mgood wrote:
Disclaimer:
I do not have children - possibly because my mother warned me that they would be just like me.
I have a son who is 20 months. I worry about him incessantly. I cannot fathom the worry I will have once he is a teenager.
Flip that situation into a daughter, and knowing what I know, and I imagine I will spend my 40's on stabilizers with grey hair.
My wife and I are trying for another. Of course I simply pray that the baby will be healthy, but I do follow up with a plea for 3 or 4 boys! I was an ADD spazz when I was a kid. My mom sometimes said "I hope you have a kid just like you."
It appears her wish was granted.
lawrnk wrote:I have a son who is 20 months. I worry about him incessantly. I cannot fathom the worry I will have once he is a teenager.
Flip that situation into a daughter, and knowing what I know, and I imagine I will spend my 40's on stabilizers with grey hair.
I'm in the same boat, but my son is 5 and my daughter is 2. The only thing I can say is - I'm glad I had the boy first. At least he can look out for his little sister a bit (he already does). And I know that he will be allowed to go places that I won't be by that time...
I have one child - an 18 year old boy. Your daughters are safe around him. He was well churched growing up, and we've done our level best to raise him right. So far, we've been successful. Our biggest worries? That the girls he chooses to go out with are also as well churched, well mannered, AND as committed to abstinence as he is. If you wave a gun around at him, he's going to ask you about which is your favorite, and talk about rifles, ranges, calibers, and accuracy with you. He might even forget why he came in the first place.
Honestly, I lived my teenage years in liberal 60s California culture, and I was a bit of a Lothario as a young man. But I have to be equally honest and say that none of the girls I (ahem) "dated" ever had to be forced into anything, and they were just as often the instigators of wrong actions as I was. It is not a period of my life of which I am particularly proud, but it takes two to tango, and the blame was not all mine. In my experience, women, as an overall gender, are not any more saintly than men, and they are just as capable of sin as any man. My wife and I made it our goal, our Ebeneezer stone, if you will, to break that cycle of behavior in our branch of the family, and to start anew, walking in faith, and hewing to a more Biblical morality.
Perhaps God granted me a mercy by giving me a son instead of a daughter so that I would not have to fear suitors who were like me as a young man. Or, perhaps he gave me a son so that I could appreciate how God can shape a young man from an early age into a son to be proud of. I also appreciate those of you who want to protect your daughters, and may God grant that your efforts are successful. But please know that there are some of us who feel the same way about our sons, and not all teenaged son are dogs, and not all teenage girls are innocent. Some of teenage boys are men. Real, solid, upright men. And they know how to respect and cherish a woman.
I just wanted to get that off my chest.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
The Annoyed Man wrote: none of the girls I (ahem) "dated" ever had to be forced into anything, and they were just as often the instigators of wrong actions as I was. It is not a period of my life of which I am particularly proud, but it takes two to tango, and the blame was not all mine. In my experience, women, as an overall gender, are not any more saintly than men, and they are just as capable of sin as any man.
I live in a community with more children than most anywhere I know. The only place I can think of with more kids per capita is possibly Salt Lake City. <zing>
That being said, I operated a business here for years that brought me into many homes. 99% of my customer were homemakers w/children and/or teenagers. Sometimes they would sit and chat with me while I worked, and I would sometimes mention I was kind of a worrier and was grateful I had a son. Now I was eluding to the fact that in my household growing up, you simply worried about boys less than you did the girls. It was a general thing, not a dating thing. These women would often echo the same sentiment. "You have more to worry about now with boys. You have no idea how aggressive girls have become this decade..it is shocking" Truth or not, it is the sentiment in Sienna Plantation, TX.
lawrnk wrote:erm...I am confused by 14(c)
What is the proper answer?
Well, from the t-shirt:
A woman's place is in the house...
And the Senate.
No kidding, my parents as a joke asked a boy to fill it out years ago, and he did. We discovered after a few years none was true...but funny in retrospect. That being said, I will support anything my child/children wish to do, but I would be tickled pink if I had a daughter and she had the opportunity to be a homemaker. Many families cannot afford to, and I am grateful to have been raised by a homemaker.
