 Never
be sorry about being chaste
My darling daughter,
These last few days I have been in bed with the 'flu and my young
friend next door has been piling me with books, all popular romantic novels
of this new generation! They helped me to while away the time and were
interesting in the love-hate relationship with which the hero and the heroine
started out and how the story then ended with promises of love eternal!
What intrigued me was the way in which the heroine was usually so
apologetic that she was yet a virgin and had not slept with any other man
and the hero was generally astounded by the fact. I was saddened in a way,
daughter, for I wondered whether continuous exposure to such thoughts would
not influence our youth too. Why on earth should any girl be sorry that
she is chaste, she should not only be proud of it but should safeguard
it, not because traditional society deems it necessary but because it is
her unique gift to the man she will love and marry.
Yet in some ways those novels did highlight the sense of joy the
man had in the fact, that the girl he loved had not given of herself cheaply
to others. In a way it is the responsibility of the mother to establish
between her daughters and herself a friendship which will enable her to
talk to them, explain the longings of their growing young bodies and tell
them that it is in their hands to control emotional situations by not allowing
their friendship with a boy to go too far into physical relationships.
Often even, my little friend next door is so confused. There is the
peer pressure of a generation of youngsters who appear to want only a good
time, and there is a section of adults who believe that not only should
sex education be taught in schools but even such things as contraceptives
(which in our times was never even mentioned!) should be freely available
for youngsters. Surely all young people whatever generation they belonged
to had the same longings and desires, but parents imposed a moral consciousness
then, there were some things that were right and some wrong, and the line
between them was strongly demarcated. Why don't parents do that today?
Surely a child has to learn what is good and bad, not as society
wills it but as is accepted in a moral society. I often think daughter,
we have abrogated our rights as parents by not providing the guidance the
young need and then we also suffer for it for when the child falls into
a mess. Even though she does not say it, in her now bitter frightened eyes
we see our guilt. Don't you think daughter that it is time we parents woke
up to our role? Maybe the relationship that you and I have when even today
I can tell you if I feel you may be wrong and you could give me your reasons,
would be the best parents could strive to build with their children. Do
you agree?
Ammi
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