Surprise: Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. Have you heard? The younger sister of Brittney Spears and the star of her own show on Nickelodeon finds herself pregnant at 16. The news is considered surprising because Jamie Lynn supposedly represented all the virtue Brittney had turned her back on. What's really surprising, though, is how quickly her pregnancy has been adopted as Exhibit A in the case against teaching abstinence.
Typical is a column by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post where Marcus recounts an exchange she had with her preteen daughters about the Jamie Lynn pregnancy.
Marcus: So, what do you think the lesson is here?
Ten-year-old Julia, brightly: Don't have sex until you get married!
Marcus continues: "Uh, um, is that the lesson? ...This is the conundrum that modern parents, boomers and beyond, confront when matters of sex arise. The bright-line rules that our parents laid down, with varying degrees of conviction and rather low rates of success, aren't -- for most of us, anyway -- either relevant or plausible. When mommy and daddy didn't get married until they were 35, abstinence until marriage isn't an especially tenable claim.
Nor is it one I'd care to make. Would I prefer -- as if my preference much matters -- that my daughters abstain until marriage? No; in fact, I think that would be a mistake. But I'm not especially comfortable saying that, quite so directly, to my children, partly because that conversation gets so complicated, so quickly."
So what is the counsel Marcus will give, once her girls have aged some? "It could happen to you--even if you're the kind of "conscientious" girl who, as Jamie Lynn's mother described her, is never late for curfew. And so, whenever you choose to have sex, unless you are ready to have a baby, don't do it without contraception."
It's both compelling and regrettable that Marcus (whose sentiments I imagine do reflect those of many modern parents) is reluctant to articulate a "bright-line rule", presumably (and one must read between the lines here) because she had such a rule laid out for her and she broke it.
My purpose is not to point fingers at Marcus or other contemporaries or teenagers now who've had sex or kids who someday will have sex as teens. Condemnation is off the table. My point is to shine a spotlight on this unwillingness to hold out a standard that's above anything you, personally, were able to meet. One hopes that Marcus would allow that there is a difference between laying down a "rule" for kids when it comes to sex - the violation of which would presumably strain the parent-child relationship at a time when parental support was needed most - and articulating a "standard", which is an ideal that is born of (but does not limit) love. But Marcus' essay would lead you to believe that she either doesn't appreciate the distinction or that she feels even a standard of abstinence is for some reason unwise.
The fact that Ruth Marcus' 10-year-old daughter can draw the conclusion that "you shouldn't have sex before marriage" is a clarion call to parents everywhere who are about to throw in the towel on teen sex and rush out to put their daughters on birth control. In that simple conclusion, I hear a 10-year-old recognizing that pregnancy is a too-high price to pay for early sexual involvement. In her mother's less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of her daughter's resolve, I hear a mom resigned to a different reality, willing to introduce a complexity into her daughter's decision making that isn't there. I say, so what if the girl continues to believe, into her teens, that she shouldn't have sex until she's married? To which Marcus would presumably reply, "If (when) she gives in, she'll end up feeling guilty, or worse, pregnant." But that's a smokescreen. Pregnancy and feelings of regret aren't the issue. Sex is. And the bottom line remains: teenagers ought not to be having sex.
They are too young emotionally.
They are too young physically.
They tend to follow social cues in determining "readiness" rather than moral precepts.
They haven't learned commitment.
They misread lust for love.
Sex early in a relationship will set a pattern for their relationships that will be very difficult to break.
They won't learn or enforce healthy boundaries.
Girls will get used. Boys will get hurt.
10-year-olds intuitively understand this. That's not to say the young girl in question won't someday change her mind. Certainly she'll be pressured by her friends and her first serious boyfriend and all of teen culture to soften that"no sex" stance. But just because it's a hard position to hold doesn't make it the wrong one.
To say "Well, no one is perfect" is to acknowledge that no one lives up to societal expectations all of the time, that we all have character flaws or skeletons in the closet or track records that keep us from claiming moral high ground. Fine. But using "no one is perfect" to argue that there is no high ground and therefore there can be no standard at all is quite another thing.
Are we really powerless to redeem a culture? Is it naive and hopeless to want better for your kids? Certainly there's truth to the proposition that a strong leader ought to model the character they wish to develop in their charges. But if we were doomed to only imitate the values we saw in our elders and incapable of conceiving better than what we'd directly observed, our culture would be sucked dry of virtue entirely by now. If I, as a leader, could only lead people to be as well or healthy as I am, and no better, the prospects for future generations would be grim, indeed.
That's why I cannot agree with parents who, for instance, don't feel they have the courage or moral authority to tell their kids not to use drugs because they themselves smoked marijuana or whatever. Guess what? "Do as I say, not as I did" is not the same as "Do as I say, not as I do". Yes, it's hypocritical to expect your child to be something you're not now (in other words - to paraphrase the old TV commercial - parents who use drugs should expect to have kids who use drugs); but it's idealistic and commendable to wish them to be something better than what you were. Will they take your admission of indiscretion as "permission" to indulge themselves? They might. But you know what? If you leave them hanging, giving no guidance at all, they'll feel confused at best and entitled to do exactly as you did at worst.
So let me say it again: it's not wrong to hold out standards for your child when it comes to moral behavior that are high and idealistic and perhaps above what you kept for yourself. Kids need that. "My generation got it wrong, but yours can do better" is golden; "My generation messed up and yours will be worse" is garbage. Dismally low standards or no standards at all communicate a parental pessimism that kids are able to behave morally. When that's all we have to offer kids by way of guidance, the culture is doomed.
Info, articles, and thoughts for parents of kids at North Coast Calvary Chapel.
