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Culture of Death, Family Life, guest post, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, social media, technology

Screens, tweens, and teens {guest post}

November 28, 2018

Last summer I reached out to my internet buddy and running-mom extraordinaire Colleen Martin and beseeched her to impart some of her wisdom as a seasoned boy mom in the tech era. She’s not super seasoned as in old, mind you, but she is super seasoned as in holy 6 boys, batman! And one sweet girl sandwiched in the middle.

I’m bookmarking my own blog here to reference in a few short years when my kids reach phone hankering age (let’s be honest though, despite attending a low tech classical Catholic school with zero screens permitted among the student body, our 8 year old is already badgering us for a phone. Oy.)

Colleen, thanks so much for sharing how your family handles screens:

Jenny asked me to write this post awhile ago, before summer had even started, but I think having waited this long and made it through another summer (aka screen season) has given me more food for thought to write this now. So I guess procrastination does pay off sometimes!

But not when it comes to family rules about screen times.

It’s never too early to discuss expectations, set rules, and enforce them even if it means being the mean parent. I recently came across this quote:

Scary, isn’t it? These times we live in are full of screens. (Screen time, just to clarify, for us, is tv, movies, video games, tablets, computers and phones…anything with a screen.) It’s called social media because it’s literally how kids (and adults) have social lives. Gone are the days of bike riding through the neighborhood and ending up sleeping over at some friend’s house. We may feel like we can’t let our kids be kids like we were because of all the terrible and disgusting stories of abuse we hear from the people we trust most, that we have to keep them safe and a lot of time that means indoors … and if your kids are anything like mine, indoors = boredom = asking for screens. That’s the hardest part about summer, I think, the perpetual boredom unless we take them somewhere to do something. So we are a little more lax on the amount of time our children can be on screens, as long as they have been active for most of the day. Phil and I like to relax at the end of a long, busy day by watching a little TV, and I’m fine with my kids doing the same. We all need some downtime, ya know?

We have some great (pretty strict) screen rules during the school year for our kids:

Any school-aged kid gets ZERO screen time during the school week.
On weekends, they can have individual screen time during the baby’s nap time and then at night, we will let them watch a movie/tv show together.
The little preschool guys get a half hour show each evening, after dinner and bath time, and it’s something completely preschool appropriate.

The bigger kids can usually be found watching this with the little kids, but I’m cool with letting them all sit together if they want to see the same episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for the 17th time. We always say it’s time for a “little kid show” and make sure it’s nothing any of the school-aged kids would ever choose for themselves, though I often hear them trying to convince the 2 year old to pick Spongebob or Power Rangers. Umm, no, but nice try! We are not monsters and do allow exceptions to every rule when it comes to things like important sports games on tv, etc. The kids know what the standard rule is and enjoy the occasional treat.

Little kids are easy to deal with when it comes to screens. Just don’t give them free access to it. Be in control and get them into a good routine. Decide what you want to do for your family and that becomes the norm. There are going to be seasons in family life when the kids have more screen time due to whatever else is going on at home (illness, sports schedules, travelling, new baby, etc.) and as much as I have wanted the ideal screen time rules, flexibility is key to not feeling discouraged. There’s not one right way for every family, and little kids = little problems so they are a good “trial run” for what comes ahead.

Tweens and Teens, that’s what comes ahead. (And they are awesome!)

The hard part of policing screens in our house comes when they are tweens and teens. Our kids all go to school and are involved in tons of sports and lessons (which is also helpful in keeping them active and off screens). Because of this busy family life we lead, once a child reaches the age of 13, they become a babysitter. Since we have no home phone, this also means the 13 year old gets their own cell phone. With this phone comes a whole new set of rules (I swear we are fun parents, we just are really trying to get these kids to heaven!) We buy them an inexpensive smartphone but then make it dumb. Ha! We want our kids to be able to call, text, and have some apps on their phone, but we don’t give them any data so that they can only have internet access while at home on Wifi and we don’t give them our Wifi password. We also make all phones “live” on the kitchen counter, and they are never allowed to bring their phones upstairs.

My kids are far from perfect (like their mother) and get their phones taken away for any violations. The removal of individual screen time is actually a go-to punishment in our house, that way the kids lose the choice of what to watch/play but the parents aren’t punished because we can still put on a family movie when everybody just needs some chill time and forced family bonding.

Once our kids go to the Catholic high school, they are required to have a laptop because most of their books are electronic now. So not only are they reading textbooks online, but they are also writing their papers online, using Google Classroom, taking notes in class on their laptops, and communicating with teachers via the internet. It’s a whole new world and a whole new set of worries for parents. I can’t say “You’ve been on your laptop for three hours, get off!” because he is just doing his homework and studying. (But also fooling around and watching a dumb youtube video here, googling a sports score there, you get it.) As it is with adults, it’s hard for teens to stay focused on the task at hand (homework) when you have the whole wide world at your fingertips. So how do we try to watch everything they’re doing online?

I’ve written about why we started using Covenant Eyes before, but it has been a real lifesaver for us. It’s a tool that allows parents oversee what their children (and each other if desired) are doing online without actually having to stand over their shoulders. t’s a tool that opens the door for communication and also blocks dangerous sites. Kids just log in to Covenant Eyes before they can get online, and it tracks their usage, and sends a weekly report to the account user (the parents). Sometimes I dread opening the report on Tuesday morning to find out my teen has been watching dumb YouTube videos at 9 pm when he said he was studying, but honestly I’d rather know about his mistakes then have no clue what he’s doing online. At least this way, he knows he’s being checked in on, and that alone is an easy way for him to avoid temptation.

I definitely dragged my feet on this for too long, not wanting yet another issue to have to think about, but when one of our tweenage kids googled an inappropriate word on the iPad, we knew it was time to take the plunge. The monthly subscription for a family is $15.99, and even less for an individual or couple. It’s so much easier to never get hooked on pornography than to try and break the habit, and we want to give them their best chance at fighting that battle. Covenant Eyes gives them the freedom to be online while also helping them make good choices, and that’s priceless once you have kids on screens so often. Perhaps I should work in their Sales Department because I love them so much!

I feel that just like every parent, we are constantly trying to evaluate the new social media tools and keep up with current internet trends while also helping our kids get to Heaven. We don’t allow a few things that we feel can easily cause trouble, like sleepovers, hanging out at people’s homes we don’t know, and being online without supervision. We’re just doing our best to keep them safe and happy and holy, and our screen rules are part of the process. Like I said before, starting with screen rules when they’re young is easy, but it’s important, because it sets ground rules for the rest of their lives. Will they binge on video games while at a cousin’s house? Yup. Will they find disturbing images online when they’re at college. Of course. I can’t worry about all the possible scenarios that might occur, I’d go crazy.

I know they are human and all I can do is try to make them the best humans I can while they are under my roof. Lots of love and fun and freedom comes alongside rules and chores and boundaries. Communication is key and the ability to have fun together is huge as well. We try to be Yes parents whenever we can, so that our Nos are serious enough to be understood.

You need to decide what is important in your home, and start setting the ground rules now.

Don’t be afraid to go against the culture if it means raising quality adults, that’s literally our job.

Screens aren’t evil, so find a system that works for you and hopefully I’ve been able to share some good tips and tricks. I don’t have all the answers (I haven’t even had a college kid yet!) and I don’t pretend to. I’m just over here trying to raise good kids to survive this present world and to one day make it to heaven in the next, same as you.

Culture of Death, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, Sex, technology

Pornography, technology, and being the parent who says “no”

April 25, 2018

We had some sweet little friends over recently during a rare spring-like burst of warm weather and had the snacks flowing and the sprinkler turning in the backyard, and I had a very “I have become my mother” sort of interaction with one of my son’s buddies.

He had his “phone” with him – an old iPod or a very original iPhone, I’m not qualified to confirm which (though it looked more like a phone to me) and was asking for our wifi password to connect to the internet to play music videos off of Youtube.

“Sorry buddy, we don’t do screens without parents in our house.”

“But it’s just music, Miss Jenny (I don’t ask them to call me this, but it’s fairly adorable/extremely aging that they do).”

“Yeah bud, I trust you, but I don’t trust the internet. Here, I’ll pull up a Pandora station on my computer.”

He continued to fiddle with his device for a few more minutes until I had to gently lay down the law: “bud, you’ve got to turn that off and put it in your pocket, or else you need to take it home.”

Thankfully my kids are not old enough to be mortified by me yet, but I imagine at some point they will feel exactly the way I did when my mom poked her head into the family room and caught my girlfriends and me watching a “Sex in the City” VHS (Lolol) tape that we’d rented from Blockbuster for a sleepover one Saturday night.

“Girls, you’re better than this. This is garbage. You can’t watch this in our house.”

I eye-rolled her haaaaard (and also rebelled like a hellion in college), but my mom was right. And she wasn’t afraid of me – or of my friends – thinking that she wasn’t cool. She didn’t have any ego in her parenting as far as morality was concerned. If it was wrong, she let us know, and while there is room for improvement in everyone’s parenting decisions, this was one area that mine got pretty right.

The funny thing is, even though my parents were known to be less permissive than some of my friends’ parents, if only because they were more likely to be home and therefore less likely to let us host raging parties during their weekends away – my friends flocked to my house after school and on weekends, many of them specifically seeking out the counsel and friendship of my mom. Even though (maybe specifically because?) she often told us “no.”

Fast forward 20 years and I know that we are in the minority in our parenting choices where media and technology are concerned. Our kids don’t have iPads, they don’t have internet access without us peering over their shoulders, we don’t have cable, and we (try to) vet anything they watch on Netflix before they see it. Are we being overprotective? Hell yes we are. Will they someday have unbridled access to everything the www has to offer and go hog wild, glutting themselves on the raunchiest content available? Yes… and hopefully, no.

We’re trying to train them to make good choices in that realm, just like we’re coaching and micromanaging the things they eat, the time they spend on their homework, and the physical activity they get each day. I’m not planning to follow my 18 year old around checking his cell phone any more than I’ll be trying to sneak bites of broccoli into his pasta sauce at that point: the hope is that the training and coaching will have paid off by that point and he will be captain of his own ship. But between now and then, it is our job to teach, guide, coach, protect, and, frankly, look like a jerk in front of his buddies who have their own tablets.

He may never thank me for it, or he may look back in his early 30’s and be glad we tried our best. Either way, it is not my job to be his best friend. It is my job to help him become the best version of himself. And in 2018? That means being super, super cautious where the internet is concerned.

It isn’t a matter of if my kids will eventually see porn, it’s a matter of when. And it isn’t a matter of whether they see the darkest and most degrading, chauvinistic violence committed onscreen, but at what age they first encounter it. I’d just as soon they be twelve than seven, since by that point we will have had several dozen conversations about dignity, sexuality, abuse, consent, and addiction.

It’s not enough to say “well, it’s out there, we have to assume our kids are going to find it,” throwing our hands up in surrender. It *is* out there, and yes, our kids are going to find it. And it is up to us as parents to arm them with the training in virtue and common sense to do with it what they ought: identify it correctly as dehumanizing garbage and reject it as such.

Will they falter and fail? Almost certainly. Will they pick themselves back up again after they stumble, and have the courage to start fresh? That part is up to the grace of God and the best efforts of the adults in their lives to form them, pray for them, and model lives of repentance and virtue.

Our culture eats purity. It feasts on vice and mocks virtue, and signals to parents that any wild oats our kids may sow are simply inevitable stages in modern life. We are told our kids will – and, in fact, should – question the gender we “assigned” to them at birth. That pornography is healthy and normal. That sexual activity among preteens and even younger is only natural, and is best managed with a box of condoms, a scrip for hormonal birth control, and a well-supervised setting where they can experiment “safely.”

This is asinine and more – it is diabolical. We throw our children to the wolves and then we cry out in horror when they themselves become the wolves. We have to be the grown ups, and not to get too Daniel Tiger up in here, but groo-oohn-ups pro-tect.

And say no. And generally do things that make them super unpopular with kids, like withholding matches and credit cards and car keys and, yes, even technology, until and unless the child proves himself capable.

I’m already sweating over the inevitable “how to recognize pornography” talk with my seven-year-old, and came darn close to it last month when his kindergarten brother came home wide-eyed from a trip to the modern art museum and regaled the back seat with tales of “naked people” paintings. We had a decent conversation about the beauty of the human body and how there is a difference between “art” and “bad pictures” like someone might take with their phone and…we stopped there. On the one hand, I’m grateful for the anecdotal point of reference to be able to return to as the conversation continues over the years. On the other hand, I’m going to have 3 teenage boys in my house in less than a decade and come Lord Jesus, come.

What are your best practices for modeling – and expecting – good behavior with technology in your home? Are you already getting the eye rolls from your kids? Do you have good, open communication with their friends and have clear expectations for what flies in your house?

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, current events, politics, Pornography

It’s the culture, stupid

November 10, 2017

2017 has been kind of a train wreck, hasn’t it?

Lately it seems like each week has brought news of another mass shooting, another massive sex scandal, another round of accusations and tarnished reputations and fresh outrage and calls for … something.

But I can’t help noticing that we seem to want to have our cake and eat it too, collectively speaking.

Frankly, this is the culture we’ve built for ourselves, constructed on promises of sex without commitment or consequence, violence as entertainment, and the pursuit of personal appetites at any cost.

We lament the violence done to women and the apparent backsliding of decades of feminist progress in our nightly newscasts, but the commercials between segments are filled with soft core porn using women’s bodies to hawk products.

We flinch at each new accusation of predatory sexual violence that hits our newsfeeds, many coming to light decades after the fact, while we meanwhile hound our elected officials for greater access to abortion and contraception, those necessary components fueling the sexual revolution.

We reject God and His laws, written into our very bodies, and then we rail against the cruelty and evil that springs up in the absence of a moral compass.

In short: this culture is one of our own making.

And it cannot be cured in Washington.

America – the entire world – can only return to greatness by falling to her knees.

Until and unless we get serious about pursuing personal conversion and cultivating holiness, this is what the world will look like.

This is what the world was like, before Christ, and this is the natural state to which it will return as we reject Christ. You might call it the human equilibrium, determined by the introduction of Original Sin and remedied by one thing alone:

Jesus.

The world can be saved, one soul at a time, by Christians willing to live out their faith without counting the cost, leading people to Him. But as long as Christians play at the game of going along to get along with the world, whether that means an outright rejection of the faith or a lazy complacency where we drift through life in a haze of busyness and Netflix, then this is the new reality.

Life with Christ is, as St. John Paul II was fond of joyfully reminding us, “a wonderful adventure.”

But life without Him is a nightmare.

Guys, we’re living the nightmare right now.

I have some ideas.

First, we have to get serious about our own personal prayer lives (looks meaningfully into mirror). I am the first to admit that falling into bed with my Kindle at 10 pm is immeasurably preferable to spending time with my Bible or rosary. That’s because my spiritual muscles are flabby and undisciplined, worn down by years of parenting small people and self-medicating with mindless entertainment and distraction in the evenings. I have to commit to at least a solid 15 minutes of serious mental prayer at some point in the day, offering back to God a fraction of the time He has given me. I know this, but actually doing it is another matter entirely.

Second, there are areas in my life where I have not fully given Christ Lordship. I’m thinking of a few novels I’ve read lately, grimacing and skimming over the explicit sex scenes and degraded morality but justifying continuing to read because “most of the book is fine.”

But it’s not fine. It’s not fine for me to read a book that is 10% pornographic content, justifying that the other 90% is Tolstoy (which it sure as hell ain’t). I’m no prude, and there is a place for realism and grit in literature, but what I’ve been encountering with increasing frequency in modern fiction is straight up smut: graphic, gratuitous, and worst of all, conscience-numbing. How silly to be striving to form my conscience and conform my mind to Christ’s while continuing to fill it with garbage. Maybe your garbage takes another form, but you probably know exactly what it is.

Which brings me to…tv. And movies. There’s a lot to choose from and a veritably limitless array of options, but it’s becoming increasingly necessary to just turn the thing off. I spend a good amount of time and energy devising ways to protect my kids from sexual deviance and premature exposure, and we put a lot of effort into forming this area of their personalities to be receptive to goodness and beauty. How can we spend a hour or two in the evenings fast forwarding through garbage, letting our own consciences become dulled by repeated exposure to pornographic content, homosexuality, adultery, sexual violence, witchcraft, and abortion and expect that there will be no long-term effects?

What goes into us very much affects what comes out of us.

Our consciences can become deadened and dulled by repeated exposure to garbage. What is shocking the first or seventh time it is encountered might not even raise the blood pressure the 40th or 100th time. Try popping in a DVD of a popular sitcom or drama from the 90s and then contrast it with, mmm, pretty much anything that’s popular in primetime in 2017.

You may be astonished at how much has changed in a relatively short time. By how “tame” the innuendo and violence, and how seemingly chaste the onscreen depictions of intimacy.

We’ve come a long way in a short time, thanks in large part to the internet, and very few of us have taken the time to step back and ask “is this okay?” rather than getting pulled along with the tide. It’s a small, necessary sacrifice I can – and must – make, as a parent, as an adult.

Finally, we need to be heeding Our Lady’s call to the children of Fatima and making regular sacrifices in reparation for our own sins and for the sins of others.

We each have a role to play in the sorry state of affairs of the modern world. We have been asked to pray, to make sacrifices, and to offer up suffering for the good of our neighbors. Those neighbors are our own family members, the people across the street, and the monster who shot up a church last weekend.

We live in a kind of modern fantasy of autonomy and individual freedom, when in reality, we are all intimately connected to one another by virtue of our brotherhood in the family of God.

Look, I am the absolute worst at fasting and making sacrifices. Happily, God has given me a tidy pile of stuff to offer up in the course of living out my actual life, if only I would consent to suffer willingly and intentionally rather than always proceeding directly to “thrashing about like a wounded animal railing at the injustice of it all,” which seems to be my default setting when confronted with pain.

But I needn’t waste it. I can offer up those midnight wakings, the stomach flu, the broken down cars and zeroed out bank accounts, the wrecked out bodies and the agonizing, lonely hours of solo parenting during business trips or endless Tuesdays. I can offer my little loaves and fishes to God to do whatever He pleases with, and perhaps it pleases Him to do something insanely miraculous with the crumbs.

But first I have to offer them.

Finally, we must be unashamed in our witness of faith in the public square.

Christians in the early Church were set apart form the depraved pagan culture from which they sprang because of the way they loved one another. Because of their marriages, their charity, their civic engagement and their unwavering witness to the truth.

And yes, some of them were killed for it. And they went joyfully to their martyrdoms not for love of pain, but for love of Jesus. We will probably not be martyred in a literal sense of shedding blood. But our careers? Our reputations? Our friendships and social status and financial stability?

Yeah, those are all up for grabs. We ought to be prepared to offer them willingly, if He asks. We should absolutely fight for just laws and morally sound legislation, but we should also be prepared to be increasingly marginalized as the cultural free fall – which shows little sign of halting – continues. We know how this game ends, but it might be a hell of a fourth quarter, so to speak.

I keep coming back to JPII’s most oft-repeated phrase when I read the news lately: Be not afraid.

That’s the hope we can offer to a world that is bleeding out in self-anihilation, seeming to crumble before our very eyes.

Be not afraid.

Be not afraid.

Be not afraid.

But also, be not an idiot. Be not caught doing nothing, when the Master returns. Be not a complicit accomplice in the carnage that is laying waste to a civilization.

I can’t save the world with my one little life, but I can offer it to God to do with it what He sees fit. And when He asks for something, I can give it to Him without hesitation, knowing that the steely core of the Christian identity must be a readiness and willingness to suffer as He did.

coffee clicks, Culture of Death, ditching my smartphone, feast days, infertility, liturgical living, Pornography, social media, technology

Coffee Clicks {September 29th}

September 29, 2017

Hey it’s Michaelmas. Which means you can totally get away with ordering chicken wings for dinner and calling yourself a liturgical boss. (Just don’t skip on the diablo hot sauce.)

This past week felt so heavy in the news. I mentioned on Facebook on Tuesday that I’ve started taking Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays completely off of all social media platforms, and it has been awesome. Super good for the head and the heart. And it has really catapulted my book-consumption rate through the roof. This past week I devoured one of my favorite blogger’s debut offerings, Anne Bogel’s “Reading People,” along with a book Dave passed on to me, “Beneath a Scarlet Sky” (depressing but well written with a shocker at the end; a rare glimpse of WWII told from an Italian perspective), two middling modern fiction/YA offerings “Holding up the universe” and “Forever, Interrupted,” and am halfway into both “Hidden Figures” and “Today Will Be Different.” (First one is good but very statistic-y. Second is meh. I liked “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” better, by the same author.

Suffice it to say, I get a lot of reading accomplished when I’m not numbing my brain with newsfeeds and the perpetual cycle of What Is Offensive This Week. Even if none of it was particularly deep or scholarly. It was all very Josef Pieper, truth be told.

I’m getting into that home stretch (that’s a stretch) of pregnancy where suddenly decaf isn’t cutting it in the morning, and an afternoon nap is looking more and more like a daily necessity. 27 weeks but who’s counting? If I hadn’t done this four times already, I’d swear there’s no way my belly could get any bigger. And the general public would tend to agree with that assessment. Just you wait till December, helpless passersby. Things are going to get real.

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While I spent a nice little chunk of time away from social media, I was still aware enough of the outside world to note the passing of cultural icon Hugh Hefner. Arguably the single greatest driving force behind the prolific spread of pornography, we should all take a moment to pray for the response of his soul. I said as much on Facebook and was a little shocked by some of the vitriolic responses from fellow Christians, who apparently missed the memo of Jesus praying to the Father “that none may be lost.” Also, color many people vv confused about Purgatory and the Spiritual Works of Mercy. I’ll have to write a whole piece on the big P one of these days. This examination of the legacy of Hefner is worth a read (and do offer a Hail Mary for his soul).

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Fr. James Martin. Sigh. So much ugly electronic ink spilled on both sides of the aisle lately. His prickly responses to perceived or actual criticism of his work make it hard to root for him, and, unlike other “controversial” churchmen like Chaput or Gomez, he seems particularly unwilling to dialogue with those who hold opposing viewpoints. This interview with a baptist theologian sums up the consequences of his theological understanding of homosexuality, according to his controversial book, “Building Bridges.”

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I actually burned out on HGTV after Luke’s pregnancy. By the end of my third trimester with him, I was spending hours each day, counting the gym + nightly soaks in the bathtub, consuming endless reruns of House Hunters (International and local, thankyouverymuch) and Fixer Upper, and it actually made real life house hunting really, really painful. Forget granite countertops and his and hers sinks; how about a foundation that isn’t failing, an intact roof, and a clean bill of mold free health? This piece hilariously (and a little bit disturbingly) sums up what is so addictive and so destructive about this particular genre of reality tv.

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My friend Emily Stimpson Chapman wrote a beautiful and hard and brutally-honest piece exploring her foray into the world of infertility. It’s actually the best thing I’ve ever read about the heartache of hearing “no” to the question of new life.

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Guys, I know it’s nearing the season of spookiness and all-things-creepy, but everyone knows that actually, um, dabbling in the demonic is utterly and irrevocably opposed to faith in Jesus Christ, right? Right? Okay, well just in case there is any residual confusion over the matter, give this a look, and remember that just because something seems innocuous or fun or even “worth it” in terms of risk taken, doesn’t make it so. Stay far, far away from the occult, from Satan, and from all his empty works and promises.

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This is what real power looks like. This woman’s story beggars belief and begs the question: “what grudges am I holding on to that I have been unwilling to release?” If she can forgive the infamous Dr. Mengele of Auschwitz, what in the (literal) hell is holding me back?

And on that mind blowing and uplifting note, I bid you the happiest weekend filled with restorative, leisurely activities and authentic worship. And many hours of consecutive, uninterrupted sleep.

Culture of Death, mental health, Pornography, Sex, sin, spiritual warfare, technology, Theology of the Body

Sex, violence, and the internet: every parent’s battle

August 9, 2017

My boss brought to my attention a startling and, frankly, disturbing piece of research that surfaced last week correlating the age of a boy’s first exposure to pornography and his resultant attitude towards women. In results that ought to startle nobody who is familiar with the concept of the “latency period” in human development, according to this small study of 300 college-aged men, the younger a child is introduced to pornography, the higher the likelihood of violence in his interactions with the opposite sex.

The study authors were surprised, as they’d been expecting to see a correlation between promiscuity and earlier age of exposure. What they weren’t expecting to find was that the younger the child was when he was exposed, the more likely that he would hold a violent attitude towards women:

“That was a shock because scientists had expected that men would be more promiscuous the earlier they came to pornographic material.”

For male children who are exposed to pornography later in life, their attitude towards the opposite sex tended toward a “playboy” mentality leading to higher rates of promiscuity and an increased number of sexual partners.

I feel like any parent in possession of a grain of common sense could have predicted the outcome of the study, provided they were familiar with what the Church has traditionally identified as “the latency period” of childhood development. The notion being that pre-pubescent children are, by design, not in possession of the necessary mental faculties to process sexual images or events when they are prematurely exposed, and thus sex can actually become conflated with violence.

This is part of why sexual abuse of children is particularly horrifying, and why the normalization of pornography in our culture has such profoundly troubling consequences.

You see, introducing children “gently” to pornographic content and premature sexual information, ala Planned Parenthood’s method of classroom instruction of school children, is not the way to craft sexually healthy humans.

Putting porn into tiny, still developing brains that are neither emotionally nor biologically equipped to receive or process such information leads not to sexually-savvy adolescents down the line, but to children whose neural pathways have conflated sex and violence in a devastating intersection of dopamine and digital content.

In a society plagued concerns about rape culture and violence against women, this is something that should grip our attention. The more we learn about pornography and it’s effects on the brain, the greater our efforts to prevent – and honestly, at this point, mitigate – a massive public health crisis.

Porn is not harmless.

It’s not harmless at age 5, (the youngest age at which the men in the above study were exposed. Sob.) and it’s not harmless at 26 (the upper age range of the study). It’s not harmless at 13, which, according to this study, is the average age of first exposure. The wider-studied average appears to be age 11.

And this is really important:

Most said that they had first encountered it by accident, rather than searching it out or being forced to watch it. And how exactly that happened didn’t appear to determine how men would relate to women.

Whether they’d been exposed by accident or by design, it was the age at which they were exposed, not the method (or intention) of exposure, that determined whether they’d tend more towards violence or more towards promiscuity.

Parents, teachers, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles, caretakers: this is on us. We cannot turn our children loose with internet devices, however carefully we’ve filtered and password-protected them. We cannot hand over the remote and expect kids to safely navigate Direct TV or Netflix. We cannot check out of the essential and critically important task of raising healthy adults who have a shot at a healthy interior life and decent sex some day.

Porn is not harmless. And it is not inevitable, either.

At least it doesn’t have to be, for our children.

I spend hours each day on the internet, and it has been years since I’ve come across hardcore pornography. Softer porn is harder to avoid, but as an adult with a fully formed brain and conscience, plus the necessary technological and common sense, I can easily click away plus take steps to avoid questionable content in the first place, based on the sites I click and the search terms I craft.

But I am 34 years old and female. And if I can still not help the accidental exposure to soft core porn in my daily use of the internet, imagine with the digital landscape holds for your 10 year old son or your 15 year old daughter.

Do not give your kids smartphones. Do not allow them to peruse the internet without the screen in your plain site and safeguards in place to enable safest searching. This isn’t prudishness; it’s sanity. It’s not a matter of cultural or religious preference, it’s the difference between living in a civilized society and a barbaric wasteland. Does it sound weird and inconvenient? Yep. But the devastating public health crisis we find ourselves in the midst of demands some weirdness and inconvenience of us, the grown ups.

Why do you think co-eds get raped while lying unconscious behind dumpsters on college campuses? That kind of behavior doesn’t develop in a vacuum. A normally-developing and sexually healthy 19 year old male doesn’t violently assault an unconscious female simply because he’s had a drink or 10. That is not normal human behavior. It is the result of a broader cultural dysfunction that has whispered temptingly that we can have our cake and eat it, too. That porn is healthy and acceptable and normal under the right circumstances, and that the consequences of what is done alone behind the privacy of a screen doesn’t reach out tentacles into the wider community.

Wrong.

We were wrong, and it is beyond time to correct course.

Fight for the future generations of men and women who will become the mothers and fathers and leaders of tomorrow. Don’t resign yourself to the inevitability of a sexually depraved future of men unable to care for or bond to women, of women unable to imagine or demand anything more of the partners they’ll settle for.

We can do better. We can do better than an unsupervised 5 year old whose 14 year old neighbor shows him porn on an iPhone. We can do better than a 14 year old girl sexting topless pictures to her first boyfriend, but actually to the entire lacrosse team, whose goalie will upload the images to an amateur porn site specializing in underaged content.

Talk to your kids about porn. Talk to your kids about technology. About social media. About boundaries. About saying no to immediate perceived goods for a greater good down the line.

We do not have to settle for the status quo when it comes to kids and healthy sexual development.

And neither do we have to wring our hands and lament the passing away of the civilized world. Stand up and fight! Your kid will not die without an iPhone. Your kid will not die if you pull them out of public school for their own safety and sanctity, if that’s the reality of your particular situation. Your kid will not die if you forbid the viewing of “Game of Thrones” or “Girls” in your home. Your kid will maybe even thank you some day, on the precipice of 40, surveying a wasteland of divorce and domestic destruction all around him and observing the apparent miracle of his own reasonably happy family.

We cannot settle for this. We must not settle for this.

Some excellent resources for educating about porn, combating the effects of habitual usage, and best practices for parents:

Digital resourcs:

The Digital Kids Initiative

Fight the New Drug

Porn Kills Love

Print resources:

Good pictures, bad pictures

Freedom: Battle strategies for overcoming temptation

Your brain on porn

Good pictures, bad pictures jr.

Theology of the body for tots

Culture of Death, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, social media

Why “Don’t Look” won’t be enough

October 10, 2016

I am the mother of three sons and one daughter. My kids are young still, but my firstborn is now within a couple years of the average first age of exposure to pornography. Which means that kids as young as him have seen it, have stumbled upon in accidentally, have been intentionally exposed by an older sibling or cousin or neighbor kid, and are already struggling with feelings of confusion, excitement, shame, fear, and curiosity.

In this digital age, it is all but inevitable that my children will encounter pornography at some point during their childhood. And that breaks my heart.

But I can’t stick my head in the sand and just try not to worry about it, hoping that if I don’t mention it and if we’re careful enough at home and vigilant enough with our network filtering software (which is important!) and discriminating enough about our media consumption (also essential!) and picky enough about how we do playdates (SO huge. You have no idea what your neighbor might be watching late at night, and what might pop up on their son’s tablet during an innocent Youtube search for rocket launches or scenes from Team Hotwheels), we’ll be fine.

That isn’t enough. In other words, I have to equip myself as a mother to help my children navigate the murky waters of the digital world, so awash in pornography and violent, addictive content, and I have to equip my children to face this brave new world.

I can’t leave it up to chance. This one is too big, and the stakes are too high.

While both men and women struggle with pornography in increasing numbers, boys are particularly vulnerable in the era of a smartphone-in-every-pocket. Men are wired for visual stimulation. It’s beautiful and essential and intrinsically masculine, and it is a component of their intentional design that I wouldn’t change even if I could. But there is a multi-billion dollar market built around exploiting that facet of their nature and ensnaring young minds and hearts in a dark web of profitable addiction that is predicated on increasing levels of violence, misogyny, and dehumanization.

And it’s profitable as all hell, make no mistake about that. For every media soundbite or expert opinion that “a little porn is harmless,” or “pornography is a natural competent of a healthy relationship,” a rich pornographer who makes his or her living off of pimping out young women and children is laughing all the way to the bank.

(Porn kills love. For a totally secular perspective and a fantastic resource, check out “Fight the New Drug” and the great work they’re doing, especially with adolescents and college aged kids.)

I wrote a series on “porn proofing our kids” a while back, and afterwards a rep from Covenant Eyes: CMG Connect reached out to me about a new resource designed to empower parents to proactively engage with their kids on the topic of porn, and to help them build a safe, open, communicative family; a “safe haven.”

CMG Connect Parents is full of good video content, articles, and other resources for parents who are in all stages with kids of all ages.

Whether your family is already wrestling with this issue, you’re unsure of where to start (or whether your kids have been exposed yet) of if you’re like us and have young children and are looking down the pike to the future and wondering where to begin, this is a good place to start.

They are also offering a free 30 day trial of their acclaimed “Covenant Eyes” filtering program, a multidimensional resource that filters harmful content, alerts parents to potential problems, and can provide individual accountability and monitoring for help in overcoming an existing addiction. We’ve been hemming and hawing over which filtering software or device to use and when we need to make the leap, but after my husband spent 3 days last spring attending a conference for work, he walked away from the sessions on trafficking and addiction absolutely convicted that the time is now.

Even if your kids are little and aren’t using the internet on their own yet, now is the time to install those guardrails and establish a culture of safe and responsible media use. Not only are you protecting against accidental exposure (and I’ve seen some freaky stuff pop up totally unrelated on Youtube), but you’re also protecting the babysitters or other caregivers who come into your home and may connect to your network, along with houseguests and visitors who may access your WiFi (and in turn, you are protecting your network (hellooooo, targeted ads) against harmful content other people may access via your network without your knowledge. So many people are fighting a great battle, and you truly never know.)

Really, I can’t think of a reason to have unfiltered internet, period.

So do me a favor and start the 30 day trial, will you? And start clicking through some of the video content on CMG Connect. My favorite video is the one featuring two moms, with one mom walking the other through happening upon a probable pornography problem with her 14 year old son. It’s full of common sense, compassion, and a destigmatization of the problem, and it contains some tangible resources and a sort of guide map of what that journey look like for one family.

And of course, above all, we take our cue from Padre Pio: we pray, we hope, and we don’t worry. We don’t wallow in the “what ifs” or the regrets, and don’t anticipate the future with terror. Being proactive, wise, and confidant is a far cry from cowering and fearful. With common sense, open communication, and a helpful toolbox, our kids don’t have to become statistics in an adolescence behavioral journal.

I hope you’ll check it out.

(Thanks to Covenant Eyes whom I partnered with on this post for the industry-leading work they’re doing to empower families to stay safe and healthy. All opinions expressed are my own.)

Culture of Death, Evangelization, Family Life, Marriage, Pope Francis, Pornography, sin, Suffering

Lord, we need you

May 2, 2016

There are two women sitting to my right, and I’ve been trying – unsuccessfully – not to overhear them for the past half hour, sitting and working in a coffee shop.

They’ve been chatting therapy and personal growth and dating after divorce and escaping abusive marriages and widowhood and loss and…life. As we share the common space in this coffee shop, I’m failing to totally tune out the ebb and flow of their conversation, because we’re inches apart and I forgot my earbuds.

Somewhere between the story of one of their young sons’ walking upstairs and encountering daddy watching hardcore pornography on the 50-inch during his custody weekend and recognizing the “12 characteristics of an abuser,” it became suddenly and sickeningly clear to my interloping ear: they’re talking about the same man.

The divorcee and the new girlfriend are sitting at a table to my right, discussing the man they mutually loved, at different times, and the children she fled the marriage with, which the new girlfriend wonders why she never sees.

The new girlfriend is despondent because she lost her own husband to cancer at a young age and has only dated one man since – the abusive ex-husband, it turns out, of the battered former wife sharing a cappuccino with her.

This is why Amoris Laetitia is relevant, I suppose. These are the irregular situations in which people find themselves in this brave new world, unable to walk away from the mess of tangled relationships and responsibilities and brokenness.

It’s the saddest conversation I’ve ever been party to. And I’m so sorry to be hearing it. But I’m also oddly thankful to be allowed this opportunity.

The insanely composed ex-wife is walking the new girlfriend through the signs of neurotic narcissism, pointing out things to recognize when considering whether the guy in question is attempting to take control of her in an inappropriate way.

And I marvel at the courage it must require of her, of them both, really, to have this conversation, to have agreed to this meeting in the first place.

I can’t know their whole story, but the snapshot I’ve gathered in this coffee shop tells a redemption story of one woman trying to help another, and not out of malice for her abusive ex. (And I could be wrong. She could be operating out of pure vengeance, hoping to prevent him from a second – third, actually, turns out – shot at happiness. But it doesn’t strike me as the case.)

This is the strange and broken world we’ve inherited, east of Eden and post sexual revolution. Death. Divorce. Abuse. Pornography. Broken families. Broken bones. Broken hearts.

Is there any hope for any of us, truly? Can we honestly propose Christ as the tidy answer to problems which are this messy, to situations this heartbreaking?

Yes and no.

Yes, Christ is the answer. Today, yesterday, and forever.

But no, it doesn’t tidy up the tangled ends. It doesn’t wave a magic wand over the pain and the regret and unravel the snarled threads of lives converged in pain and brokenness and sin.

That’s the damnedest thing about sin, isn’t it? He forgives and makes new, but He does not undo what choices our free will have wrought.

Redeems them, yes. But He doesn’t grant amnesia to the victims of violence, doesn’t repair the shattered window with a divine wand wave, doesn’t refill the bank account depleted by deceit.

Those pieces He leaves to us, allowing us to participate as His hands and His feet. And not so much allowing as demanding, because if not us, who? If not now, when?

I’m overhearing a corporal work of mercy in action. And I’m weeping silently and stoically on the inside at the pain both women are wrapped up in.

God, this world is a mess. And You’ve left it to us – to me and to you – to tend it.

I have no trite answer, no tidy conclusion. Just an awareness of how deep our brokenness is, and how desperately we still need a Savior, even now, in the West, with our astonishing wealth and technology.

We still need Jesus.

We can’t save ourselves.

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, Evangelization, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, Sex, sin, Theology of the Body, toddlers

Porn proof kids and patron saints {part 3 in a series}

April 27, 2016

Lately I’ve been writing about — and hearing heart-wrenching accounts of — people struggling with pornography addiction. It’s rampant in our culture in the West, and the deeper I dig into the statistics and the anecdotes, the more I’m realizing that it is very much a cross-cultural issue, and that even as the internet has transcended geographical boundaries in the best ways, it has been the vehicle for what I suspect history will look back upon as one of the most pernicious evils of our time.

And none of us are immune to it.

But it’s not hopeless.

And the very last thing we’re called to do, as parents, is throw our hands up in the air and resign ourselves to the sad inevitability of our kids and their friends becoming statistics.

So we take the practical steps. We talk to our kids early and often about what pornography is, the real cost of it, emotionally and spiritually and physically, and we put physical and behavioral barriers in place to protect them and to safeguard the sanctity of our homes.

At the same time, we are called to be salt and light in a world grown dim and flavorless – and increasingly so, where sex is concerned. So we fill our little people’s hearts and minds with truth, goodness, and beauty, and we demonstrate for them what real love looks and feels and sounds like. And we send them out.

Christianity does not belong in a bubble. And neither do little Christian foot soldiers in training. So while do our best to make our home base a sanctuary of love and learning and growing in discipleship and virtue, we must also equip our kids to engage the outside world, bit by bit, bringing the Gospel to their friends and classmates by means of those organic, innocent child-to-child encounters that the very young are so ideally suited for.

Our kids are going to be exposed to evil in this life, but we needn’t resign ourselves to the inevitability their becoming enslaved to it.

By teaching them, using the language of Theology of the Body and the currency of virtue and the grace of the Sacraments, our kids can become little living icons of Christ in a dark and hurting world, and grow up to be the kind of men and women who change history.

St. John Paul II left a great gift to the world in his masterpiece, Theology of the Body. As his wisdom and holiness continues to be distilled into materials that kids and young adults and laypersons of every stripe can readily access, simply entrusting our kids to his heavenly protection is a powerful first step.

A famous story has been circulating on the internet for a couple years now, and it never fails to bring me to tears. Fr. Gabriele Amorth, chief exorcist for the diocese of Rome, was speaking about the effectiveness of invoking different saints during exorcisms. During one encounter, he asked the demon point blank “why do you fear the name of John Paul II so much?” and it replied “Because he pulled so many young people from my hands.”

Mic drop.

Another heavy hitter in the battle for purity, I’ve no doubt: Mother Angelica.

Though she’s only been in heaven (hey, even the Pope thinks so!) a month or so, stories are already circulating about wealthy businessmen (as in, this exact scenario played out more than once!) trolling for porn in their hotel rooms and instead happening upon the oddly captivating image of an elderly nun, sometimes sporting an eye patch, telling them who they really were, and why they deserved to be fed more than garbage.

(Those encounters, by the way, ended up culminating with conversions to Catholicism and massive financial gifts to the ministry and operations of EWTN. Because God can use any of us.)

So we entrust ourselves, and our children, to the mercy of God and the powerful intercession of His saints, and we face the problem of pornography head on, because, in the immortal words of St. Joan of Arc: “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.”

Take heart, moms and dads; So were you.

(This post originally appeared at Catholic Exchange)

Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography, reality check, Sex, sin

Porn-proofing our kids: practical steps {2 in a series}

April 20, 2016

(I want to start this piece with a plea to anyone who stumbled on this blog today, for however many seconds and from wherever in the world, because you googled “mama porn” or “mama with kids porno,” or “mom porn”… It happens more often than I care to think about, but I want you to know that you are loved, that you don’t have to fill your mind and your heart with trash, and that you were made for more. If you’re looking for help, try here first.)

The next big piece of the porn-proofing puzzle is actually putting some safeguards into place for the inevitable exposure to pornography.

Of course we’ll talk filtering software, parental controls, etc., but the bigger piece of the puzzle actually takes place internally, for the child whose will and mind and character are being formed and cultivated by loving parents and by humane, comprehensive education that respects and recognizes the whole person.

One of the best pieces of advice for parents about pornography that I’ve ever come across was written by another mommy blogger, and I can’t find the piece to link to it here, but this is a good approximation of what she was striving to teach her children.

In a nutshell, from a young age, help your children to recognize two things: 1. what pornography is and 2. why pornography is so sad.

For example, you’re shopping at Target (or wherever) and you come nose to nose with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition in the checkout line. Now, I’m not so prude as to be scandalized by a mere bikini (though scandalous some may be) but the new thing is actually body paint. On bare skin. So even for SI swimsuit edition, swim suits need not apply. You calmly bend down and either flip the magazine or put a copy of Real Simple in front of it before explaining to your little person(s) “that’s pornography. And she needs privacy. Let’s say a quick prayer for her and for the person who took her picture.”

And for a little while, that might well be sufficient.

It’s critical to drill home these two truths: 1. identifying pornography for your children when you encounter it, and impressing upon them the sadness of it and 2. humanizing the woman (or man, but I’ve yet to see a copy of anything questionable in any retail outlet I frequent featuring man booty, so…) in question, and teaching your sons and daughters empathy for the great dignity of the Other.

When we demonstrate to our children what pornography is and what to do when one encounters it, we’ve already taken a huge first step, while holding their hand, which can help them along the path of virtue.

I’ve never been a big fan of modesty-via-shaming. It might make a point, but at what cost? It is possible that the first conversation we have with our children about pornography will come too late in the game for some of them. And by this I mean that they may already have been exposed to it, and may already be struggling with an addiction. While I pray that isn’t the case for my young brood, I do want to communicate to them my great love for them, as their mother, and our shared concern, as human beings, for the dignity of others.

Even magazine cover stars.

And even porn stars.

When my children are older, we’ll have more frank conversations about human trafficking and the sex trade, and what the insatiable global appetite for more and bigger and better and more violent content has created…but for now I want to impress upon them two things: that they are loved. And that “they” are loved.

And porn kills love.

It also kills brain cells and willpower. But before addiction and industry and commercialization and supply and demand, there are broken human persons being brokered for profit, sold into virtual slavery to ensnare others into a detached and depersonalized slavery.

And I want more for my children. And for yours, too.

So we teach love, first. Love for self, love for neighbor, and love for God. All of which can be demonstrated in a quick moment in the checkout line or on Youtube where we shut down the offending device, flip the degrading magazine cover, and have a frank and unemotional 20 second conversation about

–what pornography is (violation of the dignity of the human person via immodest images),

–why it’s wrong (this dehumanizes her, and you, and gives away too much of who she is),

–and how we respond to it (with immediate aversion of our eyes/shutting down of the device and prayer, both for the person(s) we’ve seen and the way their dignity has been violated, and for the person who took their picture/created the content.)

Some additional practical steps are in order, of course, because while we can’t protect our kids from the world, we can keep the world at bay, to a certain extent, by putting boundaries into place that maintain the sanctity and safety of the home.

1. Do not give your child an internet-enabled device of their own. In my mind, this would be a person under the age of 13, a kid who shouldn’t be seeing PG-13 movies without a parent or guardian. That number seems reasonable to me, but again, my kids are young yet, so maybe I’ll be eating these words in a year or 4.

So maybe…

2. If total tech abstinence is too crazy for you, and you still want to gift your preteen a Kindle or a laptop for school use, then at least consider blocking it up and locking it down with some hardcore (pun intended) filtering software or app like Covenant Eyes, Circle by Disney, or a good old fashioned password (changed regularly by parents) on the home router. But even those measures aren’t fool proof. Basically, a motivated and tech-savvy teen (and which aren’t?) will find the content they’re looking for. Which is why we train and teach first, and block and filter second.

Because while all the filtering and blocking of offensive content in the world is great, it’s essential that our kids are emotionally, spiritually. and intellectually filled in, beforehand, on what porn is and why it’s harmful to them. Because if a kid wants to find porn, a kid is going to find porn. So that’s why I led with the teaching stuff.

I’ve worked out a sort of timeline in my head for what this is going to look like for our family, at least in theory. So here it goes:

Age 0-6: Teach basic Theology of the Body concepts, from birth. i.e. “You are a gift, made by Love and for Love.” “Your body is like a love letter written by God, to the world, and you can know who God is and who you are through your body.” “You are fearfully and wonderfully made, and you have dignity.” “We cover up what is sacred because it’s holy, not because it’s yucky.”

Stuff like that.

(Also, we’re big on naming parts their real names. So, sorry about that, neighbors. I think I heard somewhere that teaching your 2 year old to yell “penis” makes them 100% more likely to get you side-eyed at neighborhood functions and supermarkets, and so far it’s working out great!)

Age 6-8: Basic instruction in sexuality and an introduction to the concept of pornography. i.e. “You are a boy, you were created to be a man, your masculinity is a gift to the world, and your body is capable of caring for and protecting others.” “You are a girl, you will be a woman some day, you are created to give of yourself in an incredibly complex and unique way that is beautiful and capable of creating new life.” “That’s pornography. She needs privacy. Pornography shows us parts of other people we don’t have the right to see. We need to pray for him/her, and for the people who create the product of pornography” “Pornography is created to trick your brain into wanting something that will hurt it/to make money from hurting people”

Age 8+ I bought the book “Good Pictures, Bad Pictures” last month after hearing great reviews from a lot of more seasoned parents, and it does a fantastic job of explaining the addictive and scientific properties of porn addiction, without being overwhelming, boring, or overly frank. It’s written from a totally secular perspective, so I can’t imagine any parent would struggle with implementing it in their own home. I haven’t read it with my oldest son yet, because 5.5 seems a little young still, but I’m planning to sit down with him and start working through it in the next year or so. My vision for ongoing instruction here hinges on endlessly open communication and talking, talking, talking about what you’re seeing when you’re out with your kids, what crazy commercials pop up while you’re watching the game together, and what trashy pop ups are crowding the Youtube sidebar while you’re trying to show your 2 year old a video about honey badgers (Evie badger does.not.care.,proving my point that she is one. But I digress.)

Whew. Since this is getting longish, I’ll wrap things up here, but stay tuned for part 3 where we’ll discuss strategies and resources for talking porn with your tweens and preteens, and how to get help for kids (or parents) who are already struggling with an addiction to pornography.

St. John Paul II, pray for us.

Culture of Death, Evangelization, Family Life, motherhood, Parenting, Pornography

Porn proofing our kids: Emotional investment {part 1 in a series}

April 12, 2016

This topic near and dear to my heart. I have 3 little boys, 2 nephews, 2 brothers, and 1 husband. And too many male friends to count.

I also have one daughter. 4 sisters. 4 nieces, and the list goes on.

Pornography isn’t “someone else’s problem;” it’s our problem. It’s my problem and your problem and the guy across the street’s problem. It’s your barista’s problem and the 2nd grade teacher’s problem, and it might just be your spouse’s problem, too.

If you don’t think it’s your problem? That’s probably because you’ve yet to have an incredibly hard conversation with someone close to you who may be, at this very moment, drowning in shame and overwhelm and addiction, unable to reach out and unsure of where to turn for help.

I was in a conference call this morning where porn was referred to as “the pandemic of our age.”

And I couldn’t agree more.

An entire generation of men (and women) enslaved spiritually, psychologically and physically to an addiction as strong as cocaine, and as readily available as sugar.

It’s a strange time to be raising kids, in a culture that both objectifies women (and men, but let’s call the spade by it’s given name and admit who the biggest losers in the porn game really are) while simultaneously calling for their empowerment via the shedding of all sexual and cultural norms regarding modesty.

I won’t attempt to make the case here for what’s wrong with pornography, because I’m going to assume we’re all on the same page there, whether your convictions stem from an emotional, moral, religious, or psychological perspective.

What I do want to talk about is how we best equip and instruct our children for navigating the dangerous digital jungle. And the checkout line. And prime time television. And the school bus.

The average age of first exposure to pornography is around 9 years old, as best I can tell from my online and in person research. That gives me a little over 3 years to prepare my oldest son for his first encounter with porn. Most first exposures are accidental. Something might pop up on Youtube, or in a banner ad, or even via a misspelled or poorly thought out search term.

Notice that I didn’t say “if,” but “when.”

Because our kids will be exposed to porn. And it’s not enough to cancel your Victoria’s Secret catalogue (not that it’s actually possible to do that. They’ll keep sending the damn thing no matter how long ago you shopped there, and how many times you ask their customer service department). Nope, we’ve got to be proactive and reactively tactical as parents of baby … Millennials? (What are our children, exactly?)

First and foremost, the most essential part of the porn-proofing equation is … you.

A child who is affirmed in his or her intrinsic goodness and worth and dignity by his mother and father is less likely to go seeking out pornography.

Will he be immune to the lure of it? No. Of course not. And yes, he still might come upon it if you live in a city or a suburb or a village on a mountaintop with internet access…. but on the whole, kids are less likely to go looking for it on purpose when their basic emotional and psychological needs are being met at home.

And hopefully? They’re more likely to click away when they do happen upon it.

So we love up on these kids and let them know that we’re here, that we’re safe and trustworthy, and that we’re available for spur of the moment heart to hearts and annoying butt-ins and one million questions all day long. Because that’s how these little people give their hearts. And we have to be willing and ready to receive them. As an introvert this is hard times a million. I like my space! I like my down time!

But I can’t have as much of that as I want while they’re awake. And some days I acknowledge this with more grace than others. And the other days? I pray to God for selective amnesia in my offspring so they’re not dissecting my awful parenting via group hologram sometime 20 years down the road, one-upping each other with stories of How Mom Screwed Us Up.

(Dare to dream, right?)

The fundamental health of our relationship as parent and child is critical to that child feeling secure and capable of one day coming to us with harder stuff than “I accidentally spit in my brother’s mouth.” And even when it’s hard and it’s yucky, we need to be the ones who they can come to and ask for help, for guidance, and for forgiveness.

The second piece of this looks like intentional, one-on-one engagement between opposite sex parent and child. Sons need to be loved and praised and recognized in the goodness of their masculinity by their father, yes, but also by their mother.

Boys who don’t experience a strong connection with their mother are more vulnerable to a pornography addiction as they seek out the disordered approval and love of women

And daughters? Yep, you guessed it. They need dad telling them who they are, what they were made for, and why they’re so good.

There is no way for us to prevent our kids from seeing porn, but we can lay a foundation of unconditional love that will invite them to come running when they do see it, so that we can talk it through with them.

Pray with your children and for your children, and for their sexuality, their emotional health, and their hearts. Ask their patron saint or namesake to intercede for them as you entrust that particular child to God’s mercy and providence, knowing that despite our best intentions as parents, we’re still not going to be able to protect them from everything.

But that won’t stop us from leaving it all on the field in the effort, right?

Up next: Practical resources for having “the talk” about porn, and for monitoring internet usage at home in a mentoring style, so that your kids learn to monitor it for themselves.