Teaching Modesty

[Guest]

Nope.  I sound nothing like my dad and certainly not like my mom.  My wife does have a lot in common with her mom.  But she practically worships her mom and actively tries to emulate her.

And none of my boys is like me either.  Thank goodness.  A couple of them have decided they want to follow in my footsteps and become an engineer.  But I don't see that happening.

My daughters try to be like my wife.  My older one is just an angel.  My younger one is still young.

Thankfully, most have decided to adopt my silliness and sense of humor.  But one child says she tries to emulate Grampa's (Lehi's) silliness rather than mine.

[anatess2]

3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

People say that but LadyGator is nothing like her (or my) parents and I'm nothing like my Dad or Mom either. 

But then you're the guy who likes to break the mold of every statistical generality...

[Guest MormonGator]

1 minute ago, tesuji said:

I agree. We're not talking about trying to control how other people dress. We're talking about what is right, about the ideal, what we should teach our kids.

Self-control is certainly important. It's the only thing nowadays standing between a man and porn addiction.

Absolutely agree, 100%. 

[anatess2]

3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

People say that but LadyGator is nothing like her (or my) parents and I'm nothing like my Dad or Mom either. 

But then you're the guy who likes to break the mold of every statistical generality...

[Guest MormonGator]

1 minute ago, anatess2 said:

But then you're the guy who likes to break the mold of every statistical generality...

 :: takes a bow :: 

I call it being myself 

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Nope.  I sound nothing like my dad and certainly not like my mom.  My wife does have a lot in common with her mom.  But she practically worships her mom and actively tries to emulate her.

And none of my boys is like me either.  Thank goodness.  A couple of them have decided they want to follow in my footsteps and become an engineer.  But I don't see that happening.

My daughters try to be like my wife.  My older one is just an angel.  My younger one is still young.

Thankfully, most have decided to adopt my silliness and sense of humor.  But one child says she tries to emulate Grampa's (Lehi's) silliness rather than mine.

See Anatess? I set the trends and Carb follows my lead. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

See Anatess? I set the trends and Carb follows my lead. 

My son, remember who is older.  I got there first, buddy.

[Guest MormonGator]

2 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

My son, remember who is older.  I got there first, buddy.

You know I'm your hero. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, MormonGator said:

You know I'm your hero. 

SHHH!  Don't tell.

[NeuroTypical]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

1. Her face.  Look at her face.  Don't let your eyes drop. Nope.  Her face.  She's up here.  Her face.  Her face.
2. Finish and get out. Finish and get out.  Get out.  Get out.  <insert Amityville> GET OUT!!!

So, maybe this will help you and maybe it won't.  I remember I started reacting exactly this way around age 10.  This reaction was as central to me as my own arm, my own sense of identity.  I thought it was just the way my DNA was written.  For the better part of three decades, into my mid-40's, that was me.  My habit was to just stare up at the sky and sing "How Great Thou Art" to myself.   Thought it was a normal male reaction handed to me by genetics and a loving God who sent me here to learn to master my passions.  (I won't go into my various successes and failures through my life at mastering them, that's not the point.  The point is, I've been you for most of my life.) 

Then a series of things happened in my early '40's, and I can honestly say I'm not like this any more.  And it's not that I don't have passions or find things attractive any more - I do.  It's that another dimension has opened up in my soul, that allows me to look at my fellow humans and see (for lack of a better term) the "whole picture".  It's like I see more than just them, I see their worth as a soul, another person like me with hopes and dreams and whatnot.  The form it's all packaged in, is secondary now.  

I'm not exactly sure what these changes all were or entailed, but a couple spring to mind:
* Having daughters.  Heard my first daughter's heartbeat on the ultrasound, and I felt changes happening inside me.  Switches being thrown.  As I watched my daughters go through puberty, and flounce around the house, there was an absolute total absence of all that stuff.  Here I was, needing to fight against my attractions with the whole dang world, except for my own flesh and blood.  How cool was that?   The only reaction I noticed in myself at seeing them, was a vague sense of wanting to go find the nearest neighbor boy and make powerful and threatening eye contact, just in case he got any ideas.  

* Hearing all my wife's experiences working with people at the end of their rope.  Heartwrenching stories from working with druggies, girls trying to escape the sex slavery trade, ex-strippers, gay guys dying of aids, random people in the hall at church with their usually-guarded secrets.  My wife exposed me to her ability to see and accept the basic humanity of people, and it looks like some of it sank in.  

* A few years ago, trying to keep up with my daughters' growing artistic ability, I tried a few female forms.  My whole life, I would have reacted to drawing a breast by considering me engaging in p0rnography.  The equivalent of not only dropping my eyes, but focusing real hard on what was there.  But not now.  Totally floored myself at how much distance I had covered, how much not like me I now was.  I showed my wife, and tried to stammer out some sense of what I was experiencing.  I remember she basically rolled her eyes and said something to the tune of "well it's about time" 

So there you go.  Like I said, I'm not sure if it will help or not.  But I used to be you, and now it's not like that any more.  Your mileage may vary.

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by NeuroTypical

[anatess2]

13 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Nope.  I sound nothing like my dad and certainly not like my mom.  My wife does have a lot in common with her mom.  But she practically worships her mom and actively tries to emulate her.

And none of my boys is like me either.  Thank goodness.  A couple of them have decided they want to follow in my footsteps and become an engineer.  But I don't see that happening.

My daughters try to be like my wife.  My older one is just an angel.  My younger one is still young.

Thankfully, most have decided to adopt my silliness and sense of humor.  But one child says she tries to emulate Grampa's (Lehi's) silliness rather than mine.

I'm not talking about personal choices.  To be an engineer is a personal choice.  But, the way you talk, the words you use, the way you move, your mannerisms, your habits ... they come from somewhere.  You don't develop that in a vacuum.  This is very evident in families.  When my then 8-year-old son rebuked his brother in the exact same way my husband rebuked him, it wasn't until then that my husband realized he needed to change his approach.

Your children are learning faaaaar more than what you're consciously teaching them.

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by anatess2

[Guest MormonGator]

3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I'm not talking about personal choices.  To be an engineer is a personal choice.  But, the way you talk, the words you use, the way you move, your mannerisms, your habits ... they come from somewhere.  You don't develop that in a vacuum.  This is very evident in families.  When my then 8-year-old son rebuked his brother in the exact same way my husband rebuked him, it wasn't until then that my husband realized he needed to change his approach.

 

I think that's a cliche Anatess. I know of so many people who don't act anything like their parents in so many ways. That doesn't mean I don't love my parents (obviously I do) or have anything in common with with (again, obviously I do) but overall I'm not much like them.  

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I'm not talking about personal choices.  To be an engineer is a personal choice.  But, the way you talk, the words you use, the way you move, your mannerisms, your habits ... they come from somewhere. 

Nope.

 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

...The point is, I've been you for most of my life.

Then a series of things happened in my early '40's, and I can honestly say I'm not like this any more. 

So, that's when you became a brony.

5 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

So there you go.  Like I said, I'm not sure if it will help or not.  But I used to be you, and now it's not like that any more.  Your mileage may vary.

Yeah.  Well, I'm not there yet.

[anatess2]

3 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Nope.

 

So you're saying your children learn their mannerisms in a vacuum?

 

Anyway, this isn't important.  You say your kids are modest without you teaching them.  You can believe it comes from a vacuum.  That's fine with me.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So you're saying your children learn their mannerisms in a vacuum?

 

Anyway, this isn't important.  You say your kids are modest without you teaching them.  You can believe it comes from a vacuum.  That's fine with me.

Yes.  I don't know if this will "convince" you or not.  But I guess I want to retell this story because it's just so cute.

My oldest daughter was about 3 or 4 years old.  Her brother was 2. She was in the bathroom brushing her teeth.  He came rushing into the bathroom trying to be faithful to the potty training that he was in the midst of.

She cried with great offense,"Bear, you're not supposed to do that when I'm in here.  It's in-ap-pwo-pwi-ate (inappropriate).  Yes, we might have said something about modesty and things being 'appropriate".  But that reaction from a 3 year old?  No, that was all her.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Guest

[anatess2]

Okay, this is getting me curious...

 

Do y'all really believe that your identity have no influence upon your children, consciously chosen or not?

Edited June 21, 2016 by anatess2

[NeuroTypical]

I believe we are built through both nature and nurture.  

In other words, of course we have influence on our children.  But some stuff will crop up in our kids, no matter what we do or don't do.

[tesuji]

To add to what I've said already -

I think one of the basic issues here is that immodesty is misusing the divine gift of procreation. Sexual attractiveness, etc - it's all tied up in the divine gift of procreation.

We know how seriously the Lord takes this area, because he said adultery is second only to murder in seriousness.

The D&C says if a man (or woman, I'm sure) lusts, he will not have the Spirit. For an LDS member this is a serious thing. Sure, his thoughts are his own responsibility. But if you as are the stimulus to him losing the Spirit or worse, you also share some of the guilt.

Quote

it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! -- Matthew 18:7

 

Edited June 21, 2016 by tesuji

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Okay, this is getting me curious...

 

Do y'all really believe that your identity have no influence upon your children, consciously chosen or not?

Who said "No influence"?

One thing is that our children have input from dozens of sources all the time.  There's movies, music, internet, books, books, and more books, games, friends, church, teachers, school, and yes, parents.  And while we try to guide much of what our children are exposed to I am not a big part of the personality that is them.  I do hope they take the best from all these sources and form what they consider to be themselves.  But I also notice some things that were present before they could even speak or walk.

Two of my sons were always the happiest children and still are.  They laugh the most.  They smile the most.  They certainly are MUCH happier than I ever was or even my wife was.  Their phrasing and mannerisms are an amalgamation of many different sources that they mold into a personality all their own.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Guest

[anatess2]

14 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Who said "No influence"?

One thing is that our children have input from dozens of sources all the time.  There's movies, music, internet, books, books, and more books, games, friends, church, teachers, school, and yes, parents.  And while we try to guide much of what our children are exposed to I am not a big part of the personality that is them.  I do hope they take the best from all these sources and form what they consider to be themselves.  But I also notice some things that were present before they could even speak or walk.

Two of my sons were always the happiest children and still are.  They laugh the most.  They smile the most.  They certainly are MUCH happier than I ever was or even my wife was.  Their phrasing and mannerisms are an amalgamation of many different sources that they mold into a personality all their own.

Okay, now I see where you're coming from.  The thing about parenting is, the PARENTS are the biggest influence on the children as they are the "first trust".  Therefore, things children learn from their parents that are not invalidated by outside influences remain with the children.  Basically, the children learn from the parents FIRST.  They adopt other things to ADD to their parent's or when they prefer it and it doesn't conflict with the parents.  But, when the outside conflicts with the parents, the child takes the parents' teaching over the outside unless they have somehow lost trust in the parents.

So you say you have no idea why they chose to be modest.  Children are not born with the knowledge of modesty.  The mortal man is not modest.  Are you saying you and your wife are not modest?

Edited June 21, 2016 by anatess2

[Guest]

Values:  You were asking about mannerisms and patterns of speech and so forth, but you specifically ruled out what they wanted to be when they grew up -- strange.  Of course we teach our children values and principles.  But the way they execute it seems because of nature more than nurture.  

We're modest.  But it is nothing like our children.  My wife will wear a regular swimsuit.  Our daughters, not so much.  I will wear a regular swimsuit and not wear a shirt when swimming.  My boys always wear a shirt -- either a tank top or a swim top or a T-shirt.  We didn't teach them that.  Where did they get that from?  Nothing that we know of.  They weren't born that way?  I'm not so sure.  When I was a child, my parents didn't really teach me modesty.  But I certainly got it from somewhere.

First Trust: I'm afraid you're giving that a lot more credit than is existent in my life (both up and down the pedigree chart).  Maybe that's the way it is for you.  But for us, I'm very happy to be very different from my parents.  My children are their own selves.  There was much in the nature before we ever had the chance to nurture.  We comment and guide them of course.  But to believe that we're so ever-present in their minds that their personalities and values will be substantially similar to ours simply isn't so.

 

[priesthoodpower]

16 hours ago, DoctorLemon said:

On a side note, I do cringe when I hear people say that women should be modest so men won't have impure thoughts.  That is essentially what the Taliban used to argue to force women into burkas.  Come on, bretheren... we are better than that.   

I agree, but at the same time as fathers or husbands we need to be extra protective of our daughters and wife, like the ole saying...keep a shot gun close by.

In this internet age with easy access to porn you really dont know what kind of creepy person is out on the same streets that our daughters are walking on. About 7 years ago I stumbled upon my father-in-laws laptop and accidently saw his search history on google search...the terms that popped up was kind of disgusting, He is a really nice guy and you would never think that he had this dark side to him...I try to keep my daughters super busy with activities to limit the time and opportunities we see him.

5 years ago my mom divorced my dad, I never really get into their business but she did tell me that the final straw was his addiction to porn, prostitutes and even talk about homosexuality. My mom (who is still temple active) described my dads addiction as making him bi-polar and even being possesed by evil spirits at times. I would have never thought that about my dad. I keep my daughters and wife far away from him.

Dont mean to expose both of these men as we all have our own problems, but as an anonymous poster if I can help others understand more about his world we live in then so be it.

[LeSellers]

18 hours ago, DoctorLemon said:

I do cringe when I hear people say that women should be modest so men won't have impure thoughts.

I disagree. There is some merit to the thought. But see below.

18 hours ago, DoctorLemon said:

Come on, bretheren... we are better than that.  

Let's assume that we Saints are all at least Terrestrial beings. Our sisters, our wives, and our daughters do not live in a world inhabited entirely by Saints. There are telestial beings out there. All of the males humans and many of the female humans aren't "better". A lot of them are even worse.

If you go onto east Colfax Avenue in Denver/Aurora, and leave your car unlocked, there is a very high likelihood of its being stolen or, at the least, broken into and its contents stolen. Do you have the right to leave your car on the street, unlocked? Yes, you do. But it's just not very wise.

If you re-wire your house and use 20 ga aluminum wire, then, two days later, when your freezer and the air conditioner both pop on at the same time, and the house burns to the ground, were you within your rights to have used such light wiring? Yes, you were, but it isn't very wise.

Ignoring the probably result of your right to park your car or re-wire your house, and then complaining about the outcome anyway is ridiculous. And it's exactly the same when a woman wears tight/revealing/alluring clothing. It's her right. It is not wise.

Lastly, I believe it was @MormonGator who said that women wear such clothing each for her own reasons. Yea, verily. But I'd argue that the most prevalent reason is precisely to capture the attention of men; some women also want to make other women jealous. Back in the 60s, just as panty hose were coming on the scene (because mini-skirts were also common, i.e., "fashionable"), there was a story in a New York paper that shall remain nameless, about a woman who sued a man, insisted that he be arrested because he was, gasp! looking at her in her mini-skirt and panty hose. Did she have the right to wear them? In fact, did she have the right to sit on that bus wearing nothing at all? Yes, she did. But it wasn't wise.

Lehi

[NightSG]

4 hours ago, NightSG said:

The thing that bothers me is that there's no societal prohibition of exposed moobs; if a man would benefit from a bra, he should be treated exactly the same as an equally hairy woman would if she were topless in the same situation.  

It's worth noting that, in Texas, indecent exposure only refers to genitals.  Technically it is legal for a woman to walk around without a shirt here, though some places have charged it as disorderly conduct.  (Those charges tend to get beaten in court, but the hassle of having to beat it is a strong disincentive.)

(Personally, I like it that way; as opposed to requiring breasts be covered but with a special exception for breastfeeding because it's "natural" and "healthy."  There are plenty of natural and healthy acts that don't get an exception in the laws.)