Category Archives: Family Issues

Old as the Hills

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

November 12, 2004

It was an old house…ancient even…abused and crumbling.  Windows twisted out on bent hinges, leaving ample space to climb through and into the back bedroom where the black paint of recent renters covered the peeling red and green layers of past owners.  Wood floors creaked, plaster walls cracked open, and loose rusty pipes rumbled below as my husband and I walked through, exploring our first home.

Thirty years later, this sorry-excuse-for-a-house has risen from the ashes, a bright little castle in the small historic area of Phoenix.  It is a gem.  A treasure.  Restored and repaired, it will bring more money per square foot than any modern state-of-the-art darling “home for sale.”

My husband and I often sit on our front porch in the evenings and look down the street.  We live in a neighborhood of resurrected Lazaruses, as my parents call them, homes that have seen the tides of time carry them through periods of respect, rejection…and respect again.

Ours is the perfect neighborhood for an antique car rally.  Indeed, once a year we carry our lawn chairs down the street and sit along Central Avenue.  It’s a neighborhood block party under shimmering street lamps, a friendly celebration of old cars turned new, remodeled …and recharged.

New…grown old…and restored to new again.  It is a process respected for cars and homes.  Surprisingly, restoration is a process that works on us as people, even as we labor to scrub and polish steel and wood.

Restoration.  As we refinish and polish, we reconnect with things eternal…family, simplicity, honor, integrity.  We learn that honor is not conferred from the outside by a modern designer feted as the “latest and greatest.”  Honor is a glow from the inside, private and quiet and still…a light eternal, burning even when we turn our backs and seek the glitter and glamour of fashion and celebrity.

Restoration.  It is a concept that works for ideas just as well as it works for houses and cars.  Virginity…chastity, abstinence, purity…all old words turned new again, like a fresh coat of paint on an antique car.  New words…but it’s still the same old thing.  Love.

No matter how much we want to equate sex with love and confuse the issues, the clarity of truth is a pure light that never waivers.  Love…imbued with patience, fueled with trust…love waits its turn.  Love in its purest form is passion held in check for the benefit of the one true object of my affection.  And sex can wait.

Abstinence is not just an old idea gone bad…outdated and ready for the rubbish pile.  Abstinence works.  It restores health.  It restores hearts.  It restores souls.

In the British Medical Journal an article on abstinence strips away the false glitter of the sexual revolution.  The article says a reduction in the number of sexual partners is the tried and true key to halting spread of HIV.  Here it is, a modern gussied-up term… partner reduction…by any other name…the new and modern is the same old same old…abstinence…the old made new again.

By any other name, abstinence is the sexual revolution of the future…abstinence until marriage…a chastity and purity as old as the hills.  It is the perfection of “partner reduction;” it is the one and only…the person who cares enough to give a heart and a promise eventually perfected with the sexual passion of love committed for a lifetime.

An old sign hangs above the door in our old home restored to new.  My mother bought it at a garage sale, a gilded frame around a German phrase I have since learned in English: Faithful to the End.  Painted in blue, it is the promise of fidelity.  Loyalty.  Eternal virtues of the ultimate friendship, the best of devotion, sanctified in marriage…until death do us part.

Abstinence…abstinence until marriage…ideas being reduced to insignificance by people who think these are worn-out words as old as the hills.

Abstinence…abstinence until marriage…ideas of the future being ushered in as medically necessary to curb life-threatening diseases that promise to take control of out-of-control lives ruled by lust.

Abstinence…the tried-and-true method of reducing one’s sexual partners.  Modern science gives new reasons to respect the values of old.  Abstinence until marriage is the modern tool for preventing STDs and pregnancy…a new coat of paint on eternal truths that continue to glow.

Abstinence until marriage…an idea as old as the hills made new again…love resurrected, life-giving, and eternal.  Faithful to the end…the eternal glow of creation…resurrected…restored…abstinence until marriage, a gift as old as the hills to be renewed forevermore.

July 23, 2004:    My Friend Betty

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Kicking the Tires

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

November 5, 2004

Kelly and Dane spent the day in furniture stores picking out the perfect leather couch for their new apartment.  They are in love.   They are moving in together.  And they are not married.

“It’s not that we’re against marriage, but we’re just not ready for it,” says Dane.  “It’s a big commitment.”

Kelly nods in agreement.  “We saw both of our parents get divorced.  We love each other, and we’re talking about getting married.  But we don’t want to go through the pain of a divorce.”

Even as Americans are voting to affirm the special estate of marriage between a man and a woman, our children are having a hard time saying “I do.” Instead, like Kelly and Dane, many are taking their “love” for a “test drive,” trying to find out if it is the “marriage kind of love.”  They are kicking the tires before they buy.

The theory is that if they live together, they will be able to test their relationship before they make the serious lifelong commitment of marriage.  If everything works out, if they get along, then they can always get married.  If not, then they can just divide the furniture, decide who keeps the apartment, and go their separate ways.  No harm done.

According to the National Marriage Project, about 60 percent of young adults in America say they plan to live together before marriage.  These high levels of cohabitation have given researchers a solid base of data to compare cohabitation with marriage.  The results of their studies should give Kelly and Dane reason to pause before signing the lease on their apartment.

Dr. Bill Maier sums up the findings.  “Research indicates that couples who cohabit before marriage have a 50 percent higher divorce rate than those who don’t. These couples also have higher rates of domestic violence and are more likely to be involved in sexual affairs. If a cohabiting couple gets pregnant, there is a high probability that the man will leave the relationship within two years, resulting in a single mom raising a fatherless child.”

There are many factors to explain this.  But the most important has to do with the big “C.”  Commitment.

Commitment is more than a feeling.  It is an intentional decision.  It is choosing to love…in good times and bad.  The commitment of marriage is a willingness to step into the future, to face unknown challenges, to give unconditional love, to set one’s personal goals into a joint plan alongside the needs and goals of another person.  If it sounds like a big deal, it is.

Cohabitation, on the other hand, is based almost entirely on feelings.  It is a hope and a dream…with a preplanned exit strategy.  It’s a little deal because the promise exchanged is a little promise.  “I will stay with you until we’re not in love…until it gets hard…until I don’t want to stay with you.”

When couples plan to marry, they must face the big “C”.  They must have a clear understanding of what they are willing and able to give each other….today… tomorrow…for as long as they both shall live.

Cohabitation short circuits the process, fulfilling sexual desires and intermingling finances, allowing the couple to avoid the kind of soul-searching and mutual honesty needed to lay the solid foundation for a marriage.

As quaint as it sounds, traditional old-fashioned dating and courtship was a safe time for couples.  It reserved sex for the future and allowed them to focus on learning about each other.  It was an intentional time of planning for marriage, where the couple sought out advice from friends and counselors.  And if marriage did not result, heartbreak was not compounded with the burden of breaking up a household.

While the initial plan for Kelly and Dane is to “try it out,” it will be a very short time before one of them will begin to long for the safety and security of a permanent commitment.  The big “C”…it always makes its appearance.  And when it does, Kelly and Dane will have a lot at stake.  The surprising experience most couples face in cohabitation is that the pain of “breaking up” can be every bit as intense as divorce.

Please, Dane and Kelly.  Think it over.  Kicking the tires…good strategy for cars.  Bad idea for people.

April 23, 2004:    m…m…m…Married?

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Cutting Crime

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 17, 2004

The expiration this week of a ten year ban on assault weapons has kicked up a debate on American crime rates and how to cut them.

Fighting crime has become a way of life for Americans.  We build more prisons.  We enact new tougher laws with mandatory sentencing.  We hire more police, put gates around our communities, and install metal detectors in our schools.  And we tell the unrepentant criminal, “Three strikes, you’re out.”

Many of us can remember a time when life in America was safer.  In 1960 your risk of being a victim of crime in the United States was 1.89%, and of a violent crime 0.161%.  In 1996 nearly forty years later, your risk of being a crime victim was 5.079%, and of a violent crime 0.634%.

The United States Crime Index Rates Per 100,000 Inhabitants went from 1,887.2 in 1960 to 5,897.8 in 1996. By 1996 the crime rate was 313% the 1960 crime rate. Crime in the United States accounts for more death, injuries and loss of property than all Natural Disasters combined.

It’s tempting to think of guns and gates and laws in an effort to protect ourselves and our families from crime.  But there is a better way.

We each hold the key to the primary method of cutting crime.  Rather than dealing with the aftermath of crime and relying on punishment to deter, this method cuts crime off at the very beginning where it starts, in the heart and soul of a young person who needs guidance to keep him or her on the path to success.

The method?  The key?  Our families and our fathers.

In his book Life Without Father David Popenoe explains another statistical trend that has followed the trend in crime through the past forty years:

The decline of fatherhood is one of the most basic, unexpected and extraordinary trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: In just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their biological fathers more than doubled, from 17 percent to 36 percent. By the turn of the century, nearly 50 percent of American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say good night to their dads.

Why does this matter?  The subject of families may seem a private matter that we should back away from when looking for the solutions to our crime problems and creating public policy.  But Popenoe says otherwise.

[T]he decline of fatherhood is a major force behind many of the most disturbing problems that plague American society: crime; premature sexuality and out-of-wedlock births to teenagers; deteriorating educational achievement; depression, substance abuse and alienation among adolescents; and the growing number of women and children in poverty.

What about the young people you know?  Do you see their hearts aching for a strong and healthy relationship with their fathers?  Do you see their eyes light up at the sight of dad in the audience at their band concert, of dad in the stands at their football games?  Statistics speak to the issue.  But our children and their hearts prove the truth.  Dads count.

As we hear politicians talk tough on crime, we must listen for the cures they offer us.  And at the top of their list, we need to expect a plan to strengthen families by helping mothers and fathers raise children inside of healthy marriages.  This is good for children, good for parents and, most of all, good for America.

Cutting crime at the most basic level has less to do with subtracting guns and adding prisons.  And it has everything to do with how we raise our children.

If we want children to walk away from a life of crime, we would do well to make sure our fathers are leading the way.

THE POWER OF A FATHER

June 18, 2004:   Me Jane, You Tarzan

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Duh

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 10, 2004

It’s big news on NBC’s TODAY Show.  Matt is worried.  He is worried about Katie and her two daughters.  Are they watching television?  And how much?

Matt wants Katie to know.  A research study has just proven that the more kids watch “it,” the more likely kids are to “do it.”  Sex, that is.  “Katie,” Matt insists, “this study proves that television can influence teens to have sex.”  Katie barely lets him finish before responding.

“Duh!” she chides.

Matt tries again.  Does she know watching sex can be a negative influence on her two girls?  Katie interrupts him.

“Duh! Like I didn’t know that?”

It’s a lead story for NBC’s TODAY Show.  A very expensive year-long research study by the Rand Corp. has come to the following conclusion.  “(A)dolescents who watched the most television with sexual content were twice as likely to initiate sexual intercourse over the next year as adolescents who watched the least amount of TV with sexual content.”

“Duh?”

Isn’t this what right-wing, idiotic, moralistic, radical, in-your-face, Bible-thumping, puritanical, fundamentalists have been saying for years?  If we could wrangle a fundamentalist to the ground and force him to quote scripture, he might moralize with a Proverb.  Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.  Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.  Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.  (Prov 4:23-25 NIV)

Oh, that we had heeded their pious, mean-spirited, fear-inducing, prurient advice in the 1970s and taken steps to control the sexual content of our culture.  Oh, that we would refuse to let shows like Friends and Sex in the City pander to our children in prime time.  Oh, that we would force MTV to become a pay-for-view station just like Playboy.

Instead, we wait thirty years for promiscuous sex to capture the hearts of a generation of teens, for the number of unwed teen pregnancies to skyrocket, and for an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases to plague us.  Then we hire a research firm to tell us what got us to this point.

Rebecca Collins is the lead RAND psychologist who directed the study of nearly 1800 adolescents aged 12 to 17.  They were asked about their television viewing habits and their sexual behavior.   One year later they were surveyed again.

The RAND study results were published in the September issue of “Pediatrics.”  Not only does watching television impact our teens, but according to Collins, “The impact of television viewing is so large that even a moderate shift in the sexual content of adolescent TV watching could have a substantial effect on their sexual behavior.”

In fact the impact of television is even greater than the average person might suspect.  It makes little difference whether the TV show presents people talking about sex or engaging in sex.  Explaining this, Collins says, “Both affect adolescents’ perceptions of what is normal sexual behavior and propels their own sexual behavior.”

Duh!

Methinks I hear another fundamentalist whispering in my ear.  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.  (Phil 4:8 NIV)

“We found that we could predict whether the kids went from being virgins to having had sex over the course of that year using the information about which shows that they watched,” Collins told NBC’s Stephanie Stanton.

Duh!

Collins continues, “It’s not just visuals…it’s the talk about sex, it’s the idea that TV shows are always talking, and thinking, and acting sexually, and that that’s what works its way into kids’ consciousness.”

Duh!

To be fair, we owe Collins a debt of gratitude for putting common sense on the radar screen for academicians and politicians who run from any hint of fundamentalist morality, no matter how many centuries those morals have served mankind.  Collins and her colleagues have given parents a reason to trust their own good judgment and take a stand for the noble things of life…good clean television, where whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable…those are the things…

we must talk about…

think about…

and do.

No duh.

FOR MORE ON AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT

April 9, 2004:    Dear Paul

May 7, 2004:    Thank You, Janet

July 9, 2004:    Why Johnny Can’t Read…or Write…or Count

 

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

September 3, 2004

“It’s not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It’s far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain…” says Judy Garland.  Oz…the land is magic, a fantasy of turnabout reality, where bricks are yellow, tin men sing, and lions cower in fear.

Born in the stories Frank L. Baum told his sons and their friends, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published May 15, 1900, and became the biggest selling children’s book of the year. In 1939, Hollywood’s golden year, MGM released the movie of Oz where Munchkinland exploded in psychedelic Technicolor.

The film enjoyed modest success in the theaters, but quickly became a cultural legacy after its Judy Garland Ozdebut on television in American homes.  The story is as fresh today as it was seventy five years ago when Judy Garland as Dorothy hurled through the sky in a Kansas tornado.

Strangely similar, radically different, the Land of Oz is both delightful and frightening.  Dorothy is greeted in song and celebration by Munchkins celebrating the death of a terrible witch.  And in a fight for her life, she is terrorized by Nikko, the Winkies, and vicious flying monkeys.  In a battle to survive, Dorothy must separate fact from fiction, real from false, and pull the curtain back to reveal the truth behind it.

Today, caught in our own modern parallel universe, we are engaged in a battle of survival every bit as intense as that of Dorothy.  Ours is a land where the delightful is also frightening, where false is disguised as truth.

Our own battle began as America spun out of the 50s and set a new world in motion in the 1960s, a world most easily pictured in scenes from the free and easy musical fest of Woodstock.  Drugs flowed freely and sex was easy…a world of relaxed virtues guided by a new ethic…if it feels good, do it.

Yellow colored a submarine, and bricks paved Abbey Road.  Like the Land of Oz, psychedelic colors ruled the day, and music fueled passions.  But the end of our story is much more difficult to wrap up than Dorothy’s.  It’s not nearly as simple as throwing a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch and watching her melt.

  • In 1950, there were two STDs; today there are over 25.
  • The two STDs of the 50s were curable; today serious STDs are incurable and fatal.
  • HIV/AIDS was once non-existent; twenty years after the first reported case in 1981, close to one million Americans live with the virus.
  • On television, the Lucy we loved became pregnant after she married Rickie; today the modern Lucy is one of nearly a million unwed teens who will become pregnant this year.
  • Way back when, pregnancies were planned and welcomed; in 2000, 1.3 million pregnancies were aborted.
  • Crooners once sang Love Me Tender; rappers now chant porn star stamina.

These “milestones” of modern life are enough to make us despair.  But the true darkness of today’s world is measured by the innocent face of a child who doesn’t know the world was once a safe and secure place.  We’re not in Kansas anymore.

We know it.  But what about our children?  They have grown up thinking monkeys always flew and psychedelic is a primary color.  Dorothy made it back to Kansas because she had a vision of the world she used to live in.  She knew Kansas existed.

“Oh — what a world — what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness!?” screamed the dying witch, melting in the puddle of water.  It is possible for today’s girls and boys to do the same in our own parallel world…if we only pull back the curtain on lies from the 60s that have outlived their welcome.

We need to paint a picture for our children of what life looks like when sex is part of a lifelong marriage of mutual respect.  We must restore the honor and respect between sexes that once existed.  And it is no small challenge to pull the curtains back on Hollywood wizards who trade on illusion, destroying the simple treasure of decency once valued by all…in Kansas.

Sex will always be easy, but it is no longer free.  In the midst of an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases and broken relationships, the challenge for us is to courageously face and reveal the truth to our children.  Kansas is still a home waiting for us to return.

With the truth in hand, the Good Witch Glinda’s advice to Dorothy works for us as well.  We have always had the answer within us.  Just click our heels three times and turn.  Turn away from our promiscuous ways.  Teach our children sexual abstinence is the expected standard until they marry.  And, most importantly, believe in our children and their ability to succeed.

Kansas has never disappeared.  We can always return…if we set our hearts on it.  Dorothy made it home.  We can, too.

See Archives for past editorials.