Worth the Wait

"Let's wait awhile before it's too late

Let's wait awhile, our love will be great

Let's wait awhile before we go too far"

Chorus to Let's Wait Awhile by Janet Jackson

A few days ago, I'm sitting on my bed catching up on some reading, my youngest daughter Khadijah knocks on the door. She comes in and says she has a question for me; the brief but powerful exchange went like this:

"Daddy, can I ask you a personal question?" "Sure", I say.

"When did you lose your virginity?" My astonished response was, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

With the excitement and wonder that only a child could muster she exclaims, "Yes I will!" Tell me!"

"Twenty", I say calmly to which she replied "Uh Uhn! – MOM!"

She runs out of the room to grab my wife to use against me as a human polygraph machine. She asks the question again; I give the same answer. My wife confirms the answer because 1. We've discussed such matters and 2. I can't seem to lie to her with a straight face. LOL

Khadijah then asks, "How come you waited so long?" "Why didn't I wait longer is the real question", I replied.

There are two things troubling about this scenario:

1. My child thought I would be dishonest with her about the loss of my virginity.
   
2. Today's generation is more concerned about losing their virginity quickly than waiting for marriage – or at least for a committed relationship.
   

After this little exchange I called everyone into the living room for a family discussion. We talked about their feelings on sex and when they thought it was okay to "give it away" and why they felt that way. Then we, the parents, talked about why it's important to wait. Then we discussed the pitfalls that you could face if you don't wait and of course, proper protection.

Have we had this discussion before? Yes. What was different about this time? We shared our experiences as parents with our kids. We let them know that if we could get a "do over" we would gladly accept it. We told them there is nothing glamorous about having sex too soon. We told them we wished we'd have waited longer before having sex. However, the most important difference was that they actually LISTENED this time.

This week's Meditate on this goes out to all the young adults and teens of the world and is actually the finally line in Janet's song: "I promise, I'll be worth the wait". Be worth the wait people.

Have a PERFECT day!

Michael

My II Sense