go through this kind of pain to get to the good stuff. It’s a mothers right to try and help prevent it.
Does lust create dissatisfaction in marriage?
I have wondered about this by looking at many of my friends with marriage troubles. They leave and have an affair because of the sex. They are not satisfied at home or hubby is gone for months on end and they need some so called relief. They tell me that they were more satisfied with sex before they were married and now that they are married it is much less satisfying, so they cheat to find that sexual thrill. Their husbands come home and turn on the porn tapes to get satisfied, they swing, they play sexual games acting as though they are single, just to add spice to their sex life. I don’t know about you but I like to have sex feeling married.
Courting
This is not yet a decided factor in my children’s lives. But this seems so much more simple and easy to deal with for both parties. They can still enjoy the company of the opposite sex boy FRIEND/girl FRIEND in a family scenario. They wouldn’t have to deal with the intimate pressures of being alone together. I feel that if a boy likes my daughter enough to hang out with us as a family friend than maybe he is willing to hang out with us even longer. And if he doesn’t feel that way then maybe he wasn’t the right guy after all.
Courting does not necessarily mean that marriage has to be the ending result either. This gives two young individuals time to learn about loving each other for all the right reasons, the lasting reasons. Learning about being friends and companions, caring about one another’s interests and dreams. Sexual lust is a wonderful feeling but may not always last in a marriage. Sexual love is something created in a marriage that can be fulfilling for your entire life.
I am not wanting to plan my daughters and sons lives for them but I do want to teach them to respect themselves enough to make wise decisions in their lives. Not to let society diminish their beliefs in Gods word and wishes. Then when they leave home it is up to them as to what they decide to do in their lives and hopefully whatever they decide to do it’s a good thing, the right thing.
It is only natural for me to want to protect them while they are young, I am their mother and no matter the decisions they make I will be there to cheer them on or help pick up the pieces.
Here is the list of all the wonderful people that participated in the Sex write-off!
Gypsyrose75(her brilliant idea)LOL,Blonbabydawn, Bgoodday, Eraser, Alwaysstubborn, Wldangels3, Shantel575, DnDn4Kidz, Sunnydaym, EMTCheryl, Angelsbear, 29th_Candidate, wavesandshells, grumpifrog, Scholomer96, ryguy, moimonet, Disartain, working98, Acdc711, josilot, ChriseyB, latchon2me, daystorm, lansky2000, mcgina, cleanshaven, Maggi33, Schamozzel, Kilinahe, driver4t5, pantazis5, jankp, macndeb, Lilvoyce, Jiastar........
Great job everyone!
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