While camping last weekend my daughter’s swimsuit strap
broke. So I went online and began
looking to purchase a new one. I went
from store site to store site, not happy with the options. See what I wanted for her, and what was
available were two different things.
I was raised in a home where it was made clear that men are
to respect women. To treat them like a
lady, to open doors for them, to give up their seat for them, to honor them, and
to not treat them like objects. I in
turn hope (and think we are) raising our son with these values. However, one
must be sure that they understand that all of the pressure does not lie with
men. Women have a responsibility too, that seems to have gotten a bit lost in
our society.
Men and women were created so vastly different. One thing we try and teach BOTH of our kids
is be careful what you put your eyes on.
We discuss what is appropriate and what is not. However, to be honest it is very difficult to
convince our kids something is appropriate when society is telling them
something very different. For example movies, we let our kids watch
movies we deem appropriate. Yet, as I
was watching one of these Disney movies the other day, I was noticing how the
girls, young girls were dressed. Short
shorts, and bikinis adorned their tiny bodies. They flaunt themselves by pools
and nobody seems to blink an eye.
Society tells us this is cute, and fashionable and appropriate. I can tell you that I disagree.
This goes beyond how difficult we are making if for men,
especially young men to stay pure, wholesome, and to respect women. I do not
want boys looking at my daughter because she is cute, fashionable, and looks
good in a bikini. Those are not the
qualities I want her to be known for. Honestly do any of us want men to choose us
because we look “hot”, I think NOT! If this is what we teach our boys to look
for in girls, what will they think of their wives 20 years later after their
bodies have aged and changed? Will they still be looking for that image? What
we ingrain in our kids as acceptable and appropriate, will stick with them and
mold them into the people they will become.
If we want men to respect us, then we have to respect ourselves. This begins with modesty.
So, back to the swimsuit issue, she asked me why I didn’t
want her to have a bikini. I retorted
with why do YOU want a bikini. Her shrug
of the shoulders led us into a great conversation. We discussed how we want the
world to view us, what we think is important, and what God would want for us. We
talked about how we need to make our life choices on that, not on what other
people around us are doing. You see even at her very young age, she understands
(maybe better than us grown-ups do) that we want people to like us, for who we
are, not what we look like. When we talk
to someone we want them to know us for the things we like, the things we say,
and the people we are, not for our cute swimsuit. So we found a one piece suit she thought was
cute. Actually she and her dad took this shopping trip. All were happy with the outcome.
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