Let Kids Find Their Own Path?

While paging through Facebook recently, I came across a 13-year-old girl who declared that she was married to her girlfriend, whom she named. She didn’t say she planned to marry her friend when they grow older, but that she already was married. When I mentioned this to friends, they merely shrugged and asked what the problem was.

● The problem is not the girl’s sexual orientation. That is her business and no one else’s.

● The problem is lack of a sense of privacy. What prior generations hesitated to tell their best friends, the Oprah generation now splatters all over the Internet. Orwell was an optimist. He thought Big Brother would have to watch us. But we make the job easy by blabbing to everyone within electronic range.

● The problem is a combination of premature sexualization and delayed maturity. We see a 10-year-old model posed provocatively in Vogue, and middle-school kids “sexting.” But at the same time, our president elicits loud cheers by promising young people that they can stay on their parents’ health insurance until they are 26. Can a nation survive with citizens who remain adolescents into their twenties and thirties? We’ll see.

● The problem is that she is not a toddler who says she wants to marry her babysitter. She is 13 and should understand reasonably well what marriage is − but she doesn’t. Can civilization survive if girls don’t aspire to marry boys and raise a family? We’ll see.

● The problem is that she probably has been exposed to sex education since kindergarten. She was taught that it doesn’t matter whether she marries a man or a woman; or whether a child has a mother and a father, or two mothers, or two fathers, or one parent, or whatever.

● The problem is that “whatever” is not a plan for stable families − or a stable nation. Those who are redefining the nuclear family are damaging the foundation of civilization. They imagine that their good intentions will enable them to avoid weakening the whole structure. They are mistaken.

● If the girl was serious, we may have a problem of sexual child abuse. There was no photo of the friend, so there was no way to judge her age. For all we know, she is years older.

● But even if the girl was joking, we still have a problem. People don’t joke about what wasn’t already on their minds.

When I was a kid, we joked about things that adults considered unfunny. Still, even in our silliest moments, we would never have joked about being married to someone of the same sex. That thought wouldn’t have entered our minds.

By the age of 13, we knew about homosexuality, but we also knew that marriage was between a man and a woman. Those of us with a scholarly bent might have known that in some parts of the world, polygamy was practiced. But nowhere in the world, and nowhere in history, was same-sex marriage accepted.

That’s the problem with a 13-year-old girl announcing to the world that she is married to her girlfriend. The problem is that she is growing up in a culture that removed the warning signs and guardrails from her road. But the dangers are still there − only the warnings have been removed.

Have you ever driven on a winding road in the mountains? There were signs warning of sharp curves and steep grades. And where there were dangerous drop-offs, there were guardrails. Often the rails were marked with scrapes, indicating that careless drivers had damaged their paint jobs, but were saved from plunging off a cliff.

What we accept with gratitude on mountain roads we often resent on the road of life. We resent being warned of sharp curves or steep grades. We even resent attempts to keep us from going off the road and over cliffs. We resent these efforts as assaults on our autonomy.

But what is autonomy? To teenagers, and those who think like teenagers, autonomy means doing whatever they please. But in a world of almost 7 billion people, everyone can’t possibly do everything he pleases. And even if there were only one person on earth, it still would be dangerous for him to do anything he pleased. He might fall down steep hills or drink unsafe water. Even for that lone individual, doing whatever he pleased would not be conducive to a long and healthy life.

On the other hand, to adults, or at least to those who think like adults, autonomy means being in an optimum state of mental and physical health, so that they can think clearly − and then be fully informed of possible risks and benefits − and only then make up their own minds.

Regrettably, the popular concept of autonomy is that of a teenager: “Leave me alone!” We pass by a man lying on the sidewalk, telling ourselves that we are respecting his autonomy. But our behavior is no different from a person who is utterly selfish and unconcerned with others.

If we truly respected the horizontal man’s autonomy, we would stop and risk being late for our lunch date. We would kneel down and risk dirtying our clothes. We would determine whether he was sleeping, or drunk, or unconscious from an illness or injury − and call 9-1-1. We would see that he was returned to his optimum state of physical and mental health, so that he could make rational decisions for himself.

That’s respect for autonomy. Passing by prostrate human beings is merely apathy.

A similar principle applies to raising children. Letting them “do their own thing” isn’t parenting, it’s merely apathy. Teaching them that all relationships are equal to traditional marriage isn’t education, it’s merely indifference. Letting them “find their own path” isn’t respect for their autonomy, it’s merely laziness. The parents of John Walker Lindh let him “find his own path.” How did that work out?

John was a teenager in affluent, liberal Marin County, California. His mother dabbled in Buddhism. His father was a lapsed Catholic. They gave John no religious education. But his father did give John a gift − he left John and his mother, and ran off with his gay boyfriend. Imagine how unpleasant that made John’s time in high school. Imagine the teasing he endured. So John joined the Taliban, who teach that gays should be stoned to death. John was captured fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan and is now in serving 20 years prison. How’s that for “his own path”?

John was left to “find his own path,” so he did. He was left empty of ethical values, so he filled his emptiness with whatever he could find, no matter how toxic it was. The vast majority of kids who are left to “find their own path” will not turn out nearly this badly, but that is hardly a reason to rejoice.

The 13-year-old girl who proudly announced on Facebook that she is married to her girlfriend is an order of magnitude less destructive than a John Walker Lindh. But there are many more like her than there are like Lindh, so the damage that they do may exceed the damage that the few Lindhs can do. A few people with bad values may be less damaging to civilization than many people with no values. If you doubt this, consider the young Britons who saw nothing wrong with rioting and looting.

From ancient times, women have civilized men, or tried to. We talk endlessly about fatherless boys brought up without discipline or moral principles. But girls brought up without moral principles may be even more destructive. Who will civilize the uncivilized young men? And who will civilize the next generation?

We can argue about where we want to go, what road we should take, and how fast we should proceed. But if we want young drivers to be safe, we should spend some time restoring the warning signs and guardrails that helped us navigate the sharp curves and steep grades safely. Why should today’s young people be less fortunate? Why should we allow “progressives” to leave the dangerous road unmarked?

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. Contact: dstol@prodigy.net.

The problem is not the girl’s sexual orientation. That is her business and no one else’s.
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Shes only 13

I guess you are not a medical “Dr” but do you really think she should decide for herself at 13 what gender shes suppose to be ???

Or did I misunderstand ???

Are you saying its OK if shes a lesbian ???

and that nobody should intervene and help her

Not even her own parents ???

No, of course I believe that the welfare of a 13-year-old is the business of her parents, in fact their most important business. This assumes that she has parents, that they are interested enough to notice what she is doing, and that she is mature enough to know what her orientation is—three big assumptions.

What I meant was that I am not criticizing her. I am criticizing US for allowing our nation to deteriorate to the point that a 13-year-old girl feels no inhibitions about revealing such personal material to the world, because “privacy” has come to mean only one thing: abortion on demand up to the ninth month. But, of course, not actual privacy.

"... When I mentioned this to friends, they merely shrugged and asked what the problem was."

The hell?

Honestly. Where do you find these people?

The West Side of Los Angeles. But they could just as well be from San Francisco, or Berkeley, or Manhattan, or Cambridge, Mass., or any liberal enclave. They live in their own reality—which is nice work if you can get it.

From ancient times, women have civilized men, or tried to. We talk endlessly about fatherless boys brought up without discipline or moral principles. But girls brought up without moral principles may be even more destructive.

"May" hell. It's the raison d'etre of Hillary's Army. You think she stopped at soccer moms? No, no, no... she snagged their daughters, too.

I raised my son with simple rules, respect God, respect others unless they give you reason not to, work hard, don’t give up, don’t be cruel and a few other simple things like that. My wife and I knew where he was at all times even as a teenager, but let him make some choices that did not violate the rules so he could learn judgment. He was raised with what might be called the leash policy. My sister who is a extreme liberal raised her daughter with what I called the no leash policy. Her child starting running the streets at 14, could make all her own choices and had almost total freedom. They did not know what she was doing most of the time. My niece is now fully grown, is an unemployed drug addict who stole from her dying mother, and without her boyfriend’s kindness might be homeless. My son at 20 supported himself, is clean living, responsible, employed and lives on his own despite suffering from Aspergers. Children need rules, they need to learn how to make good judgments one little step at a time.

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