What I Tell My Pre-Teen About Porn

Yesterday, I did a quick check-in with my preteen daughter about how her heart and mind were doing re: inadvertent exposure to sexual or violent images. I use different words, of course. Otherwise, the very act of asking about things could create trouble—and I surely don’t want to do that! But as we were there, nose-to-nose, snuggling and talking about important things, I asked if she had seen anything troubling or tempting on any technology or on a bookshelf at a friend’s home or in a store, etc.

She mentioned how the title “The Lady with the Dragon Tattoo” had created in her a desire for a second glance when she saw it on a bookshelf at a friend’s home, but that was pretty much it. She didn’t explore it and she wasn’t having any troubling thoughts about it.

I thanked her for sharing about this important part of her life (as I always do). I reiterated what an honor it was to pray for her about such things, especially as she continues to mature and have more and more opportunities to glance longer and longer and things that might seems so … interesting. Enticing. (As adults, the term “titillating” would be an appropriate descriptor.)

And then I told her a variation of what I tell her pretty much every single time we venture into this area of life. My spiel goes something like this:

“My darling daughter. I hope you know that when daddy and I talk about these things with you, and urge you to be careful, wise, and intentional about avoiding these things, we’re not trying to keep something good from you. We’re not standing here, body-blocking you from something super fun and interesting and beautiful because we just want you to have a drag of a life and we don’t want you to be blessed.

When I ask you about these things; when I pray and beg God for His protection for you; when I counsel you to STAY AWAY FROM THESE IMAGES AND SOUNDS, I am doing it because I SO long for you to NEVER have to deal with the ramifications of them being inside of you. Not even for ONE MINUTE.

Like a drop of black ink spreading throughout a clear glass of crystal clean water, these sounds and images get into our brains in a darkening, clouding way.

Of course, God gives us grace. You know my story. You know that by the time I was your age, my mind was bombarded by hundreds, thousands, of images and sounds that I wish I never knew existed. And God was so gracious and is so gracious to help me—to save me and sanctify me and my memories so that, by His grace alone, daddy and I enjoy a happy, sweet, fun, intimate life together.

But. It has still been hard. Very hard. It was hard for me as a child. Harder still as a teenager and young adult. Hard when I met and fell in love with your daddy and we were married and we began the good, pure, God-honoring, strong, cement-together-one-man-and-one-woman-for-LIFE, aspect of our intimate life together. At the worst possible times, specific images would come into my mind from 1974. 1975. Preschool! Kindergarten! Images that my five year-old self didn’t understand; that provoked strong physical and emotional responses in me; things that brought me shame; things that warped my view of women and of men and of sexuality. Forty years later, I remember exactly what I saw and what I felt and how I didn’t understand either. And this, my dear, is what I want to protect you from to the utmost of my ability.

Yes, we live in a hyper-erotic society. Yes, billboards are everywhere. Sounds are everywhere. Even our careful use of Netflix and iTunes with no “real” tv cannot protect you as you continue to grow up and are in increasingly unsupervised situations with increasing amounts of opportunities to look. And look again. And again.

That’s why I ask you direct questions now. I tell you the stories of the GOOD (because this aspect of life IS SO GOOD in its proper context). I try to give age-appropriate warnings and, like so many aspects of life, I pray that you will NOT be like me.

God gives us grace! I am a living testimony to that. But it would be far, far better to just avoid the disastrous poison of sexually explicit and exploitave images and sounds.”

(‘Course, that’s not even going down the whole rabbit trail of why we live the way we do as a family so that every single month we can donate to International Justice Mission so that we can be one tiny part of trying to rescue victims of violence, sexual exploitation, and slavery—a whole ‘nother aspect of this conversation that, it seems to me, we MUST be having with our children.)

Is this a hard topic for you? It is for me too. Maybe you’ll want to read some of my other posts for encouragement and practical helps.

Oh. And Mary? I don’t think I would have shared this story if I hadn’t been encouraged by your blog post that recently showed up in my stats/feed. Thank you, my friend. I love you. And maybe our combined efforts will keep even just one child from the statistically “guaranteed” early childhood inadvertent exposure to porn. I pray that it is so.

For the glory of the Lord and His Bride—and the protection of the children in our care,
Tara B.

[A re-post from 2015]