I have studied the issue of sex education for nearly 30 years. I have written often about what is wrong and what is right with the current approach to sex education, and it should come as no surprise that I have been most vocal about what is wrong with it. For the last twenty-five years, my husband and I have extensively studied the Church’s teaching regarding sexuality. We have been members of the Couple to Couple League since our engagement. (CCL is an organization in the forefront of Natural Family Planning and teen chastity.) We have been certified promoters for the League since 1988. In 1995, when we decided to homeschool, I began studying apologetics of the Faith in earnest to help our children fall in love with the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

It is my desire to help parents grow the virtue of chastity in their families, through the teachings of the Church. Catholic parents who do not submit to the authority of the Holy Mother Church in every area, especially in the area of sexuality, are sunk. We must realize that chastity is a virtue that does not stop being a virtue after we get married. We must see our spouses as Christ sees the Church and as Adam saw Eve. Adam knew that Eve was a completion of himself. He did not love her because she had a great body, as happens so often in our media. Eve knew that Adam was a completion of herself. She did not love Adam because he flattered her and spent a lot of money on fine dining. They were willing to fulfill and be filled by one another in marriage, the way God intended. They gave themselves to each other in a total way. We are called to do that in our marriages. The Church is very clear about this, as is stated over and over again in the loving encyclicals written by our wise and holy popes: Casti Cannubii, Humanae Vitae, Vertitatis Splendor, etc. (To find encyclicals online, visit: www.papalencyclicals.net) We cannot fool God about our obedience to him, and we cannot fool our children either. They will ask questions, and they will know if we are fudging on the answers. A lot of people think the Church’s view on sex is merely old-fashioned. It is not. The Church, as Christ intended, views sex as holy, sacred, and profound. The Church teaches what it does about sex because that is what God teaches. It is an eternal truth, and eternal truths never change. No matter the state of society, God is not going to change eternal truths to fit our passions. He knows what true sexual freedom is, because He invented it. True sexual freedom comes from understanding that marriage and marital intimacy are supposed to mirror the relationship between Jesus and his bride, the Church. If we listen to God and his Church, we can be sexually free in an awesome way. Pope John Paul II has devoted much of his time and energy to this subject. He teaches that understanding the gift of ourselves begins in Genesis, and that our sexuality is an integral part of who we are as Christians. His teachings regarding this topic are encompassed in The Theology of the Body. It is beautiful and awesome, and I encourage everyone to seek to understand the pope’s message.

That being said, let us continue in good company.

Friends and Family
Because our relationships are so very important to us, this can be more difficult than we might realize. What do we do when our parents have something on the television that we do not want our children to see? What happens when we are at the lake with friends, and one of the parents suggests renting a questionable movie for the children while the adults play cards?

We, at that moment, need to choose what is best for our children’s souls. Maybe taking them away from their lake friends will cause them to be ostracized. Maybe letting them see the movie, just this once, would not hurt. Or maybe there is something in that movie which would leave them with an unhealthy or distorted view of sexuality. We have to be ready to choose what God would want for our children. We cannot be worried about what the other parents think. We have to keep our children from those near occasions of sin. What do we do when we have a family member not living a Christian lifestyle? Do we expose our children to that lifestyle in an effort to promote family unity? Do we list all the things that are wrong with that family member’s lifestyle in hopes that our children become good judges of morality? Do we just accept the lifestyle of the family member because it really does not affect our lifestyle?

First of all, we need to pray for and love that family member. We need to treat them kindly and compassionately. Perhaps they do not know that their lifestyle is sinful. Perhaps they are very confused and have had a lot of things go wrong in their lives. We need to see Christ in them without showing approval for their lifestyle.

I will give you an example of how we deal with friends and family who are living immorally (i.e. living together before marriage). We do not go to visit them until they are married. We do not throw wedding or baby showers when things are out of order. We do, however, have them over to our house for regular family get-togethers because we feel family harmony is important, especially to our elderly loved ones. We never try to push our morality on them, and we have never had to have the discussion about why we do not visit them. They already know the why. Because we do not force the issue, they are able to respect our decision. If the topic comes up, we try to answer with a loving tone and strong moral conviction.

Another example I can give is about a family who has a relative in a homosexual relationship. This family has never been to that person’s house, and they will never go. They have had the family member over for dinner with his partner, but that was before they knew of the relationship. They will never have this “couple” over again because it puts their children at risk. This couple is quite active politically, and the parents feel they would push their agenda if given the opportunity. The children do not know about the lifestyle, as that would interrupt their innocence. They still maintain contact with the homosexual family member out of love and concern for him, but they never bring up the topic of morality because there would only be a big fight. However, if the topic is brought up to them, again they try to answer with s loving tone and strong moral conviction, even though they know the words will be hard to hear.

We have to teach our children to discern healthy moral environments. We need to teach them enough about their faith so that they are always sure what is moral and what is immoral. We have to let them know that they do not have to associate with anyone who is compromising their chastity, even if it is a close family member, or a child of parents with whom you have been friends for years. If we know of someone who might be influencing our child in a bad way, it is our duty to put an end to that social relationship. Our children cannot be expected to know all the answers. They depend on us to protect them, even when they do not ask for it. They sense what we already know, which is that we are known by the company we keep.

Television, Movies and Other Media
We are called to be pure and holy, as Jesus was pure and holy. This can be difficult in today’s society. What we put into our bodies, including what we put into our minds, can affect us for life. If we want to live the kind of life Jesus intended for us, we have to be aware of those things, which can harm our purity. This is very true with the media, for which many people have a fondness. Nearly all people, at times, keep company with the various forms of media entertainment.

I believe that television and all the other media offends our purity at times. In fact, most of what we view on television or hear on the radio offends our purity. But we often do not realize it because we have become so desensitized to it. We have been in this culture of “anything goes” for so long that we cannot remember a time without it. We think that because we are adults that we do not have to be careful about what we view. But we do. The images we have been seeing since our childhood have skewed our view of sexuality. We cannot get rid of the images, and so we try as best we can to live with them. As we have tried to live with them, our view of sexuality has become altered. We think there is something wrong with our sex lives if it does not look the way it does on television or in the movies. We try to imitate the sounds we have heard by characters engaged in sexual conversation or activity. We try to convince ourselves that love depends on our sexual abilities.

If we are allowing our children to view questionable material, we need to stop. By questionable material, I am talking about anything that has sexual connotations. Anything. The media puts images and ideas in our minds, which distort the truth about marital love. It encourages unmarried sex, which is never healthy or morally justifiable. The media in this way harms our children, day after day, week after week, year after year. By the time people get married, they are so confused that they do not even know what real love is. Our sexuality is extremely important. It is a gift from God, we must protect it. We can protect our gift of sexuality only if we live lives that are pure and holy and chaste. This does not mean that we have to live as cloistered nuns and monks. There is a way to live contently in this society as a people focused on God. In the process, we must teach our children about the virtue of chastity, so that they can live out that virtue in their marriages. I am not saying that we all should take a hammer to our televisions or take a vow of abstinence from the movies, but should focus on the will of God and how these things affect our children and ourselves. Think about how PG-13 movies, crammed full of sexual language and images, affect our pure and holy children. If our children are not pure and holy, we must look to ourselves and ask why. What did we do to put them in jeopardy of losing these virtues? What image do we want them to have of sex and marriage when they walk down the aisle on their wedding day? Do we want them to have the soap opera image, or the image of the heavenly marriage of Christ and His Church, and Adam and Eve?

I encourage you to think twice next time your son or daughter whines to go see a PG-13, or worse, movie. I encourage you to get tough the next time your children want to fill their minds with a mindless sitcom. It is not good for them. Sacrifice and be strong. Let us start keeping company with chastity and purity in our own lives, so that our children can glorify God in their bodies and be holy as Christ was holy.

Literature and Lyrics
Literature and lyrics can be just as harmful to our minds as the visual scenes in the media. Images are painted in our heads, and we can become desensitized to pictures or words. I have seen many teenage girls try to imitate the models in the magazines or the music artists they see on stage. They hang on their every word sometimes, as if the role model was speaking the truth. Song lyrics stay in people’s minds a long time because they generally have catchy tunes or rhyme or tell a story. Songs with immoral or questionable lyrics are no different, but they are harmful to purity because they also evoke images. The same can be said about jokes that encompass cursing and innuendoes.

We should teach our young people that Hollywood and the like have not the faintest idea about what love, life, and sex are all about. Maybe we have told our children that, but we continue to patronize that mindset by buying the CD’s, magazines, etc. Why do we do that? We know they are not good for our children’s moral well being. Then, why do we give in? I think, as parents, we have to do some serious reflecting about the answers to those questions.

We should be filling our children’s minds with wholesome images and words, like those found in our classics. We need to think about what our children are putting into their brains. Think of how that translates to their souls. Think about how that affects their abilities to live out God’s beautiful plan for sexual married love. Let us help our children to be governors of their souls by teaching them how to govern their passions. Let us teach our children how to truly keep company with chastity. It is in our job description, and we will be held accountable.

The Fatal Mistake
I think that one of the biggest mistakes parents make in dealing with the issue of sexuality is to mistake information for formation. Over the years, I have heard more than one parent exclaim that they gave their children way more information than they had gotten from their own parents and that they talked to their children way more than their own parents had talked to them. This usually means that the parents feel proud that they actually brought up the subject of sexuality with their children, unlike their own parents. It usually means that they covered more facts and basic terminology than did their parents. Unfortunately, it also usually means that they shared more about their own struggles and exploits against chastity. Parents mistake this openness as formation in sexuality. All these things really amount to is information. The battle cry of parents these days regarding sex education seems to be, “They have to be informed!”

I am here to challenge that battle cry and change it to “They have to be formed!” It is our job as parents to form our children. If all we ever do is inform them, they will not be formed in a way pleasing to the Almighty. These are God’s children, not ours. Our job is to make sure they get to heaven by remaining pleasing, precious, and pure to the Father.

I feel the most damaging thing we can do as parents in this area of sex and sexuality is to admit or share with our children our own immoral choices. Some see this openness as a virtue, such as honesty, and they think telling all will prevent their children from making the same mistakes. I disagree. I have personally witnessed parents who held this philosophy, only to see it backfire. First of all, your sexual life is none of your children’s business. Second, it offends their purity. It brings images into their minds that should not be there. It could damage their respect for you, as their parents. Third, it could also give them the impression that you have to accept their immoral behavior because you yourself have been guilty of it.

I know this because I tried these tactics on my own mother as I was blossoming as a sexual individual. She held fast and maintained that she was a virgin on her wedding day. Thank the Lord she gave me an ideal to shoot for. This alone, of course, did not keep me a virgin, but it helped. The real secret, I think, as to why I did not completely quit keeping company with chastity as an unmarried person is at my birth, my dear mother dedicated me to the Blessed Virgin and named me Mary. She nearly died at my birth and did not think she would live to see me grow up. God bless her! If you have not dedicated your children to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, you ought to do so. My mother has gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

Another thing we ought to do as parents is to begin praying now for the future spouses of our children. Pray that God will join them with someone holy and pure. We need to pray, too, for our own children to be holy and pure. If we are unsure what that means, we had better find out. We, as parents, need to arm ourselves and be really knowledgeable about the Church’s teaching regarding sexuality. We must be able to explain to our children the beauty and freedom God has given us through his teachings. Above all, we must practice what we preach and go to confession often. Our children are depending on us to lead them to the Truth. They will benefit and appreciate our knowledge and sacrifice later.

We have to constantly remind ourselves that as parents our lives should be about eternal gratification, not immediate gratification. We cannot afford to be creatures of comfort and ease when it comes to raising God’s children. We must show our children that the way to be truly happy is to be consistently moral and follow all of God’s laws, all the time. Let us make a renewed start at keeping company with our chastity.

Dedicating Your Child to Mary
This is relatively simple to do, or you can make it more elaborate to suit your tastes. I believe all my mother did in dedicating me to the Blessed Virgin was to say a prayer similar to this one:

Virgin full of goodness, Mother of mercy, I entrust to you my child’s body and soul, her thoughts and her actions, her life and her death. O my Queen, come to her aid and deliver her from the snares of the devil. Obtain for her the grace of loving her Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, with a true and perfect love, and after Him, O Mary, of loving you with all her heart and above all things. Amen.