This Valentines Day, “Think Velcro”

Gorgeous and I the day we met.
Married eight months later.
Still married twenty-eight years later.
How blessed am I??

Today, our nation celebrates Valentine’s Day – a day of celebrating loving relationships, especially romantic relationships.  Full disclosure, my wife and I have never participated in the day’s festivities – no cards, no chocolates, no dinner dates.  I want you to know, however, never a night goes by, year round, that my wife doesn’t have fresh flowers on her night stand.  She’ll tell you I sprinkle her with imaginative “sweet nothings” and expressions of love throughout the year.  I do not fail to celebrate the fact that this wonderful lady manages to love me.  That said, it’s still Valentine’s Day and I want to encourage dads to think about how to nurture the healthy romantic relationships of their children.  Specifically, what do we tell our children about sexuality and marriage?

Here’s my “big picture”. My faith, wisdom, and life experience teach me the following:

Sexual intimacy, first and foremost, is about creating the next generation.

Children develop best in a home founded by a married mother and father.

Marriage secures mother-father relationship, thus securing a healthy home for the child.

With those considerations in mind, I want to encourage dads to talk to their children about sexual intimacy in the context of marriage.  My parents’ generation’s prevailing approach to sex ed was to threaten boys and scare girls.  That approach is not only ineffective, but it left a lot of scars when it was finally time for sex-in-marriage.  As the father of four boys I always wondered how dads of girls advise their daughters about saving sexual intimacy for marriage.  I asked three dads to tell me their approach.  One dad has a young teen age daughter, two have very young daughters (I wondered what their long-term plan was).  Here are some excerpts:

DadOfTeen

Sex is not a taboo topic in our home; it is a beautiful thing in Gods eyes within the context of marriage.  I tell her is that she is a very special, beautiful person and is to be treated with respect by all her peers.  Just recently her mother and I were talking to her about boys, raging hormones and wandering boy eyes.  It is important that she present herself in a Godly fashion in both her appearance and her behaviors... not putting herself in a place to become a temptation to one of Gods sons.

Similar to our next two dads, DadOfTeen tries to put sexual intimacy in a larger context.  Rather than scaring his daughter away from sex, Dad says “it is a beautiful thing” at the right time, in the right relationship.  I think Dad is doing his daughter a favor by explaining to her that she needs to consider what’s going on in boys’ minds at this stage of life.  Yikes!!

BabyDaddy#1

The concept I want to impart to my girls at this stage of their life is to demonstrate how a man who loves them should treasure and cherish them.  I demonstrate this through how I treat their mother and also how I interact with them individually.  This will establish a template for a loving relationship that I believe they will seek out when they begin to look for a mate.  As they get older and the time comes for the birds and the bees talk, I will explain that sex is a wonderful gift from God given to us as a means to maximize our joy & connection with our Spouse.  If we experience the bonding of sexual intimacy outside of marriage, it weakens the connection that God intended us to have with our future spouse.  The more times we bond & un-bond ourselves (think velcro) to someone, the lower our capacity to experience the full blessing of marriage as God intended.

“Think Velcro”… ok, that’s a first for me, but it makes perfect sense.  Sexual intimacy undoubtedly creates an emotional bond from the female toward the male (affection in the opposite direction is not always there).  BabyDaddy#1 is right on that girls should consider bonding and “unbonding” carefully.  He’s also giving his daughters a great gift by setting a high standard – they will expect to be treated the way they saw their father treating their mother.  Set that bar high, Dad!!

BabyDaddy#2

Our daughters need to know that they don’t have to be someone they’re not in order to make a boy happy.  I think that so many girls fall into the trap of premarital sex due to insecurity.  So it’s up to us as fathers to make sure their self-confidence is strong going in to puberty and teenage years when boys and emotions about boys begin to kick in.  [I intend to] build our daughters’ self confidence in who they are as our daughters, and daughters of Holy God, not some pubescent, hormonal teen.  [I also want to] teach them the many ways to express their love and affection for people without having to offer themselves before marriage.

A theme is emerging here, BabyDaddy#2 sums up what all three dads talk about – context and age-appropriate expression of love.  Sexual intimacy is the ultimate expression of love (I thought the radio ad said a Vermont Teddy Bear was!) and marriage is the ultimate relationship.  They should be paired together.

Finally, dads, here’s a freebie from me to you on this Valentine’s Day.  I want you to check out this Victoria’s Secret model.  Yes, really check her out!!!  Kylie Bisutti is a top-tier fashion model who quickly made her way to the Victoria’s Secret runway.  And then… well, like I said, check out her story.  (No, I would NOT get you in trouble with your wife on this of all days.)
And sorry about the 30sec ad at the start.
 

Watch the video and then I strongly suggest you share it with your daughters… and your sons for that matter.  Sexual intimacy is the most spectacular human experience.  It’s also a complex experience that, in my most humble opinion, finds it fullest and healthiest expression in marriage.  I hope this gives you some ideas for continuing to talk to your children about their sexual health and happiness.

Clark H Smith