Now or Later

Parents have the task of bringing their children up in the admonition of the Lord and the influence of the Scriptures, yet they cannot go on dates with their kids to keep them in line. Parents always must be a resource of God’s standards when a young person needs an answer, but kids ultimately make their own decisions. The more they are taught from their early years to make proper choices, the easier it will be for them to stay on the right course when temptation comes.

Sure, you may have to expend more time and energy to guard yourself and your children against the onslaught of lies being propagated through the media. And you may need to mount a personal campaign to confront your local television stations and the advertisers who sponsor them. But if you don’t make an investment in your kids now, you may have to later, after the unchallenged lies of the media have made a shambles of their personal lives.

Communicating Inadequacy

The media not only distorts sexual realities, but it also cultivates feelings of inadequacy among young viewers. When judging the value of a person, tremendous emphasis is placed on the physical. The media communicates that the value of a person is primarily his or her physical attractiveness. We are blitzed in the media with an endless parade of beautiful women, which gives teenage girls a very unrealistic standard by which to judge their own attractiveness.

I hope you know that the media’s standard for beauty is not realistic. What’s more, it is constantly changing with regard to which body types, hair styles, fashions, etc. are “in.” Think what that does to the average young woman. For many of them, it has totally distorted their sense of self-worth. If by comparison to the latest standards of physical beauty she is not attractive, she sees herself as without worth or value, which results in tremendous feelings of inadequacy.