Don't Give Plutonium to a Preschooler - Part 3
In Part 1 of this four part excerpt from the book I'm working on, I started by suggesting that allowing our teenagers to get fully involved in emotional relationships was sort of like giving plutonium to a preschooler and letting them play in the backyard.
In Part 2, I suggested that emotional purity is just as important as sexual purity. The key to protecting our kids' sexual purity is to train them to "guard their hearts." Most parents have ignored this reality.
Here it the further development of that idea, including a reference to my favorite music video. I've also included the clip. Watch out...it gets bloody (literally).
Don't Give Plutonium to a Preschooler - Part 3
Albert Mohler points out that many parents do well to tell their kids to “just say no” to sexual activity. But he goes on to say that this will be near impossible if we encourage our kids to participate in a dating system by the same rules as the world. He specifically says “we can’t expect them to not get physically connected if they are already emotionally connected.”
Many ultra-conservative authors and teachers have championed the need for emotional purity. For many, it is synonymous with the “courtship” movement that has gained momentum in the past twenty years. But even those in the mainstream can see the powerful implications of “giving your heart away” too many times and the long-term affect it will have on future relationships (particularly marriage.)
My favorite music video of all time is by Gnarls Barkley. A filmmaker took their song “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” and made a powerful little short film out of it. The first few minutes show a couple sitting in a café. It is obvious from the first few seconds that she is breaking up with him. She is explaining all the “it’s not you, it’s me” garbage that break-up conversations are traditionally known for.
As the girl is talking, the guy is not fully engaged in what she is saying. He is too busy getting an extra plate and taking a butter knife and stabbing himself in the heart (if you watch it, be warned: it’s pretty gory). He then reaches into his chest “Temple of Doom” style, pulls out his heart, and puts it on the plate in front of him. He slides it over to her and says: “For you.”
She responds by saying: “You do realize I’m breaking up with you, right?”
And then he gives the most prophetic and true monologue: “Well, that’s the strange thing…it’s actually yours now (his heart). I don’t know why it works this way, but I’m never going to be able to get over you, so from now on, every other girl that I meet will be meticulously compared to you and, unfortunately, none of them will be able to measure up to the false memory of what you and I once had.”
She responds: “Maybe I can just keep it for a little while….and then eventually I’ll give it back to you when we both find somebody new.”
He continues: “Unfortunately, it won’t work that way. Now that you have my heart, I’m pretty much an empty cavity inside. For lack of a better term: I’m heartless. I will now treat each woman I meet with a passive/aggressive contentiousness that will ruin relationship after relationship for many years to come.”
Their expressions at the end of the conversation suggest that they both know it’s true. It’s pretty powerful stuff for a music video.
Read the conclusion of "Plutonium" tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the video...
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4bvRamMiY4&w=500&h=400]