FYI (if you’re a teenage girl)

[Greg Linscott]

The rub here is that Mrs. Hall (and many of the people who re-posted) tend to think of things like Facebook like we do about something like television or other mass media of the past- very impersonal. You can be a fan and follower, but expressing your opinion about something you like or didn’t is not usually likely to generate meaningful change. New media is different. You engage people you know on places like Facebook, or a place like here where you get to know real people rather than calling in to a professional personality on a call-in show. The is not some “vast Facebook conspiracy” gathering selfies of unsuspecting young ladies and posting them on your son’s feed, or a collective group that elected to do so in a board room somewhere. These are individuals making individual decisions, and if there are “offenders” on your list, it’s better to deal with them personally rather than collectively.

You and I may think of “new media” as being different - but I wonder how others feel about it..

We may be selective in our friend selection - the majority of teenagers are NOT .. unless they are VERY closely monitored..

Yes - they are individuals making decisions - but from what I’ve observed it’s somewhat of a “group think”. People will just “share” something they see for the sake of “sharing” ..

Yes - we have to teach our children how to work with these things - but as a mom who’s kids came of age as this technology developed I believe it’s become increasingly difficult to keep up with the various ways the world intersects their lives. By that I mean that “back in the day” - when I was a youngin’ my parents could (and did) monitor my television usage - who I talked to on the phone .. what movies I was allowed to see .. (until I went to Christian schools and movies were OUT).

Now - parents just don’t have to monitor all THAT - but in MOST cases there’s the internet.. both on computer and usually teens phones .. (we did not let our youngest son have a “textable” phone until he was 18 ..) I understand that most here probably are MUCH more conservative with their children - but for the majority of teenagers it’s a matter of monitoring twitter, facebook, texts, email, and who knows what other social media sites …. then you have X-box live accounts .. and whatever OTHER gaming systems there are that allow interaction .. and the lists keep getting larger and larger ..

And meaningful personal interaction keeps getting weaker and weaker …

I’m not disagreeing with you - I am saying kids have the ability to “act out” .. see images that are distasteful .. engage with strangers constantly .. and those kids who are taught proper usage .. and held to proper usage .. are STILL going to get the spill over..

AND as parents we have to realize - we can teach them .. hold them accountable .. and sometimes they STILL are going to rebel - and do their own thing.. I just believe if a kid is going to do it .. it’s MUCH easier for them to accomplish it with “social media”.

[Greg Linscott]

We encountered a similar media situation recently as a family. My wife came across a conversation one of our girls had with a youth group friend from our church. The boy had used a term we find mildly offensive, and one our children are not allowed to use. Our solution was not to automatically “unfriend” him. Rather, my wife contacted the boy’s mother, who immediately replied, dealt with her son, and had him apologize in person the next time he saw my wife and the girls at church. The family in question are relatively new Christians, so how effective would it have been to write a letter generally addressing boys who use coarse language, or requiring our girls to remove him from their contacts? You miss a prime opportunity to mentor by not going to the parents, in my assessment. Why would it be principally any different with girls posting mildly suggestive “selfies”?

We’ve done this as well, when the girls in question were young(er).

Unfortunately, now that that young ladies are 18, 19, or 20 years old, I’ve just blocked their pictures outright (or unfriended them) because they have been confronted on it many times over the last 3 or 4 years, and frankly, it would be inappropriate for me to confront them each privately; it would be irresponsible for me to allow myself to be continually exposed to that. They are in college and make own choices, and now I have to make mine - to guard my eyes and my mental purity. Choosing to allow myself to be continually exposed to young women in bikinis or swimsuits on Facebook over the last four months does nothing to push me toward more purity or more godliness.

Job wrote in his book:

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? What would be my portion from God above and my heritage from the Almighty on high? Is not calamity for the unrighteous, and disaster for the workers of iniquity? Does not he see my ways and number all my steps? “If I have walked with falsehood and my foot has hastened to deceit; (Let me be weighed in a just balance, and let God know my integrity!) if my step has turned aside from the way and my heart has gone after my eyes, and if any spot has stuck to my hands, then let me sow, and another eat, and let what grows for me be rooted out. If my heart has been enticed toward a woman, and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door, then let my wife grind for another, and let others bow down on her.” (Job 31:1-10, ESV)

I do not and will not ever apologize for that. I do not see why men must be wholly responsible for their sin but the women don’t have to worry about what they want to do at all, and am frankly amazed at the idea that women bear no guilt or responsibility. To be honest, I think this is where feminism and societal mores have made significant inroads in our churches.

[Jay]

I do not and will not ever apologize for that. I do not see why men must be wholly responsible for their sin but the women don’t have to worry about what they want to do at all, and am frankly amazed at the idea that women bear no guilt or responsibility. To be honest, I think this is where feminism and societal mores have made significant inroads in our churches.

I absolutely agree! Thanks for phrasing that so well!

Unfortunately, now that that young ladies are 18, 19, or 20 years old, I’ve just blocked their pictures outright (or unfriended them) because they have been confronted on it many times over the last 3 or 4 years, and frankly, it would be inappropriate for me to confront them each privately; it would be irresponsible for me to allow myself to be continually exposed to that. They are in college and make own choices, and now I have to make mine - to guard my eyes and my mental purity. Choosing to allow myself to be continually exposed to young women in bikinis or swimsuits on Facebook over the last four months does nothing to push me toward more purity or more godliness.

That’s all well and good, but it is not related to Mrs. Hall’s article, which was addressed to teenage girls.

Greg, I don’t agree that it is off topic.

I refuse to accept the modern notion that young men and women are somehow not culpable for their actions until they are 18. This is a major part of the problem. Extended adolescence allows sexually mature young men and women to be treated as children rather than young men and women.

We need to be teaching and training young men and women who have reached sexual maturity that they have the responsibility to act as men and women, not hormonally charged children.

If the young women are posting inappropriate pictures, it makes absolutely no difference if they are 14 or 24. Their actions are damaging to their own personal character and to any man who would have those images put in his view.

Quit making exceptions based on age.

What matters is this. Are they posting pictures/images which entice/inflame the senses? If so their age is irrelevant.

I’m not saying underage girls don’t bear moral responsibility. I am saying that if underage girls are posting provocative photos of themselves, “unfriending” them is not the first and only step one should take. Underage girls are subject to their parents. Parents should be involved, since they have the capability of enforcement and correction. Mrs. Hall warns her target audience that offenders will be unfriended, period. That is what I’m responding to.

While I understand your reasoning, it has one major flaw. You assume that the young ladies parents are actually involved in their lives.

I personally know of a young lady, who created a FB page from the school library computer, because her parents wouldn’t let her have a FB page at home.

Appealing to the parents would have been worse than useless, since the parents had no clue what was going on in their daughter’s life.

The parents did not have/and still do not have, to my knowledge, any clue what she was doing.

Yes, parents should be involved, if they are good parents. Not all parents would care or even appreciate your telling them that their daughter is doing something questionable.

If the parents don’t know, they should. I would want to be told if it were my daughter. Sure, not everyone is going to appreciate the “interference.” But you never know until you try- it’s still the right thing to do.

While I understand that every person bears moral responsibility for their actions before God regardless of age, I’m really flummoxed by this paradigm that seems to make no distinction between teenagers and adults. If this is valid, then why distinguish between children and adults? It’s only a matter of semantics and a couple of years. The line to view children as adults at 12 is just as arbitrary as viewing them as adults at 18. Unless of course, you’re defining adulthood by puberty. In which case, I assume you’d be fine with allowing 12 year olds to marry. If we are going to hold a teenager responsible for their sexuality the same way we hold an adult responsible, then we have no business restricting marriage to certain ages. As soon as they are physically able, they should be allowed to marry as a way to deal with lust.

I guess my biggest question is that this paradigm seems to diminish parental authority and responsibility. Why did God give parents to children and teenagers if there weren’t an intrinsic need for them to continue to be guided and taught through this period of development? And if there is, then the parents are the first people you should address as the ones ultimately responsible for this child.

Simple, the Bible distinguishes between children and adults. Paul said that when he was a child, he acted like a child, but when he was a man, he put away childish things.

I am not good with 12 year olds marrying, but why are you adopting the American age of consent as the standard for sexuality? In the American continents, the age of consent is a whole range from 12-18. The USA (in general as some states are lower at 16) is the high end at 18. God clearly changed the bodies of humans at a certain time in their life. If they aren’t taught about what is going on with their bodies and how to be responsible, then the parents have failed miserably.

Switzerland changed their age of consent for legalized prostitution from 16 to 18 in 2010 - I think I saw that in the WSJ.

Keep this in mind - in Judaism, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is at 13. That’s when they become morally culpable for their own decisions and following the Law. In the OT, men and women are delineated (generally) into two categories - the under 20’s and the adults (20 or older) - read the book of Exodus or Leviticus sometime.

I think that society has gradually pushed that back in order to develop a whole new class of ‘not quite yet’ people for marketing and sales…you’re mature enough to drive, buy your own clothes, get to school, get to work - but don’t you dare get married, drink alcohol, have sex, or fight in the military for a couple more years, and I think that was a bad idea. Maturity is maturity, and I’d trust some 12 yo boys and girls with house or dogsitting more than I would some 17 yo boys or girls.

I agree with you, Hannah, that the line is blurred, and I think we need to develop a response to it. I think that by causing teenagers (yes, possibly even 13-14 year olds) to wait to marry due to a legal guideline could possibly violate I Cor. 7. IIRC, we believe that Mary and Joseph were married that young - and parents to boot!

Greg, the young lady I mentioned had been approached by both parents and my wife privately on several occasions about thinking about the images she was posting and why she wanted those images online. That’s why I finally had to unfriend her as a last step. We still speak and I’m still on good terms with her and the family (her dad is one of my closest friends), but I do not want to see her FB posts anymore. I put it out there for two reasons - sometimes the guys are trying to do the right thing and the women are being a stumblingblock (contrary to what a lot of the response has been), and not all guys are looking for blanket excuses for lust…some of us are serious about preserving our integrity.

Maturity is a process. It doesn’t magically happen the minute a child reaches puberty. I don’t believe in the idea of ‘adolescence’ and I think teen culture has contributed to the moral and intellectual decay of our country. But we shouldn’t go to the extreme of ignoring the fact that the teen years are a time of incredible physical, mental, and emotional change. I mean, my 16 year old has grown 8 inches in the last 16 months, not to mention the fact that he eats 14 pounds of food every day. Sheesh!

I don’t believe that anyone is saying that teens aren’t responsible for their behavior- it is the degree of responsibility to which we hold them. Teens often don’t understand risk, or the long term effects and consequences of their behavior. Many adults understand the repercussions of certain actions and behaviors because of their own experiences (mistakes), which they then (should) try to impart to their children.

How we teach and train children is not One Size Fits All scenario. While society has put ages on certain activities- 16 to get a driver’s license, 18 to vote, 21 to drink alcohol- we know that young people have different levels of understanding and maturity. On the ground, we treat them as individuals, and not en masse.

If parents are failing to address these issues with their children, then the church has some work to do in equipping parents and holding them accountable for being responsible parents.

As American citizens, we are bound to comply with the law, and parents are considered responsible for our children until they are granted independent status in the eyes of the law, and we observe the age of consent when it is applicable.

This is a very important point—the process of maturation. No one is excusing immaturity, just questioning how the process of maturing happens and what we can expect at each stage. We must learn to differentiate between an immaturity that stems from sinful rebellion and the immaturity that is the result of ignorance and less than stellar parenting.

The flip side of this conversation is that we also tend to pressure godly teenagers to commit to life-long paradigms (ie surrendering to full-time Christian service) when they are not (generally speaking) mature enough or aware enough to make that kind of commitment. My parents taught us to be open and sensitive to God’s leading in our lives, but they never pressured us to “lock it in” as a teenager. God’s will revealed itself over the course of our continued maturation—through desires, circumstances, education etc. But I have many peers who did experience this paradigm—who signed some card or threw a stick on a fire—and experienced tremendous guilt and confusion when God led them to be an engineer instead of a pastor.

Truthfully, I think we tend to underestimate the levels at which teens are still maturing—both mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I’m not arguing that teenagers are not responsible for their decisions or that God won’t call a teenager to lifelong Christian service. I’m questioning the paradigm that treats teens as adults as soon as they pass a certain arbitrary age or experience a certain physical milestone without taking into consideration that they are still in the process of maturation.

FWIW,

http://www.livescience.com/21461-teen-brain-adolescence-facts.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/work/adolescent…

I think too many folks in our society are more influenced by The Doors than they realize-

I’m a back door man
The men don’t know
But the little girls understand

Our culture has sexualized young girls to the point that they are, by default, viewed as sexually aware. Sure- they may put their hands on their hips and bat their eyelashes, but do they intend to seduce, or are they imitating something they’ve seen?

I remember once when my now 11 yob was about 4, and we were playing Sorry, and someone sent his piece back to the start. He let out with an obscenity. I asked him where he’d heard that phrase, and turns out it was because he had been spending lots of time with my mom, who is addicted to shows like CSI. He had no idea what it meant, or that it was wrong, and he’d never heard it spoken IRL.

That can happen with girls who aren’t being taught what kinds of actions, looks, etc… are and aren’t appropriate. So it is their parents who need to be addressed as the responsible parties and primary teachers of their children. Publishing a post to shame young girls into doing the right thing is not getting at the root issue if they aren’t being regularly discipled by a mature adult woman in their lives.

And let’s not forget that the initial backlash to this article was the author’s choice to intersperse her post with pictures of her shirtless sons posing and flexing for the camera. I honestly don’t care that she removed them - why did she think they were appropriate in the first place, considering the tone and content of her article? Talk about the mote and the beam.

I honestly don’t care that she removed them - why did she think they were appropriate in the first place, considering the tone and content of her article? Talk about the mote and the beam.

She listened, said she was wrong, and changed it. And you don’t care. Isn’t that a problem? What exactly do you want her to do?

It seems to me that the general consensus here is that the content of the article is correct. The complaints are who is was addressed to (girls instead of parents) and the attitude (shaming, allegedly). To me, both are a bit strange. I will grant that the second may be my male perspective. I don’t see any shaming going on, nor do I see the problem if there is. There are some things about which shame is appropriate. Failure to distinguish between appropriate shame and inappropriate shame is a major failure in disciple-making. But we should not try to embarrass someone who is doing wrong in many or most cases. But it doesn’t read to me like she posted this to shame girls into doing something else. (Ironically, weren’t there a lot of people trying to shame this author for her pictures?)

To the first, quite often in writing, you address people as a group. You make a generalized point from specific examples. You can also make a point differently with a generic, unnamed group, than you can with an individual or individuals. I think it is entirely appropriate to address the offenders as well as their parents. This lady may have in fact done that, or may not have though it really doesn’t need to be done. Someone can defriend someone for reasons that are entirely personal. And someone can write a general article about an issue without meeting certain other expectations that may or may not be legitimate. But I think people are expecting too much from an article like this if they expect to address every single step along the way. Read the article for the big picture.

At the end of the day, the article was correct in its point. And that should be applauded, not shamed.