Sarah Palin and her Situation

I have seen lots of posts on people's blogs over the last couple of days regarding Sarah Palin (the American Republican Vice-President nominee) and the situation she and her daughter have found themselves in. For those who don't know, her 17 year old daughter has found herself pregnant, and is planning on marrying the father of her child. Lots of the blogs have asked people to comment on the situation, and whenever I tried my comments were so long that I have given up, and decided to post on it myself!

My take on the situation is this:

I hope that the young people concerned are of the mature variety (and no, getting pregnant doesn't preclude that) and that their marriage and family life will be happy. I think that it is a personal and private decision and one which only this young woman and her partner (with the help and support of her family) can make.

I don't think that having a pregnant daughter is always a reflection on the parent - actually *most* teenagers end up having sex, however much we hope they won't, and many of them have unprotected sex - often because they are "good kids" and didn't intend to have sex outside marriage, so when the emotions and desires overtook them they were unprepared. Most parents are lucky that their kids don't come home pregnant. It sounds like this mum was one of the unlucky ones.

I realise that by even discussing this at all, I am fueling the belief that there is a right to discuss other people's lives in this way – and I really don’t think there is. My main feeling about this story is moral outrage – how dare people publish details relating to the daughter of someone standing for public office?

I am aware that at this stage that some people might want to bring up the Bible passage that talks about church leaders being people who have well-ordered families. Just as a point of clarifaction, this specifically refers to children under the age of 12/13, as this was the age at which the Israelites reached adulthood. It was also written about a situation in which a parent had the right to put their child to death for disobedience! When such sanctions were possible (I note, *possible*, not desirable!) having unruly children was seen in a very negative manner. I don’t see that this law can be applied to this situation.

So I ask myself – will my child lie to me? Will they always be honest with me – always respect me? I doubt it... I suspect there will be times when my child will behave in ways that they know I wouldn’t approve of, and so will try to hide this behaviour from me. I hope that they won't...I hope they will always feel they can come and talk to me...but experience of youth work has shown me that no parent knows everything their child gets up to. As a parent, our task is to equip our children to make the choices they need to, to be able to deal with the situations they face and, above all, to know that they are loved unconditionally.

If this story tells me anything at all – it's that a lass has got pregnant before she intended – probably to the “surprise” of her parents – and they are supporting her. Whatever your political affliation (and believe me, I have none when it comes to American Elections!) surely that is a positive outcome and the parents should be commended for it?

On a lighter note, I let my memory card reader at work last night, so won't be able to post the latest pics of the bump until this evening. Apologies if you tuned in just for that!

Yours Outrageously,

The Broken Man

It's all about sex

I was asked the other day about why Christians go for the "no sex before marriage" thing, so I thought I would put up something about it.

Lots of the time, people believe that Christianity is all about rules; that Christianity sets out a list of things you can’t do that are designed to make you life worse. This is a bit of a bizarre belief when you actually look at Christian teaching. Let me give an example with a child. IF I was to tell my child that it shouldn’t put it's hand in a bowl of boiling water most people would accept that this “rule” was not from a deep desire for me to be controlling, but rather from a desire not to see my child burnt.

Contraception is a fairly new thing; the way we are wired is that when we have sex we may well get someone pregnant. So, Christians say, "look, if you are saying you are ready to bring a child into the world together, then really you are saying you are ready to make a lifelong commitment to each other." IF you have sex with someone you are not ready to have a child with then actually all the emotional connections etc still happen, and if that person gets pregnant there are going to be some fairly major issues. This really isn’t rocket science.

Part of the problem however is that Christians seem to be very afraid to actually talk about sex. I saw an article not to long ago in the Church Times, that said in a survey conducted loads of Christians said that using sex toys was fine, but none were prepared to say it openly. For the record, I really see no problem with sex toys at all. None. If people want to use toys to enhance their time in bed, on the sofa, on the living room floor – then why not? I believe we are made to enjoy sex, and I really don’t see why some people have such an issue with toys – however if anyone has a sensible reason why they are a problem then please do let me know...

That’s it. Nothing too interesting today – but I am still in pain. Other people's pain is the most boring type. My sister-in-law, when she has tooth ache or some such ailment, will inform me every few minutes that it still hurts...there is nothing I can do about it – I have done the “oh dear” thing – and I know you can’t help me but I do feel a compulsion to make sure that other people here me say “oh, that smarts” if for no other reason than in suffering the irritation of me going on about it you will be sharing a bit of my pain.

Yours as ever,

The Broken Man

No News is Good News?

Well folks, ref: "Confessions & Lies" - I phoned up instead of emailed...and the person I need to speak to is away till September, so I can do nothing but wait for a little while.

I have been giving some thought to deleting a couple of my previous post – most notably confession and lies. Now that I have decided how to address it (thanks for all the mail) I thought that maybe I should get rid of the post in case it’s stumbled on by others in the future. After all it doesn’t show me in a good light. However, I think that part of the problem with this “trying to be followers” lark is that it’s very easy to believe that we are more terrible than anyone else; that our sins are somehow huge in proportion to anyone else’s, and that everyone else has got it sorted. So I am keeping the posts up – and will do my best to keep presenting here – (as Susan Howitch puts it) the unvarnished truth. At times that will be fairly dull but I hope you will bear with me.

So then...SEX!
I think it is worth talking a little bit about sex with a pregnant lady. Well okay, sex with my wife, as that seems to be the way this marriage thing works! I find pregnant women attractive. I find my pregnant wife very attractive. BUT, and here it is folks, there is something very off putting about putting your arm around your wife, running your hand down over her body and thinking “my baby is in there...wonder if it will kick.” Don’t get me wrong, I am more than aware that I am not going to get close to him/her “in the act” but it somehow seems a bit off to find it a turn-on to run your hand over your wife’s belly when it contain a baby...surely it’s kind of incest...almost? Does anyone understand this? Is it just me? My wife is gorgeous... stunning...glowing...sexy..but when it comes to bed time..it just seems...I don’t know...a bit odd?