By in large, the family in Western culture has stopped protecting its girls. Today’s young women are growing up way too quickly. We have abandoned our protective role for young women, especially in regards to guiding them in male-female relations and marriage. Hollywood programs geared to teens and young adults often glamorize the idea of young women who are sexually aggressive and loose.
My heart is breaking for our younger generation of girls. I am also a bit concerned about possible negative reactions from my readers, however I feel the need to speak truth. What’s the point of a blog if one cannot share their thought to be an influence on the current trends and opinions? Please do not confuse this as legalism or me thinking I have all the answers~ it is that I care deeply about our young girls.

My purpose is not to judge anyone, but to hopefully awaken parents of young children to the damage that is being caused by knowingly or unknowing immersing our young girls in a culture that is sexualizing them earlier than ever before and with terrible consequences. Please extend me grace as I try to share difficult thoughts, but it is so important to raising our young girls to be whole, modest of heart, and content with who God created them to be. They will some day grow up to have little girls and boys of their own, and they will need to be well-grounded in much, much more than the latest makeup and how to be eye-candy for the boys.

One year we held a large event in a convention center right next door to a state cheer-leading competition. It was quite embarrassing to many families as we walked down the shared halls, and what a distraction to our sons and daughters! From the littlest tots to the teen girls, all were decked out with heavy make-up, sparkles, fake eyelashes, and racy outfits that mirrored NFL cheerleaders. More than a few at one point lay in the aisles with their legs up in the air doing splits (stretching), exposing themselves without a second thought. Mothers were fussing with their hairdos and giving last minute touch-ups as they got ready for the next routine, loudly urging them to ‘show ‘em your stuff’.

Many mothers dream about seeing their child break into something big, to be the next Mary Lou Retton (my era) or achieve notoriety and financial success like a Hollywood figure they admire. If they have to learn to dance like Vegas showgirls, well, that’s OK.

Some mothers want their daughter to be beautiful and admired and enter them into beauty pageants. We women are so often lured into this type of thinking—we are sucked in by our desire for attention and affirmation through an appeal to our flesh and vanity.

There is a temptation for a mother to use her daughter’s attractiveness as a way of validating HER own self-worth. Patsy Ramsey was a former beauty queen, but I doubt that she foresaw the tragic end to their story.

“Today, hundreds of thousands of children participate in pageants. Many of these children enter their first pageants as toddlers, even infants. Before they can even walk, they are dressed up in sequins and even wear make-up to compete for cash and crowns. The modern child pageant industry includes over 25,000 pageants and brings in over a billion dollars per year. The pageant world is obsessed with physical perfection and the parents of these children will go to great lengths to secure the crown for their daughters.” (source) [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Major retailers are certainly not doing anything to help. Here is a CBS headline that caught my attention: Abercrombie bikini tops: Threat to girls’ mental health? In an actual Barbie-world store, the main aim is marketing to 2-8 year-olds.

I am trying to address something that has been on my mind and heart for years since that weekend at the convention. What I have to say may turn someone off, or it may help someone wrestling with this topic of parental involvement and the strong guidance of Mothers, in particular, with daughters.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.“ ~Galatians 6: 7-9

Why are we not protecting our girl’s hearts and minds, helping them to ease into adolescence and womanhood without a heavy burden of thoughts and exposures they are not emotionally ready or equipped to handle?

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