I was ten, twenty years ago in 1980's Britain. My hair was cut with a square fringe, as were all of my female classmates hair. In Winter I wore a turtleneck knitted sweater underneath a pinafore and my feet were clad in T-bar brown shoes with big rubber soles. In Summer I wore cotton dresses made by my mother along with a cardigan - also produced by my mother. On my feet I wore either 'Jesus' sandals as they were called. I got a bath once or twice a week when my hair would be washed then roughly dried with a towel. My hair was brushed for the purpose of removing knots. I used coal tar soap to wash my face and my teeth were only brushed once a day. I wasn't deprived - I was your average 1980's daughter.
Fast forward two decades to the year 2011, what does society's daughter look like? She has a fashionable hair style - it's been styled, not cut. It has either blond highlights or bright red streaks. She shops on the High Street in shops meant for teenagers and young adults. Outfits are colour coordinated and definitely in line with current fashion: short dresses, skinny jeans and low cut tops. Her ears are pierced, she wears makeup and in her handbag she has lip gloss and a mirror. She frequently has blisters due to the fashion footwear she insists on. The effect of her padded bra is one to be worshipped. This is your modern day daughter.
What is going on? We are sexualising our baby girls and it is wrong! Little girls aren't ready for sex. They can't handle it emotionally nor should they have to. Statistics correlate young sexual involvement with multiple psychological problems, including eating disorders and depression. It's just not right for girls to take on an explicitly sexual identity. We are young in body for such a short span of our entire lives and these times should be cherished and clung on to. There is no acceptable explanation for rushing our girls into maturity nor for their sexualisation . We all have an inbuilt moral sense - an innate instinct for right and wrong, (despite Adam and Eve clouding it) so why are we not using it?
Apostle Paul speaks in Romans 1:18 "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness." God sees what we are doing to our daughters and he is displeased and he intends to let us know about it.
Every parent has an inbuilt defence mechanism of their daughter. We all know that it is right to protect them in any way that we can from any danger, real or perceived. And if that mechanism is a little faulty, we have our conscience to fall back on. Yet the Bible is full of scripture of daughters being let down by their parents, their fathers in particular.
Genesis 19:1-11 - When threatened by the men of Sodom, Lot offered his two daughters to a bloodthirsty mob and is stopped only by the intervention of angels.
Judges 19 - A man hosting an unnamed Levite offers drunken "worthless fellows" his virgin daughter along with the Levite's concubine. Horrifyingly, the Levite finds the concubine dead and cuts her body up, then sends the pieces to all corners of Israel. His abdication of fatherly responsibility, realised in a flash of grief, signifies that darkness (the devil) has descended upon the nation.
Whilst makeup, short skirts and high heels are not equal to the sacrificing of daughters in the Bible, both notions come from the same vein - the devil. From a ten year old girl grows a teenage girl of sexual prowess, too quick and eager to receive immoral, sexual attention. How did we get to this?!
Ephesians 6:4 - "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord." The first and most basic of parental duties is to protect one's children in a physical and especially a spiritual sense
1 Timothy 2:9-10 "I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God."We ought to be encouraging our daughters to be modest, chaste and demure. These ideas are not antiquated. They are biblical and therefore should be obeyed. To do otherwise is clear sin.
Ezekiel 16 - This passage shows us that there is another type of father in Scripture besides the wicked men. This father finds a young girl dying in the wilderness, crying with no one around to hear. He gathers her in his arms and nurses her back to health. He clothes her in beauty as she grows, celebrating her womanhood. Because of his protection and care, she flourishes. This father is the Lord God, and his daughter is Jerusalem. Our heavenly Father's strength, tenderness, and compassion should direct the care we give our own daughters, and we desire their flourishing for the glory of Christ as he desires the health of his people.
It's pretty simple and straightforward what we need to do to remedy this dire situation. We need to follow God's Word.
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