By Natalie, Editress of Visionary Womanhood
In today’s debut of Just Ask the Wemmicks, we have a wonderful Wemmick question for you – along with several Wemmick answers. I’ll be posting my answer here on Visionary Womanhood, but you will also be able to read what some of our other Wemmick contributors have to share on this topic. I’ll put links to their blogs – and their answers – at the end of this post.
So without further ado, here is the question for today:
My question is regarding protecting our children from seeing too much skin in the summer months. A few years ago, my husband and I realized that we cannot go to public beaches and water slide anymore because of the amount of skin exposure. We want to protect our boys’ minds. It has been TOUGH. We do not have free access to any pools, and we have to get out to the lake early enough to find a private spot. It is not always a good spot for teaching our youngest children to swim. Recently, we have been going to a semi-private spot near a major beach. It is turning out to not be private enough, since we are still exposed to some inappropriate swimwear. Today we dropped a few of our older sons off with extended family for a boating trip. There was a bikini involved, which was something we had not anticipated. My husband had an uncomfortable conversation, she got dressed, but I am unsure of what happened after we left. I am starting to feel like such a compromiser!
Most of our conservative friends do not bother themselves much with this issue, and still go to public beaches…I was hoping that someone at Visionary Womanhood might have some insights on all of this. I would love to hear from an older teen boy/young adult who was raised by parents who guarded his eyes. Do all of you avoid all boating trips and boat docks in addition to the public beaches? How do you deal with extended family who are showing too much skin?
Ah, if only earth were heaven. Wouldn’t that just solve it all?
But since it isn’t, we need some solutions. Here are a couple ideas from our family:
Ping Pong
We don’t go swimming much – we live in Minnesota, for Pete’s sake. While it is the land of 10,000 lakes – some of which are nice to swim in – it is also the land of 10,000 blizzards for 9 out of 12 months a year. This makes swimming season sort of short.
We do go to a cabin for a week every summer where there is a public beach, and depending on the year, bikini clad girls. I’ve never seen my husband or boys look at them. I’m serious. I realize this may be abnormal, but I have to say what is true for us. The guys are too busy fishing, jumping off the raft, swimming, skiing, tubing, and eating hamburgers to care. I do not take this for granted, but rather view it as a grace of God in the lives of our kids so far.
When our boys were little, we taught them how to ping pong their eyes off of Bad Stuff. Bad Stuff could include lots of different things – not just Naked Ones. We live in a Bad World, so Bad Stuff is everywhere. I suppose we could hole up underground and wait for the rapture, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind when He gave His commission to us.
What to do? Ping Pong. Eyes will fall on the Bad Stuff by accident all the time. What you do when that happens is what will make or break you. You either Linger Longingly – or you Ping Pong. We didn’t really make a Big Hairy Deal out of Bad Stuff. We were nervous that if we did – it would make our kids overly curious about stuff that was stupid anyway. So the Ping Ponging thing just became part of normal life.
I asked my boys, ages 17 and 19, what they thought. They wanted me to tell you that Naked Ones are featured on magazine covers in grocery stores, billboards, TV ads, Internet ads, and a host of other places. Not just the local beach. Their solution? Don’t look. Refocus your eyes and mind on other things. Ignore. It’s possible because the power of the Holy Spirit lives in you. That’s what they said.
Psssst: we don’t tell our kids about sex when they are kids. Do kids need to know? Hello. What is a gift for a married man and woman is just a burden of knowledge for a child. Unless they need to have sex, they don’t need to know all the ins and outs, so to speak. I realize we are a bit odd that way, especially in our sex obsessed culture, but the results have been pretty incredible so far. Our four oldest have maintained their innocence without being completely ignorant of everything. It has saved them a world of trouble, in my opinion, and has likely been one of the reasons they are so nonchalant about this issue. While everyone around them is freaking out about sex, they view it as just one of many cool gifts from God. They are enjoying other gifts while waiting to open up that one.
Psssst (again): Just because the men folk in our family know how to Ping Pong doesn’t mean they are Ping Pong Champions who would successfully navigate a movie full of Naked Ones. Even Christian Naked Ones. Especially Christian Naked Ones. They are just average Ping Ponging Wemmicks, so don’t get to admiring them too much. We had to miss Soul Surfer. Curses.
Psssst (one last time): Any of them could fall at any time. My head is not in the sand on this. They have sinful hearts like the rest of the Wemmick race. I’d be a fool if I didn’t think they would never succumb to any kind of temptation. I do pray daily that God would guide them and fill them with His power to live honorably in the sight of God and man. So if God answers those prayers, I will praise Him for that and be forever grateful. My hope is not in our parenting or in our kids. My hope is in God alone.
Love God. Love People.
If your children know – REALLY know – that God treasures them, that they are His, that God is the Big Everything in all of life, and then if they, in turn, love Him, spend time with Him, and desire to live lives that honor Him—they will not be perfect, but they will move in a God-ward direction on their own. A natural by-product of that will be self-control in this area.
How? Because…
If your children comprehend the love that God has for their fellow Wemmicks – including the Naked Ones – they will guard their eyes from scraping over the exposed bodies in selfish lust. They will honor the Naked Ones by keeping their eyes to themselves. This, in turn, honors the One who created and loves the Naked Ones. Yes, He did and does. They are precious to Him.
Trim the Mountain Down to a Mole Hill
The best way to make this a non-issue in your family – is to make it a non-issue. If you talk about it, rant about it, point it out, get emotional about it, say critical things about the Naked Ones every chance you get, then guess what? Your kids will think about it, get curious about it, point it out, get emotional about it, say critical things about the Naked Ones every chance they get – and feel mighty good about themselves—all while secretly looking and lingering every. single. chance. they. get.
You will have raised a little pharisee.
I know because I am a little pharisee myself. And this is an area that we have to strategically work on in our own family all the time.
So there’s my answer! But I’m just one little Wemmick. How about hopping over to another Wemmick blog for some more ideas?
Bambi Moore, In the Nursery of the Nation
Terry Covey, A Mom’s Many Lessons
Kelly Crawford, Generation Cedar
Tyanne, Lamp on a Stand
Marci Ferrell, A Thankful Homemaker
Marcia Wilwerding, eHomebody
Molly Evert, Counter-Cultural Mom
Cindy Dyer, Get Along Home
(Please note: if you are reading this in an email and a link fails to work, just click over to the blog. We’ll update any weird links once our posts all go “live.” Not everyone is sure how this works when we put links in before the posts are actually published. Thanks for your patience!)
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