Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Just say no!

This was a slogan put out by the Health Dept of Western Australia, quite a few years ago now. It was aimed at young people and was part of their safe sex programme.

As you can imagine the slogan attracted a lot of comment. Many people felt it was unrealistic to ask young people to say no to relations outside marriage or to say no to casual sleeping around.

Why am I writing about this?

Yesterday, two homeschool friends and I were talking, while our teens were at band practice and the younger ones were war gaming.

One friend mentioned that her church recently hosted a talk for teens/young people on the issue of abstinence - or not.

She said that, later, her own children asked her about her experiences - had she abstained before marriage.

And, yes, she told them the truth - and her reasons for her choices.

So, we three mothers got to talking. Is it hard to expect our children to wait until marriage ( if, indeed, marriage is in the picture for them).

What is a Christian viewpoint?

The other friend told how some young people in her church are married young - presumably as a solution to the abstinence?

Both friends asked me about my older sons and their thoughts - they are young Christians who are not married. What choices are they making - and why?

Now, obviously, this is a matter between my older sons and God.

But over the years Gerry (dh) and I have talked about why the Church encourages us to wait for marriage - or to be celibate if that is where we are called. About avoiding occasions of possible temptation, where possible.

And all parents know that, ultimately, young adults will make their own choices. We can pray but they are their own people and have their own relationships - with God and with others.

They will make their choices - prayerfully, and sacramentally, we hope - just as we made and continue to make ours.

Can they just say no?

Here are a couple of articles .Everyone has his own gift from God, suited to his vocation - Pope John Paul 2

Pope John Paul 2 - Paul's teaching on the sanctity and respect of the human body

A Christian View of Sex

4 comments:

Cindy said...

Wow, Leonie, you are bringing up some weighty idea in your posts of late! lol I love it.

I was just about to make another blog entry on moving again.. :)

I will think as I work out today.

I have lots of thoughts.. for me the trick is to distill them into postable sense. :)

Thanks for the post--

Leonie said...

Cindy, mostly I am my usual flippant self on my blog ( lol!) but every now and then issues seem to come into my life - and I blog and talk about them. :-)

Will check out your blogs today.

Anonymous said...

Interesting topic and I love how you broached it :-) I've been inspired by Christopher West along these lines and am encouraging our young adult sons to go to one of his seminars....you are right, ultimately they will have to make that choice and hopefully we will have given them the right tools to make a thoughtful one :-)

Leonie said...

Yes, Beate, I pray and hope we have given the right boys the tools to help them deal with these issues :-).....Haven't heard of Christopher West - will have to check him out on the we.Thanks for dropping by!