But we are deluding ourselves. These same "harmless" fairytales and books, have a detrimental effect on the thinking, lifestyles and attitudes of our children.
The first "crush"/infatuation our daughters experience in relation to members of the opposite sex, is often linked to false perceptions about "dating," perceptions to which a wide variety of factors contribute. And one of the main factors painting a sugar and candy image of pre-marital romances, are these shallow bits of reading material that our daughters are exposed to.
It is no strange co-incidence that girls grow up believing that a boyfriend is the key to happiness...after all they have barely started walking, when the stories of the poor ill-treated Cinderella, saved only by a dashing prince, and the beautiful Snow White woken up by a prince, and the doomed Rapunzel, saved from the tower by...who else - a dashing hero, are told to them. And when they read romance novels, this theory is further reinforced - for, in the classic teen romance novel, the girl without a boyfriend, or "sweet sixteen and never been kissed" is the poor, laughing stock, who doesn't have a date to the "prom." And on the pages of a typical adult romance novel, the heroine is always a successful, beautiful career woman, but, she feels, that "something" is lacking in her life...and that "something" is naturally a man.
It is improbable that the average teenager, would just read these books, and that there would be no impact on her mind. It is usually exactly the opposite: she wishes she was the person on the pages of the book, and transfers her fantasies to her real life. She might see someone at school, who is popular, and good-looking [i.e. the football hero], and so begins her first painful crush, which is accompanied of course, by sending him anonymous 'Valentine's Day' cards, or calling him and playing songs over the phone.
Shaitaan has set his trap, and the temptation to sin heightens, and each time the temptation is given in to, the girl becomes more daring.
By the time the boy "asks her out," her nafs has gotten the better of her, and her head filled with the notions of how sweet holding hands before that first kiss must be, she cannot resist.
And so begins a "relationship." But this has all the ingredients that a classic romance novel does not....for those candy-coated pages do not tell you about the heartbreak, the tears, the mood swings and the countless negative aspects that are the central to these relationships
And they do not tell you about the degradation and the loss of self-respect, with which people, especially women, emerge, after these relationships.
For there is no peace, no tranquillity in such relationships. The daily cycle, the moods, everything about the individual is affected. There is a certain sort of darkness, a restlessness which fills the heart, and this restlessness affects the rest of the family too.
For it is now that all the arguments with the parents start: "Why can't I go out tonight? All my friends are going?" And there are the mood swings, the fluctuating eating habits...if the phone doesn't ring, then it's a case of "I don't feel like eating."
And then there is dishonesty...unable to tell her parents where she really wants to go, she makes the excuse of having to go to the library to study for tomorrow's test.
The ending of each relationship is most often marked by a long periods of torture, in which the girl has to "get over" the boy. contd.....