‘The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man
and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
– G.K. Chesteron
...there’s a “hanging out” phenomenon among so many young adults. No one wants to call it a date or make any kind of commitment. The dynamic is that one of the two, usually the woman, is hoping for something more to develop. “If I just hang out with this guy indefinitely he will see how great I am. He will realize that he can’t live without me.” Meanwhile the guy is feeling, “No, we’re just friends.”
I call this a “friendlationship.” The couple’s not intentional about the relationship and it’s a recipe for disaster.
I had a friend who spent seven years in one of these waiting for the guy to come around. He never had any intention of dating her. He just loved that she was always available when he wanted to get pizza or talk on the phone. He was just using her for attention, to be a buddy when he needed someone to hang out with.
We’ve allowed this period of time between the teen years and adulthood to be a wasteland. There’s no timeframe for it. We allow kids to “find themselves,” have fun, do what they want while they’re single and we say, “Don’t worry, marriage will come along down the road.” Well, sometimes it doesn’t.
My husband and I have four daughters and these are our thoughts:
We have seen these exact things with young men and not so young men even in the homeschooled realm.
We see two ditches:
One is making marriage a timed goal and mad rush to marry:
...Many times not checking into character or even waiting even four seasons to observe a young person's character. It's frightening what we are seeing. Parents are equally if not more at fault in these situations many times not listening, refusing to listen to the safety of wise counsel as the Bible says. Enough said on that at this time.
One is perpetual childhood and man's myth of education first:
We are seeing game-playing, perpetual boys and on the other hand, young women who are being trained that their career goal is "all". I sat at a banquet once with another homeschool couple who also had daughters. When the subject of marriage naturally came up, the dad's quick response was: "Their college education must come first!" As he held his pointer finger up smiling. Me thinking of their suppressed daughters, heaven forbid they would want to marry as God encourages before a degree! ; )
What happened to God's gift of homelife? What happened to a young couple marrying and growing together financially toughing it a bit? What happened to the value of a young woman's beautiful aspiration and call to be a stay at home mom? Homemaking skills anyone? : ) What are we really teaching our young people in what we major on in action, word and attitude as in what is important? From what we see it just does not make sense if many of these families are truly aspiring to leave a Godly heritage.
One situation we saw was with our oldest daughter when she was a much younger lady. She and a young man in his twenties in our church were on the verge of an engagement when she mentioned children and being a stay at home mom he and his parents behaved as if this was over the top in the way of convictions. The mom had always pulled herself up by the bootstraps enabling an unstable husband .
What happened? The young man was wooed away by a not-so-nice family's jealous ploys. Later within a year or so he married yet another girl from another church. Now? The father of the then-young man complains to my husband. Why? Because their son married a girl that loves to work outside the home and places their four children in daycare. I humbly rest my case.
You may say, well it's a good thing your daughter did not end up in that family. Yes! You are probably right! : )
What we do, what we emphasize will be caught by our children.
"So goes the goes the home goes the church, so goes the church goes the country."
In Christ's love, ~Amelia
Our family blog on day to day living: My Forest Cathedral
My blog with craft projects, wardrobe re-dos, old good old wholesome 40s movies and easy-breezy recipes: thats-italian, live laugh, love and pray hard....
2 comments:
Yes Amelia!
What happened to the good old days???
Sadly these values are leaving our culture. the baby boomers are growing older and our country is in a need for godly homes.
great, great post.
I hear ya. That's pretty much how life is these days. And you're right, even with homeschooled girls in our sons' Christian college (A/G), it is education first. Get on the marketplace. Bucks is everything. At that college, it started out like you said at first: Get married right away no matter what (a ring by spring or your money back) and girls who graduated without at least an engagement ring practically committed hari-kari. Then one of the professors brought in a video on courtship, and then it became a sin to get married unless you had waited years and years, and dating was out of the question. Both our sons got out of there without financees or spouses, which is NOT what we wanted. We sent them there in hopes they would find a Christian mate. My older son has no prospects at all (even Christian girls tell him he's "too nice," just a friend, but that's all); my younger son has met a girl where everybody seems to these days -- on the internet (we're all going out to meet her and her family this summer, Lord willing). All the Christian girls at college told him he was "too nice," too. (Then years from now, these girls wonder why they end up in the women's shelter -- do they want somebody to beat them??? Surely not!)
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