Originally posted: http://purelifepodcast.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/protecting-my-son-from-a-pornified-world/
by Frank Honess
On October 3, 2013, I became an incredibly proud father to Nathan Lee Honess, our new baby boy. And the immense responsibility that I feel for our boy has never left my heart. It’s true that when you become a parent, whether to a little boy or girl, an unexplainable love emerges from places you never knew existed within.
I know that one of my primary roles as a dad is to be a protector to my son Nathan. And while there will be many things in life that I can’t protect him from as he becomes a young man, there are countless things I can help him avoid until that day comes. Namely, helping in throughout the next 18 years to understand what it means to be a man of sexual purity.
I don’t know yet how that first conversation about sex is going to go. Most likely it will be a tad bit awkward, and yet it will be a necessary one. Until that conversation takes place (and beyond), there are a few areas that I want to model to my son in hopes of preventing him from making choices that will compromise his sexual integrity.
- Marriage — I want to show Nate how much I love his mom. Through words of affirmation, affection, and service. And not only that, I want him to understand that his mom is also my wife. Respecting the opposite sex, whether parent or sibling or friend is an incredibly crucial things to learn. I want to Nate to see a healthy marriage in action.
- Technology — In an age of smartphones and tablets, technology has advanced to unimaginable places, and I can’t even begin to fathom what technology will look like when my boy is in his teens. Regardless, I want him to enjoy it while also understanding that technology has limits. Restrictions, time limits, and monitoring are all things I hope he will learn to appreciate. Privacy will not even be given the chance to turn into secrecy.
- Spirituality — I don’t think it’s too naive to want my son to be more in love with Jesus than he is his iPad. I want him to understand the importance pursuing purity in a sexually saturated world. Being a man of integrity who makes choices that result in good character are rare today, and I want him to stand above the rest.
You might ask how these three areas can really prevent a child from accessing pornography and other sexual explicit material. Perhaps they won’t. The sad reality in our day is that children can literally be doing their homework on a computer and an advertisement that looks very innocent is really linked to a hardcore pornography website.
But I believe in investing as much love and truth in my son as possible. Helping him build a strong foundation of integrity in his life is my goal. And I believe that will go a long way if I’m able to do it well. Ultimately, there will come a point where Nate will make his own decisions in life. It’s my prayer that he’ll be reminded of two parents that did everything they could to equip and train him to be a man of sexual purity.
