Children, Teens, and Charity

     Someday, I am going to be a mom.  I think since I was very, very little I have wanted to be a mom. I have always looked forward to taking care of children, teaching them, loving them, and encouraging them.  Today I have been thinking about ways that I can become a better mom, particularly as regarding teaching my children about relationships.

     The first step in being able to teach someone else is understanding the material yourself.  So, this means if I want to teach my children about relationships, I need to have a pretty firm understanding about what they mean in my own life.  This week especially has been an important week of growth for me in how I perceive my relationships with other people.

     One of the first things I learned is that intimacy doesn't simply refer to the physical part of a relationship.  I can be intimate and romantic even when I am not physicaly involved with another person.  I guess that worries me a bit.  I love to be with people.  I am someone who loves to talk to others and meet people.  I love making new friends.  But one of Satan's tools is to make a married person feel emotionally distant from their spouse and encourage their affections for others outside of the marriage.  When I am married I will need to be especially wary that I do not plant seeds of affection outside of my relationship with my spouse unless the other relationships encourage and maintain that most vital companionship with my husband.

    I have also thought a lot about my past experiences with dating.  I had my very first boyfriend at fifteen, much to my parents' disapproval.  What I didn't know then-- but am learning now -- is that I craved emotional attachment.  And I still crave emotional attachment.  Every person does!  But the problem that I had as a teenager is that I didn't know how to use that craving to establish healthy relationships with my peers.  I remember vividly wishing that I had close friends, and I particularly sought the companionship of boys. It was so easy to accept a boyfriend when the first opportunity came along.

     The most important thing that I have learned in the past couple of years -- and even months -- is that positive relationships can be established and maintained without being romantic.  What I want my children to know is that love does not have to be romantic to be meaningful.

     Other things that I feel are important for them to understand is that they are children of God, that their bodies are temples, and that the way our world views sex and romance is skewed.  Love does not have to be passionate, it shouldn't be impulsive, and that it should be pure.  I want my children to gain a deep, personal understanding and testimony of their relationship with God.  Charity will follow, and romance at the appropriate time.