They Grow Up Fast Enough

I’ll never forget the look on my dad’s face as we drove on to campus for the first time my freshman year of college. As we passed each and every scantily dressed young lady my dad’s face would redden with embarrassment until he finally said, “Are clothes not required here?”

Just a few short years later my boyfriend (now husband) and I got into a pretty heated disagreement when I announced to him that I would not be attending the Campus Ministry Back to School Beach Party, even though I was a Campus Ministry intern and required to go. As a young California-bred teenager, “beach life” was a very natural part of his life and he couldn’t understand why I felt it was inappropriate for a bunch of young Christian men and women who barely knew each other to be running around together or having a devotional while only half dressed.

A month later our Campus Ministry team hosted a fall-retreat with guest speaker Christopher Green to talk about “Temples to gods”. During the retreat Christopher had the students divide into groups to create clay models that represented the idols or struggles that prevented each student from growing closer to God. Throughout the course of the weekend the students shared with each other about their struggles and at the end of the weekend Christopher had each student toss their idol off the side of a cliff in an act of reverence to God. While the retreat was amazing in and of itself, what was truly amazing was the effect the retreat had on the men of our campus.

Because so many men had shared openly about their addiction to pornography, the Campus Ministry team hosted a post-retreat accountability group for men with sexual addictions and was floored with the number of young men who attended. My husband, a Spiritual Disciplines intern at the time, shared with me some of the things shared in the group and said that the overwhelming “theme” of the addictions had to do with relieving the sexual tension of living in a world where sexuality is everywhere you turn. The combination of revealing clothing on young women on campus, with sexual undertones in commercials, movies, music, print ads, etc. and the ease of access to pornography on the internet made for a downward spiral that ended in full-blown addiction for far too many young Christian men. I’ll tell you that as cautious I was about the type of clothing I wore before I learned of this I was 10 times as cautious afterwards.

As a woman in her late twenties, I’ve heard my fair share of discussions about modesty, especially the argument that modesty has less to do with the type of clothes you wear and more to do with the heart. While I agree that modesty is at the core a heart issue, saying that modesty is about the heart and not the clothes is nothing more than a cop-out for young Christian women who want to dress as they please. A man walking down the street confronted with a provocatively dressed woman will be tempted or taunted by her lack of clothing without regard to who she is inside.

As the mother of a little boy I have to confess that sometimes it seems as though it is would be easier to teach a little girl about modesty and dressing appropriately than it would be to teach a little boy about how to deal with living in a world that is over-sexed when he is by nature a visual creature. My first inclination as a mother is to shelter him from the world and shape his little mind completely outside of the influence and the temptation. But deep down inside I know that completely sheltering him from the world will probably only exacerbate his curiosity and subsequent fascination with sex and will not give him the necessary tools or spiritual guidance to deal with the actual temptation. The ground on which we must walk must be one in which we are active in his life as living, breathing examples of modesty and that we take every opportunity to be spiritual trail guides in this sex-saturated culture.

The modesty with which I want my son to live is not just one of physical purity but of spiritual purity. So where do I begin? First as an example and second as a consumer. I may not have power over what clothing stores sell and what ads stores choose to run but I do have choice over what I buy and where I choose to spend my money. Listen up retailers as Moms for Modesty unite to let you know that we will not allow you to cheapen our children by providing clothes that sexualize the innocent….they grow up fast enough already.

Moms for Modesty Mission Statement

• As a Mom for Modesty I believe in common-sense modesty for girls and young women.
• I believe in refraining from sexualizing our girls and young women.
• I believe that it is unwise and unfair to taunt boys and young men by permitting my daughter(s) to dress in an immodest manner.
• I believe that true beauty comes from within and I strive to teach my son(s) and daughter(s) this truth.
• I will loyally shop at retailers that provide girls' and young womens clothing that is modest, affordable and stylish.

And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.
Mark 9:42

Your thoughts?