Can We Not Do Better for Our Sons and Daughters?

Yesterday I was listening to a conversation about the Jameis Winston case on a national sports talk radio station.  Winston is the Quarterback for Florida State and is considered to be the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.  Last month the public learned that a young woman reported Winston to the police for allegedly assaulting her last December.  After looking over all of the evidence, the Florida State Attorney’s Office announced last week there was not sufficient evidence to charge him with this crime.  (Because of this, we should assume that Winston is not guilty of this allegation.  Plus his guilt of lack there of is outside the scope of this post.)

Since the entire scenario surrounding the Winston case involved the college bar scene, the host of the talk radio show asked the audience what advice they would give to their daughters about drinking in college.  The callers began to offer their collective wisdom.  “I would tell my girls that they do not need to get so drunk that they are not aware of their surroundings.”  “The daughter of one of my friends always goes out with a group and they agree not to leave each other the entire night, especially if they are going to drink a lot.”
Is this where we have arrived as a culture?  We send our sons and daughters off to college assuming that they are going to spend their weekends in a drunken stupor, so we just need to give them advice on how not to get sexually assaulted when they do it?  We have to do better for our sons and daughters than this.

We must teach our daughters that their beauty is not found in how they look outwardly, but in their heart toward the Lord, in their character, and in how they treat other people.  What if we showed them that finding unconditional approval before the Lord was better than seeking the conditional approval of teenage boys?  Can we not show them the blessing of self-control and the foolishness of drunkenness?

And then for our sons, can we stop treating them as if they are genetically wired to be drunken slobs and perverts?  Isn’t there room to teach our sons that they are defined by who they are in Christ and not by what they achieve?  Shouldn’t we show them that other young women are to be treated as sisters who are to be honored rather than objects to be conquered?  What about teaching our sons self-control as well?  They are not slaves to their biology and impulses, but instead can be slaves to Christ who frees those that belong to him.

We can and must do better for our sons and daughters.  We sit passively while the world defines who they should be and what they should do.  Armed with nothing more than their personal passions and desire to be liked, they are being sent out like lambs into the slaughter.  We must begin to go on offense with these issues and help them find their identity in the only one who gives them true freedom and fulfillment.  Our offensive on this front must start sooner rather than later.