Debut of—Just Ask The Wemmicks!
By Natalie, Editress of Visionary Womanhood
In today’s debut of Just Ask the Wemmicks, we have a wonderful Wemmick question for you – along with several Wemmick answers. I’ll be posting my answer here on Visionary Womanhood, but you will also be able to read what some of our other Wemmick contributors have to share on this topic. I’ll put links to their blogs – and their answers – at the end of this post.
So without further ado, here is the question for today:
My question is regarding protecting our children from seeing too much skin in the summer months. A few years ago, my husband and I realized that we cannot go to public beaches and water slide anymore because of the amount of skin exposure. We want to protect our boys’ minds. It has been TOUGH. We do not have free access to any pools, and we have to get out to the lake early enough to find a private spot. It is not always a good spot for teaching our youngest children to swim. Recently, we have been going to a semi-private spot near a major beach. It is turning out to not be private enough, since we are still exposed to some inappropriate swimwear. Today we dropped a few of our older sons off with extended family for a boating trip. There was a bikini involved, which was something we had not anticipated. My husband had an uncomfortable conversation, she got dressed, but I am unsure of what happened after we left. I am starting to feel like such a compromiser!
Most of our conservative friends do not bother themselves much with this issue, and still go to public beaches…I was hoping that someone at Visionary Womanhood might have some insights on all of this. I would love to hear from an older teen boy/young adult who was raised by parents who guarded his eyes. Do all of you avoid all boating trips and boat docks in addition to the public beaches? How do you deal with extended family who are showing too much skin?
Ah, if only earth were heaven. Wouldn’t that just solve it all?
But since it isn’t, we need some solutions. Here are a couple ideas from our family:
Ping Pong
We don’t go swimming much – we live in Minnesota, for Pete’s sake. While it is the land of 10,000 lakes – some of which are nice to swim in – it is also the land of 10,000 blizzards for 9 out of 12 months a year. This makes swimming season sort of short.
We do go to a cabin for a week every summer where there is a public beach, and depending on the year, bikini clad girls. I’ve never seen my husband or boys look at them. I’m serious. I realize this may be abnormal, but I have to say what is true for us. The guys are too busy fishing, jumping off the raft, swimming, skiing, tubing, and eating hamburgers to care. I do not take this for granted, but rather view it as a grace of God in the lives of our kids so far.
When our boys were little, we taught them how to ping pong their eyes off of Bad Stuff. Bad Stuff could include lots of different things – not just Naked Ones. We live in a Bad World, so Bad Stuff is everywhere. I suppose we could hole up underground and wait for the rapture, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind when He gave His commission to us.
What to do? Ping Pong. Eyes will fall on the Bad Stuff by accident all the time. What you do when that happens is what will make or break you. You either Linger Longingly – or you Ping Pong. We didn’t really make a Big Hairy Deal out of Bad Stuff. We were nervous that if we did – it would make our kids overly curious about stuff that was stupid anyway. So the Ping Ponging thing just became part of normal life.
I asked my boys, ages 17 and 19, what they thought. They wanted me to tell you that Naked Ones are featured on magazine covers in grocery stores, billboards, TV ads, Internet ads, and a host of other places. Not just the local beach. Their solution? Don’t look. Refocus your eyes and mind on other things. Ignore. It’s possible because the power of the Holy Spirit lives in you. That’s what they said.
Psssst: we don’t tell our kids about sex when they are kids. Do KIDS need to know? What is a gift for a married man and woman is just a burden of knowledge for a child. Unless they need to have sex, they don’t need to know all the ins and outs, so to speak. I realize we are a bit odd that way, especially in our sex obsessed culture, but the results have been pretty incredible so far. Our four oldest have maintained their innocence without being completely ignorant of everything. It has saved them a world of trouble, in my opinion, and has likely been one of the reasons they are so nonchalant about this issue. While everyone around them is freaking out about sex, they view it as just one of many cool gifts from God. They are enjoying other gifts while waiting to open up that one.
Psssst (again): Just because the men folk in our family know how to Ping Pong doesn’t mean they are Ping Pong Champions who would successfully navigate a movie full of Naked Ones. Even Christian Naked Ones. Especially Christian Naked Ones. They are just average Ping Ponging Wemmicks, so don’t get to admiring them too much. We had to miss Soul Surfer. Curses.
Psssst (one last time): Any of them could fall at any time. My head is not in the sand on this. They have sinful hearts like the rest of the Wemmick race. I’d be a fool if I didn’t think they would never succumb to any kind of temptation. I do pray daily that God would guide them and fill them with His power to live honorably in the sight of God and man. So if God answers those prayers, I will praise Him for that and be forever grateful. My hope is not in our parenting or in our kids. My hope is in God alone.
Love God. Love People.
If your children know – REALLY know – that God treasures them, that they are His, that God is the Big Everything in all of life, and then if they, in turn, love Him, spend time with Him, and desire to live lives that honor Him—they will not be perfect, but they will move in a God-ward direction on their own. A natural by-product of that will be self-control in this area.
How? Because…
If your children comprehend the love that God has for their fellow Wemmicks – including the Naked Ones – they will guard their eyes from scraping over the exposed bodies in selfish lust. They will honor the Naked Ones by keeping their eyes to themselves. This, in turn, honors the One who created and loves the Naked Ones. Yes, He did and does. They are precious to Him.
Trim the Mountain Down to a Mole Hill
The best way to make this a non-issue in your family – is to make it a non-issue. If you talk about it, rant about it, point it out, get emotional about it, say critical things about the Naked Ones every chance you get, then guess what? Your kids will think about it, get curious about it, point it out, get emotional about it, say critical things about the Naked Ones every chance they get – and feel mighty good about themselves—all while secretly looking and lingering every. single. chance. they. get.
You will have raised a little pharisee.
I know because I am a little pharisee myself. And this is an area that we have to strategically work on in our own family all the time.
So there’s my answer! But I’m just one little Wemmick. How about hopping over to another Wemmick blog for some more ideas?
Bambi Moore, In the Nursery of the Nation
Terry Covey, A Mom’s Many Lessons
Kelly Crawford, Generation Cedar
Tyanne, Lamp on a Stand
Marci Ferrell, A Thankful Homemaker
Marcia Wilwerding, eHomebody
Molly Evert, Counter-Cultural Mom
Cindy Dyer, Get Along Home
(Please note: if you are reading this in an email and a link fails to work, just click over to the blog. We’ll update any weird links once our posts all go “live.” Not everyone is sure how this works when we put links in before the posts are actually published. Thanks for your patience!)
Tags: Just Ask the Wemmicks!, modesty, purity
We’d have to go out of this world to avoid the chance of ever seeing someone scantily dressed, but that doesn’t mean we deliberately go places where tons of people will be even less dressed than normal. We teach our children to look away when they see someone half-naked, but not to make a big deal of it. And we explain that even Christians don’t always understand things the same way we do. But, we don’t go seeking out the worst examples of it, and we don’t want to normalize it.
So, for us, we would go to a hot public 4th of July fireworks display, where many people will be in shorts, tank tops, etc, but only a few people would be in super-scanty attire. We do not go to public pools. We do not go to a crowded beach at the height of summer. However, we did just recently go to the beach in early May (much less crowded time) and rented a house in an area that’s not as popular (northern Outer Banks of NC). This meant that we shouldn’t have really have other people within 100 feet of us, and we didn’t.
Would we like our children to learn to swim ideally? Well, yes. And at the beach, we specifically got a house with a private pool so we could work on some water safety skills, though no one actually progressed in 3 days to independent swimming. But, with the possible exception of people who live on the water, it’s not actually a necessary life skill. It’s a leisure activity. There are far more important things to us.
Great post! I love your “pssst’s”! This is a great idea. Thanks for your hard work on this site.
Terry Covey recently posted…Guiding Our Children In An Immodest World
I think “Ping Pong” is a GREAT attitude! So often it seems “modesty” is an extreme topic. “Stuff” exists. You’re right, we can’t get away from it. That doesn’t mean we should give up and SEEK it, but rather learn to not give it attention and model the behavior we’d like to see (because isn’t that what we’re told when our kids are toddlers?) I’m more concerned that my sons learn to respect women, no matter what they wear – they should treat them the same whether they’re in a skimpy bikini or in robes and veiled like our Blessed Mother. Now, fair is fair – while I’m at it, I need to model appropriate clothing for my daughter (and set limits in our home for all of them), so that they ALL learn.
Meg recently posted…Happy Birthday, Damien!
I think children learn from the examples they have in front of them. What I mean is you not dressing or acting that way can make a huge impact. My boys are young and by no means am I impressed with the lack of clothing that seems to be the norm. I don’t understand why people think it is cute to dress a little girl in a bikini at 2,3, 4 or at really any other age. I decided a long time ago not to dress in anyway that would embarrass my sons now or in the future. I used to be a heavier female I am not anymore still I am conscious of how I appear. Thank you for teaching your sons right from wrong.
I love this idea! I read every one and got something different and valuable from each writer. Thank you!
I just wanted to share that with four sons- we have basically had to teach them to turn away and not look. It’s going to be out there in many situations as they get older and not just the beach. We also don’t go to the beach often so it’s just not there all the time.
Since we live in Florida, I would just like to share a friend of mine’s story when she took her four girls and husband to what they thought was a quiet beach. As they found the quiet spot away from people..another lady saw them and there adorable girls and thought wouldn’t it be fun to sit by them. My friend was thinking..oh no..we may need to move as the lady in her thong plopped down close enough to talk.No need because as soon as her youngest daughter saw her she exclaimed at the top of her lungs to the lady..”Did someone forget to tell you to put clothes on today”…The lady grabbed her stuff and moved far away!! I thought it was hysterical!!
I loved this post, and the idea of Ping Pong. Very balanced, great stuff!
Ironically, just yesterday I took 4 of my children to the public pool. The boys all got busy building rafts out of kick boards and never even looked up once. They are often totally oblivious as they go about their boyish games!
But my two year old daughter asked me VERY loudly, “Mommy, why aren’t you swimming in your bra like that girl is? Why is that girl swimming in her bra?” I didn’t think the teenage girl heard her, and I shushed her quietly in her ear, whispering “Don’t talk about that out loud, it will be embarrassing if she hears you.” At just that moment the girl started coming nearer to us, and my daughter asked about the girl’s “bra” again, this time in a very loud stage whisper! She continued to whisper her curious questions–very loudly–as I tried to move in the opposite direction away from the girl. Since no one else was at the pool, save us and her, I am pretty sure she heard my daughter loud and clear!
It was an awkward moment, but my little girl’s comments point out the obvious: a bikini looks no different than a bra and panties. To be seen outside in your underwear would be horrifying, yet many people think nothing of being seen in the other.
Molly recently posted…When Walls are Not Enough: Raising Boys in an Immodest Culture
Finally, some balance! Thank you
♥
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