An article by Barbara Curtis- from a blog I enjoy reading.
Teen dating, courtship - your thoughts, plans, experience?
Ten years ago, it wasn't complicated. My answer as an evangelical homeschooling mom would have been swift and sure: courtship was the only way. Courtship as defined in the strictest homeschool sense - forbidding any special relationships with the opposite sex until our children were of marriageable age. I was convinced that by bringing our kids up with this ethic we could expect them to fulfill our vision of how things should be.
Today I am more humble.
My guess is that there are many moms out there just as convinced as I was 10 years ago that I could forge the blissful reality I planned for my kids. My guess is that most - no matter how many children they have - have not yet been broken by parenthood.
Because as moms of grown-up kids will tell you, parenthood has a way of breaking you, doesn't it? And that's a good thing, isn't it? I mean, God must find it more difficult to speak to us when we think we are whole.
It's in that spirit - as a mom who once had all the answers - thinking that bringing up kids could be like following a recipe with predictable results - that I spark a give-and-take discussion where moms of all levels of experience can share their vision for navigating the teen years, but where experienced moms (and dads) might offer their real life experience.
Right now, we have five children still at home 8-17. We have seven children 19-39. And while three of those reached adulthood before becoming romantically involved, four of them didn't.
Our oldest daughter has been married for 20 years to her high school sweetheart, whom we've known since fifth grade. They have six children under 17 and are very strong proponents of the courtship model. Our second daughter met and married her husband when she was 22. Our oldest son had several crushes through his teen years, but shortly after our move fell in love with a Virginia girl, asked her father's permission to court her and did so for a few years before their marriage almost three years ago. Our second son went prodigal at 18 - with the precipitating crisis a very mixed-up girl - but came home last fall to regroup and mend fences. Our third son met his sweetheart in high school and they have carried out a long distance romance for five years at separate colleges. On May 22 they will marry and begin to spend every day together.
My point in recounting these different scenarios is this: in every instance it was not about Tripp's and my will for our children's lives, but about God's. Beneath the one-sentence summaries of each of their dating/courtship stories is a subtext of parenting joy and sorrow, and many moments of surrender as we Tripp and I grew as parents to learn that while our job was to build a foundation, we could not control the outcome.
We also have learned - as in many other life issues - that extra-biblical "programs" that prescribe how our families should look, act, and experience life can become crippling - while causing deep, unnecessary division in the Body of Christ. As flawed human beings we can take even the best-intentioned advice, and in implementing it use it as a basis to feel superior to and judgmental of others.
What they need to know is that even famous homeschool icons have found it impossible to implement the courtship model perfectly. They just don't talk about it.
The problem with the courtship model is that it is unrealistic to think that it will work for every child and every family. Like all rigid models, there is no room for God to do anything outside the limits we have set (we seem to always forget the Bible stories which demonstrate that His ways are not our ways). Because the reality is that romantic feelings/attraction to the opposite sex really do occur in the teen years, in some ways with some kids we may be inviting emotional dysfunction as they have to deny/hide/bury their feelings rather than having some help navigating them while they are still under our wings.
God built us with a biological timetable which is good because he made it. Our culture has prolonged adolescence and postponed marriage/family for a ridiculously long amount of time. Christian parents go along with this practice, expecting their kids to go to college before marriage while avoiding romance and relationship until 22 or 23. While this may work for some individuals, it sets up others for whom God may have different plans for dysfunction and failure
I once interviewed couples who'd been married 50 years or more on the secrets of their success. They'd married young. They'd married quickly. They'd married simply. And they'd married poor, committed to building their lives together.
Spending time with those couples really changed my outlook, causing me
to question the ridiculous corner we've painted ourselves into in our
culture.
Consider the crazy ethic in our culture that a man and a woman should be financially secure before marriage. Why? My oldest daughter and her husband married at 19. Together, they worked to put him through college. Perhaps it was that experience that taught them to make good decisions about money - today they are financially secure.
People were aghast that we gave our blessing to them to marry. Today we can only say how happy we are we did.
I don't pretend that my musings are comprehensive or in any way the final word on this subject. I continue as a parent to be taken by surprise every day. I am hoping that many moms will offer their own experience and wisdom here. For moms still in the visionary years, I hope you will keep an open mind because when rigid plans meet reality, the effects can be devastating.
And as in all things family, the most important thing is love.
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