catholicsphere

If there’s one thing I can teach my kids about dating and relationships, it would be to go slow. That can be tough in an “I want it all and I want it now” culture. But, I hope the example I set and the story can testify to that.

The other day my 6-year-old daughter came home from kindergarten and said that she was going to marry a boy in her class. We had a bit of fun talking about the reasons, however I also felt it was important to let her know that there will be plenty of time for thinking of who you’re going to marry. And, I told her so, once we’d dispensed with some laughter. No need to go rushing into relationships or marriage.

Yet, our culture is obsessed with doing precisely that; although instead of marriage, its cohabitation, aka “living together”. Watch movies or television shows and you’ll see a lack of courtship. Everyone’s rushing into intimacy and sex; “Love at first sight” has become “sex at first sight”.

Then, shortly thereafter, they begin to get to know each other and discover that they don’t really like each other at all. Though I watched maybe 2 episodes of HBO’s “Sex and the City”, I heard that was the case for most all of that show.

My wife and I met in college. We went out a few times, to a movie and then to a local “establishment” to talk afterwards. Then we parted ways at the end of the semester, when she graduated (I had 2 semesters left because I’d take some extra time getting an Associate degree at community college before going to university.)

Around the time of my graduation, she called and we began to talk on the phone regularly. We lived 50 miles apart and so it wasn’t practical for us to go out often. That allowed us to really get to know each other on an intellectual level. And, we were able to get together from time to time so it wasn’t like it was completely intellectual, which also could be problematic since some in-person contact is needed to know a person’s quirks, etc.

That’s what I want my kids to know. Don’t jump into physical intimacy. Don’t even jump into dating. In fact, I would recommend courtship over dating. Get to know someone first, whether you want to spend more time with them or not. And, know whether you want to give them a part of yourself; and by this I’m not talking about sex, but about a matter of sharing deeper thoughts, hopes and dreams. Doing so means making yourself more open and vulnerable to hurt, and you need to know whether someone is going to smash down those hopes and dreams before you open up that way.

Our kids need to be enabled to want to make good decisions in these areas, particularly because as parents we can’t completely make the choices for them. The best we can do is be good guides and examples to them. That happens everyday, even from an early age.

It’s something my wife and I are already working to teach our daughter. And, by the time she reaches an age when she wants to go out on a date or to a school dance or whatever, she’s going to be the kind of girl that “pimps” and “thugs” will hate.

And, by the way, this kind of stuff is also discussed in John Paul the Great’s “Theology of the Body”.

[tags]fatherhood, relationship, parenting, children, catholicism, theology of the body, catholic, faith, love, marriage, dating, catholicsphere[/tags]