Girls Don’t Have to Go Wild
By J. Lee Grady Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears seem to dominate the headlines today. “PARIS GOES to JAIL”; “PARIS IS OUT OF JAIL”; “LINDSAY IS DRUNK”; “LINDSAY IS IN REHAB”; “BRITNEY SHAVED HER HEAD”; “BRITNEY HATES HER MOM” Everywhere you look, the media reminds us that American girls have become party animals.
Young women today are binge drinking like never before, experimenting with drugs both new and old, running up huge credit card bills and losing their virginity by age 15. We even have an X-rated video series called Girls Gone Wild that portrays college-age American females as brainless nymphomaniacs, all of them ready to flash their breasts and hop in bed with guys who are willing to buy them another beer.
Girls Gone Wild might be categorized as reality television, but it is not based on a shred of truth. Not all American girls today want to club all night with Paris or drive drunk with Lindsay. Some of them want to study, make the dean’s list, be in the dorm by curfew, get enough sleep and keep away from sexually transmitted diseases by practicing abstinence. Sometimes, “boring” is actually very smart.
My 21-year-old daughter Margaret is a case in point. She got engaged last weekend to her boyfriend, Rick, who she has been dating for three years. They met at a Christian college in Georgia when Margaret was a freshman, and Rick has been a part of our family ever since. After he proposed, we all celebrated by watching Father of the Bride. Margaret figured that a comedy would be the best way to prepare me for the expenses of our first family wedding.
I will spend a lot of money for a photographer next summer, but there will be no reporters at the wedding and none of the photos will be published in any of the tabloids. I can guarantee no newspaper will run a headline that says “GEORGIA COUPLE WAITS UNTIL MARRIAGE FOR SEX” or “VIRGINS TAKE WEDDING VOWS.” That kind of news doesn’t sell papers.
Still, I’m thankful that Margaret and Rick decided at the beginning of their relationship to swim upstream and defy the status quo. Early in their relationship, when they watched other dating couples compromise with the world’s standards, they made a commitment to stay sexually pure. And they are not weirdos for doing that. They are part of a new generation of youth today who are unwilling to bow to the spirit of Baal.
I will admit that I have often worried about the challenges of raising daughters in this crazy age. My fears surfaced about 15 years ago when I was in a department store in northern Virginia with Margaret. She was a precocious, talkative 6-year-old with a flair for the dramatic. You just never knew what she might say to perfect strangers.
We walked past the women’s lingerie section and she impulsively grabbed a pair of lacy, pink panties off a rack and twirled them in the air with her finger. Then she declared to every shopper within range: “I am going to wear these panties when I am 18!”
Horrified, I ducked my head and pulled Margaret toward the escalator, trying to avoid eye contact with the amused customers who overheard her awkward proclamation. They were probably thinking to themselves, That little girl is going to be quite a handful when she grows up.
Fast-forward to 2007, when I received a message from Margaret on Father’s Day while I was on a ministry trip to South America. She was writing me from college, just before she was to leave for her own missions trip to Peru. She wanted to thank me for my influence in her life, and to assure me that she and Rick have stayed sexually pure throughout their dating years.
Margaret wrote in her e-mail: “It is kind of sad that a lot of Christian couples?though waiting for marriage to have sex?still push their limits. I know you probably already know this but Rick and I don’t push limits. We abide by the ‘bathing suit rule,’ which says that while kissing you should never ever touch anything a modest bathing suit covers.”
I doubt anyone will create a video about Margaret and Rick’s “bathing suit rule”?nor will it make tabloid headlines. But this proud father is happy that his daughter can qualify as a healthy role model for a wayward generation that is starving for boundaries.
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J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma.
DISCLAIMER: Church of God and Faith News does not necessarily endorse or sanction all or any part of this news item.
