My ebook version of "You Can Have a Happy Family" is FREE to download Today and Thursday (2/8-2/9) on Amazon to celebrate National Marriage Week.
To also celebrate National Marriage Week, I'll be featuring messages on marriage and family this week. Today's message is by Dr. Ann, author of the popular blog: The Marriage Checklist - Dr. Ann's guide to growing a great marriage
I have been following her blog for a few months now. Ann has a wonderful heart for the Lord and her family. Her messages are both heartfelt and relevant to what families are experiencing today. If this message blesses you, be sure to leave Ann an encouraging comment below.
To also celebrate National Marriage Week, I'll be featuring messages on marriage and family this week. Today's message is by Dr. Ann, author of the popular blog: The Marriage Checklist - Dr. Ann's guide to growing a great marriage
I have been following her blog for a few months now. Ann has a wonderful heart for the Lord and her family. Her messages are both heartfelt and relevant to what families are experiencing today. If this message blesses you, be sure to leave Ann an encouraging comment below.
What Everyone Should Tell Their Kids About Hooking-Up
Does the hook-up culture surprise you?
It doesn’t surprise me.
As a culture, we prize independence and choice. This trend applies to everything: from how we decide what stuff to buy, to how we approach our relationships.
Case in point: one of the biggest trends in marriage today is, well, marriage not.
The University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, has identified a growing group of “non-married adults cohabiting.” (The old term: shacking up.) Many don’t feel that the benefits of marriage are worth the price of commitment.
This trickles down into the young adult world, and feeds the hook-up culture.
Here’s what I think we should tell our kids about it:
God’s design for marriage isn’t about you getting what you want. It’s about giving. Committed and full life giving to one other person: emotionally, physically, fiscally, legally, socially. A whole bunch of -ally’s.
Through giving, we grow. We are changed. That’s the plan God has for our hearts.
There is really no other relationship like marriage.
It’s not an easy plan, though, and I can understand trying to get around it. There are many ways to do so. And hooking-up is one of them.
In hooking-up, sex gets separated from full life commitment. This unbundles the design that God created for sex. Hooking-up really shouts: “What can I get out of you without having to completely give to you?”
Our kids need us to help them stop and pause over that one: “Is that what makes a good friend? A good spouse?”
There are lots of resources out there for how to introduce the topic of sex to kids of various ages. But this is a different and equally crucial conversation.
This conversation is about the Godly intertwining of love, sex, and commitment.
It should match what your kids can understand. Start low and go slow, is the old dictum in medicine.
But start! Now is better than never.
Start the conversation.
Question: Do you talk to your kids about the meaning of sex in love and marriage? About the hook up culture? What do you say?
It doesn’t surprise me.
As a culture, we prize independence and choice. This trend applies to everything: from how we decide what stuff to buy, to how we approach our relationships.
Case in point: one of the biggest trends in marriage today is, well, marriage not.
The University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, has identified a growing group of “non-married adults cohabiting.” (The old term: shacking up.) Many don’t feel that the benefits of marriage are worth the price of commitment.
This trickles down into the young adult world, and feeds the hook-up culture.
Here’s what I think we should tell our kids about it:
God’s design for marriage isn’t about you getting what you want. It’s about giving. Committed and full life giving to one other person: emotionally, physically, fiscally, legally, socially. A whole bunch of -ally’s.
Through giving, we grow. We are changed. That’s the plan God has for our hearts.
There is really no other relationship like marriage.
It’s not an easy plan, though, and I can understand trying to get around it. There are many ways to do so. And hooking-up is one of them.
In hooking-up, sex gets separated from full life commitment. This unbundles the design that God created for sex. Hooking-up really shouts: “What can I get out of you without having to completely give to you?”
Our kids need us to help them stop and pause over that one: “Is that what makes a good friend? A good spouse?”
There are lots of resources out there for how to introduce the topic of sex to kids of various ages. But this is a different and equally crucial conversation.
This conversation is about the Godly intertwining of love, sex, and commitment.
It should match what your kids can understand. Start low and go slow, is the old dictum in medicine.
But start! Now is better than never.
Start the conversation.
Question: Do you talk to your kids about the meaning of sex in love and marriage? About the hook up culture? What do you say?
Dr. Ann is a Christian M.D., wife to a fantastic husband, and mom to a lively gang of three. At The Marriage Checklist Ann blogs about marriage, motherhood, and more! She helps women build better life balance and grow great marriages. Ann will soon be a Crosswalk.com blogger, and has been featured on BlogHer, Fox news, and Good Morning America. She loves that every day we can choose to take our best steps forward – for God, for the people in our lives, and for ourselves. Are you ready then? Let’s go!
You can read more from Dr. Ann at TheMarriageChecklist.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
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