Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
My adolescent years baptized me in the I Kissed Dating Goodbye era, donning purity culture armor and all its chinks. Well-intentioned, ardent lovers of Jesus instructed me about sex in the mores of the time. Like much of the white evangelical American community, I jumped in.
I now see a lot of what not to do as a parent, I’ve acutely felt the vacuum of purity culture as my own teens eye the opposite sex. How do I keep the baby, lose the bathwater?
To complicate matters, Gen Z simply dates differently.
In 1991, 86% of high school seniors dated; in 2017, only 51% were dating. In the same year, 40% of all couples met online, now the most common way to meet—as compared to 20% in 2009. The average age for marrying has risen to 28 for women, 30 for men, with overall declining marriage rates.
Online dating has “almost gamified” the process of swiping right by creating a much more private, less community- or social-activities-based form of dating. That relationship may intially be built without in-person interaction, heavily based on image and text communication—called “hanging out” more than dating.
Dr. Juli Slattery surmises the current cultural narrative in these spaces declare two sins: lack of consent, and lack of exploring personal freedom.https://www.focusonthefamily.com/#_edn1
Though online methods no doubt provide greater access, sadly, Pew Research reports the majority of women have experienced harassment from dates arranged online, overall viewing dating as a physical and emotional risk. Forty-seven percent of Americans say dating is now harder than a decade ago, and 46% report online dating as a negative experience.
But parenting has changed, too.
To purity culture’s credit, YOLO-enthralled young people were encouraged toward the future with a lot more wisdom, self-control, and selflessness.
Yet like others, I wasn’t trained to think deeply as much as to blindly and even fearfully adhere to others’ formulaic interpretations of the Bible (I’m looking at you, no kissing before the wedding).
Looking back, we catch whiffs of manmade rules—the kind upon which Jesus pronounced woe after woe to the Pharisees.
Tedd Tripp posited many moons ago in Shepherding a Child’s Heart,
The genius of Phariseeism was that it reduced the law to a keepable standard of externals that any self-disciplined person could do. In their pride and self-righteousness, they rejected Christ….
A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees?…Yet this is what we often do in childrearing. We demand changed behavior and never address the heart that drives the behavior.
Any anti-grace culture, I’ve learned, is anti-gospel.
For my own kids, I long to subtract the “spiritual barometer” of sexual purity for my four teenagers: Are you pure? Impure? We all fall short of God’s perfection, i.e. purity. We are all broken. Not a single member of my family comes to Jesus with their boxes checked—also known as self-righteousness.
Jesus observed the teachers of the law had “taken away the key of knowledge” (Luke 11:52). I’ve wondered if their extraneous laws removed urging a unique person to seek God in a particular set of circumstances. To seek His face rather than just His rules.
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I think of my family’s time serving in Africa, where petty theft was a frequent concern. We could toss up accordion wire, purchase the heftiest locks, select a dog or a night watchman, the works. But ultimately, if a thief endeavors to enter—or if someone wants to let him in—every defense is conquerable. The person’s heart remains the issue.
When it comes to sexuality, our kids can tunnel through our internet router via VPN, or coax a friend into an alibi. Yet crossed boundaries are only symptoms of the affirmation, identity, gratification, love, or commitment our kids crave. If we don’t address idols at that level, every other standard—
Don’t date till you’re 17! Only date people who claim to be Christians! Only group dating! No spaghetti straps! No hand-holding!—cleans the outside of the cup and dish (Matthew 23:26).
As Dr. Juli Slattery points out in Rethinking Sexuality, isn’t our sexuality so much more than rules—
displaying God’s covenant love with His people? Isn’t He after our sexual maturity and its lifelong integration and reflection in our faith, rather than just virginity until marriage?
Perhaps purity culture set the bar too low.
It’s possible some dating standards of my white-knuckled control could rob my kids of knowing and loving God intimately for themselves, wrestling toward convictions they both own and defend. Considering the staggering fallout of deconversion from the purity movement, it’s a possibility. Joshua Harris himself, post-deconstruction and post-Christianity, observes he wasn’t truly taught to think for himself.
Turns out there are worse outcomes than sex before marriage: I Kissed Jesus Goodbye.
What could it look like to train even my squirrely, hormone-charged pre-adults to thoughtfully interpret the Bible and listen to the Holy Spirit…yes, even when my kids could get it dead wrong?
See, purity culture had a lot of parents saying, “You can talk to me about anything!”
…With kids who got the idea, via imposed authority and shame, they’d rather die first.
Subtle themes of irreversible damage preach the opposite of a gospel of redemption, healing, and wholeness made possible in Jesus (not “secondary virginity”).
My kids are young adults. So my husband and I direct most of our parenting calories away from heavy authority, and toward building our influence and relational bridge with them—one strong enough to hold truth. We also ask God for godly mentors, who often carry influence we can’t with our kids. These other voices affirm God’s Word and model what it looks like to love Him on an average Thursday.
As a parent, building that bridge looks like being a conversation-starter rather than a conversation-stopper. (In my experience, rules can err on the -stopping side.) We can ask open-ended questions—and listen to our kids, genuinely asking, “Tell me more.” Usually before I teach or tell them my opinion.
These philosophies found me sipping frappuccinos a summer ago with my recent high school grad. He mulled over a recent breakup.
He’d confessed weeks before he didn’t see himself ever marrying her. I’d suggested mildly that with an inevitable breakup, sooner was better than later. Then I (painstakingly) backed off, leaving it in his hands. (That son is in the Marines now. Trust me: Taking orders from Sergeant Mom would have backfired.) He sifted verbally through various past relationships: what was valuable, what he did right and wrong, what he’d learned he wanted in a mate, what he’d avoid in the future.
In contrast to my other epic parent-fails, I perceive three wins:
1) He took healthy ownership of his relationships and actions.
2) He was whittling his idea of a future mate.
3) He was sharing it with me.
So yes, I believe dating can help kids decide what they really want, removing some of the intensity of the courtship process that left such a wake (see also: Joshua Harris’ documentary). Dating can establish ways they do and don’t want to be treated, even helping them identify their own destructive behavior patterns.
That doesn’t mean I’ll be helping my younger kids download Hinge after dinner tonight.
My husband—the one who muscled past purity-culture dating-isms that made teenaged-me weird—recently framed this well to our 14-year-old. “Relationships take a lot of emotional maturity in really delicate areas that, to be honest, a lot of teenagers don’t have. A lot of people wind up getting hurt.”
I heart Axis’ resources for parents, and their video-driven conversation kit on dating is no exception. I personally value their questions for parents to consider whether kids are ready to explore the elation—and let’s face it, the heartache and risk—of dating.
No teenager is alike. I like this solution: “Try using [your minimum dating age] as a ‘review’ age … Then you can sit down and have a conversation [at that point] to see if your teen is ready.”
And consider dating on a spectrum—not unlike teaching your child to ride a bike. Maybe you started with a tricycle, then a balance bike, then training wheels, then running behind your child. How could you create levels of growing independence, as your child proves their readiness (or it’s just too sketch to have your teenager on a trike)?
Maybe your child progresses from group dates, chaperones, or a game night with the family, to the level at which you’d launch them into young adulthood, as they demonstrate wisdom and maturity.
None of us will likely dispute the 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 dangers of being “unequally yoked.” It’s vital we talk about risks not only of dating a non-Christian, but of one of inequivalent maturity (i.e. not just headed in the same direction, but equally yoked—of the same strength). When your kids talk about someone being a Christian, ask how your child determines this. Does churchgoing or talking about Jesus or homeschooling = thriving faith?
Note: If there’s one lesson from Romeo and Juliet, it’s that kids determined to date against their parents’ wishes may simply tunnel underground.
The larger concern here is one of your child’s heart. Get curious: What’s compelling to your child about dating someone who doesn’t follow Jesus? (Not rhetorical.) Are they overlaying their romantic life on their faith, or vice versa? What are attractive qualities for them? Are there things about Christians around them that aren’t appealing?
It’s wise, together with your teen, to establish boundaries they’ll choose before they’re in a tempting situation. Form these around values you both share, integrating their faith and sexuality.
Axis helps define boundaries in language teens may value, courtesy of BetterHelp’s Haesue Jo: “emotional limits, the actual physical barriers, or mental blocks we put in place to protect ourselves from getting hurt, manipulated, used, or bothered.” Perhaps this looks like curfews, parents getting to know the date beforehand, bedrooms off-limits, no sitting in a car/being in a house alone, no lying on the sofa together.
We can also nurture the convictions of Christian dating in our teens through conversations that build on each other.
Talk about:
In relationships and standards cultivated with our teens, we can empower godly relationships that love their neighbor as themselves—and glorify God, exalting His name together in a strange new world (Psalm 34:3).
The post Should I Let My 15-year-old Go on a Date? appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...
My adolescent years baptized me in the I Kissed Dating Goodbye era, donning purity culture armor and all its chinks. Well-intentioned, ardent lovers of Jesus instructed me about sex in the mores of the time. Like much of the white evangelical American community, I jumped in.
I now see a lot of what not to do as a parent, I’ve acutely felt the vacuum of purity culture as my own teens eye the opposite sex. How do I keep the baby, lose the bathwater?
How Has Dating Changed?
To complicate matters, Gen Z simply dates differently.
In 1991, 86% of high school seniors dated; in 2017, only 51% were dating. In the same year, 40% of all couples met online, now the most common way to meet—as compared to 20% in 2009. The average age for marrying has risen to 28 for women, 30 for men, with overall declining marriage rates.
Online dating has “almost gamified” the process of swiping right by creating a much more private, less community- or social-activities-based form of dating. That relationship may intially be built without in-person interaction, heavily based on image and text communication—called “hanging out” more than dating.
Dr. Juli Slattery surmises the current cultural narrative in these spaces declare two sins: lack of consent, and lack of exploring personal freedom.https://www.focusonthefamily.com/#_edn1
Though online methods no doubt provide greater access, sadly, Pew Research reports the majority of women have experienced harassment from dates arranged online, overall viewing dating as a physical and emotional risk. Forty-seven percent of Americans say dating is now harder than a decade ago, and 46% report online dating as a negative experience.
Parenting Differently after Purity Culture
But parenting has changed, too.
To purity culture’s credit, YOLO-enthralled young people were encouraged toward the future with a lot more wisdom, self-control, and selflessness.
Yet like others, I wasn’t trained to think deeply as much as to blindly and even fearfully adhere to others’ formulaic interpretations of the Bible (I’m looking at you, no kissing before the wedding).
Looking back, we catch whiffs of manmade rules—the kind upon which Jesus pronounced woe after woe to the Pharisees.
Tedd Tripp posited many moons ago in Shepherding a Child’s Heart,
The genius of Phariseeism was that it reduced the law to a keepable standard of externals that any self-disciplined person could do. In their pride and self-righteousness, they rejected Christ….
A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees?…Yet this is what we often do in childrearing. We demand changed behavior and never address the heart that drives the behavior.
Any anti-grace culture, I’ve learned, is anti-gospel.
For my own kids, I long to subtract the “spiritual barometer” of sexual purity for my four teenagers: Are you pure? Impure? We all fall short of God’s perfection, i.e. purity. We are all broken. Not a single member of my family comes to Jesus with their boxes checked—also known as self-righteousness.
Jesus observed the teachers of the law had “taken away the key of knowledge” (Luke 11:52). I’ve wondered if their extraneous laws removed urging a unique person to seek God in a particular set of circumstances. To seek His face rather than just His rules.
Help Them Soar Into Their Teen Years!
You want to guide your preteen well, but knowing how can be daunting, especially in a culture that goes against God’s design. In this video series, you’ll hear from parents just like you as they share how they used Focus on the Family’s "Launch Into the Teen Years" video-based lessons with their preteens to build a strong and biblical foundation for adolescence.Learn More
Teenage Dating: When Safeguards Aren’t Enough
I think of my family’s time serving in Africa, where petty theft was a frequent concern. We could toss up accordion wire, purchase the heftiest locks, select a dog or a night watchman, the works. But ultimately, if a thief endeavors to enter—or if someone wants to let him in—every defense is conquerable. The person’s heart remains the issue.
When it comes to sexuality, our kids can tunnel through our internet router via VPN, or coax a friend into an alibi. Yet crossed boundaries are only symptoms of the affirmation, identity, gratification, love, or commitment our kids crave. If we don’t address idols at that level, every other standard—
Don’t date till you’re 17! Only date people who claim to be Christians! Only group dating! No spaghetti straps! No hand-holding!—cleans the outside of the cup and dish (Matthew 23:26).
As Dr. Juli Slattery points out in Rethinking Sexuality, isn’t our sexuality so much more than rules—
displaying God’s covenant love with His people? Isn’t He after our sexual maturity and its lifelong integration and reflection in our faith, rather than just virginity until marriage?
Perhaps purity culture set the bar too low.
It’s possible some dating standards of my white-knuckled control could rob my kids of knowing and loving God intimately for themselves, wrestling toward convictions they both own and defend. Considering the staggering fallout of deconversion from the purity movement, it’s a possibility. Joshua Harris himself, post-deconstruction and post-Christianity, observes he wasn’t truly taught to think for himself.
Turns out there are worse outcomes than sex before marriage: I Kissed Jesus Goodbye.
What could it look like to train even my squirrely, hormone-charged pre-adults to thoughtfully interpret the Bible and listen to the Holy Spirit…yes, even when my kids could get it dead wrong?
With older kids, build influence more than authority
See, purity culture had a lot of parents saying, “You can talk to me about anything!”
…With kids who got the idea, via imposed authority and shame, they’d rather die first.
Subtle themes of irreversible damage preach the opposite of a gospel of redemption, healing, and wholeness made possible in Jesus (not “secondary virginity”).
My kids are young adults. So my husband and I direct most of our parenting calories away from heavy authority, and toward building our influence and relational bridge with them—one strong enough to hold truth. We also ask God for godly mentors, who often carry influence we can’t with our kids. These other voices affirm God’s Word and model what it looks like to love Him on an average Thursday.
As a parent, building that bridge looks like being a conversation-starter rather than a conversation-stopper. (In my experience, rules can err on the -stopping side.) We can ask open-ended questions—and listen to our kids, genuinely asking, “Tell me more.” Usually before I teach or tell them my opinion.
Is it wise for Christian teens to be dating?
These philosophies found me sipping frappuccinos a summer ago with my recent high school grad. He mulled over a recent breakup.
He’d confessed weeks before he didn’t see himself ever marrying her. I’d suggested mildly that with an inevitable breakup, sooner was better than later. Then I (painstakingly) backed off, leaving it in his hands. (That son is in the Marines now. Trust me: Taking orders from Sergeant Mom would have backfired.) He sifted verbally through various past relationships: what was valuable, what he did right and wrong, what he’d learned he wanted in a mate, what he’d avoid in the future.
In contrast to my other epic parent-fails, I perceive three wins:
1) He took healthy ownership of his relationships and actions.
2) He was whittling his idea of a future mate.
3) He was sharing it with me.
So yes, I believe dating can help kids decide what they really want, removing some of the intensity of the courtship process that left such a wake (see also: Joshua Harris’ documentary). Dating can establish ways they do and don’t want to be treated, even helping them identify their own destructive behavior patterns.
Rules for Teens Dating by Christian Parents
That doesn’t mean I’ll be helping my younger kids download Hinge after dinner tonight.
My husband—the one who muscled past purity-culture dating-isms that made teenaged-me weird—recently framed this well to our 14-year-old. “Relationships take a lot of emotional maturity in really delicate areas that, to be honest, a lot of teenagers don’t have. A lot of people wind up getting hurt.”
I heart Axis’ resources for parents, and their video-driven conversation kit on dating is no exception. I personally value their questions for parents to consider whether kids are ready to explore the elation—and let’s face it, the heartache and risk—of dating.
- “Does my child have the emotional maturity to experience rejection or a break-up?
- “Does my child possess the ability to communicate well enough to be in a relationship with others?
- “What are my child’s friendships like? How does this help me discern their readiness for dating?
- “What areas do they need to grow in, in order to handle the various kinds of experiences they could have in dating?
- “Is my child a good judge of character?”
At What Age Can a Christian Start Dating?
No teenager is alike. I like this solution: “Try using [your minimum dating age] as a ‘review’ age … Then you can sit down and have a conversation [at that point] to see if your teen is ready.”
And consider dating on a spectrum—not unlike teaching your child to ride a bike. Maybe you started with a tricycle, then a balance bike, then training wheels, then running behind your child. How could you create levels of growing independence, as your child proves their readiness (or it’s just too sketch to have your teenager on a trike)?
Maybe your child progresses from group dates, chaperones, or a game night with the family, to the level at which you’d launch them into young adulthood, as they demonstrate wisdom and maturity.
Is it right to date an unbeliever?
None of us will likely dispute the 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 dangers of being “unequally yoked.” It’s vital we talk about risks not only of dating a non-Christian, but of one of inequivalent maturity (i.e. not just headed in the same direction, but equally yoked—of the same strength). When your kids talk about someone being a Christian, ask how your child determines this. Does churchgoing or talking about Jesus or homeschooling = thriving faith?
Note: If there’s one lesson from Romeo and Juliet, it’s that kids determined to date against their parents’ wishes may simply tunnel underground.
The larger concern here is one of your child’s heart. Get curious: What’s compelling to your child about dating someone who doesn’t follow Jesus? (Not rhetorical.) Are they overlaying their romantic life on their faith, or vice versa? What are attractive qualities for them? Are there things about Christians around them that aren’t appealing?
What are the rules for Christian dating?
It’s wise, together with your teen, to establish boundaries they’ll choose before they’re in a tempting situation. Form these around values you both share, integrating their faith and sexuality.
Axis helps define boundaries in language teens may value, courtesy of BetterHelp’s Haesue Jo: “emotional limits, the actual physical barriers, or mental blocks we put in place to protect ourselves from getting hurt, manipulated, used, or bothered.” Perhaps this looks like curfews, parents getting to know the date beforehand, bedrooms off-limits, no sitting in a car/being in a house alone, no lying on the sofa together.
We can also nurture the convictions of Christian dating in our teens through conversations that build on each other.
Talk about:
- kinds of people they hope to date and marry, and what makes a marriage thrive
- disease, pregnancy, heartbreak—and how to compassionately understand the tough stories behind these choices (Tip: Don’t make this an us-versus-them discussion. If your child is ever on the difficult side of these situations, you want to be an “us.”)
- responding to pressure from someone you respect
- early signs of a situation compromising to their values
- what constitutes abuse, and what to say and do if you’re in that situation[ii]
Christian Dating–Differently–for the Better
In relationships and standards cultivated with our teens, we can empower godly relationships that love their neighbor as themselves—and glorify God, exalting His name together in a strange new world (Psalm 34:3).
The post Should I Let My 15-year-old Go on a Date? appeared first on Focus on the Family.
Continue reading...