When I was young, I learned that my worth was tied to my purity.
I remember being compared to a piece of chewing gum, a rose that had been passed around the room, and a pair of shoes that were worn out.
I remember being told that being pure was the most important gift I could give to my future spouse.
Because it didn’t belong to me. It belonged to him.
I remember being told that it was solely my responsibility to not go too far with a boy. He was absolved from all responsibility because he “couldn’t help it.”
I remember being told sex was bad. Sexual feelings were bad. (Except when you get married it’s somehow magically all good.)
I remember thinking, even at the age of thirteen, this was wrong.
I no longer belong to the church I was raised in.
The church that taught me these things.
I hope things are different now.
I hope the lessons I learned (and then spent years unlearning) are no longer being taught.
Recently I heard a story about a youth leader who took a different approach.
During a lesson, she took out a brand new, pristine twenty dollar bill and passed it around the room. She asked all the girls in her class to fold it, bend it, and crinkle it.
When the bill got back to the leader it was no longer pristine. She asked the girls what the bill was worth.
The girls were confused. They had these types of lessons all the time. They knew they were supposed to answer a certain way. But they all knew that the bill was still worth twenty dollars - no matter how used it looked.
The leader smiled as she saw the truth dawning on them. The bill was worth the same after it was passed around as it was before. These girls learned their value or worth had nothing to do with what happened to them on the outside.
I wish I had been taught that narrative.
But I wasn’t.
Now I have the chance to teach a different narrative to my own daughter.
My daughter will never equate her worth to how pure she is. She will not grow up feeling like a chewed up piece of gum.
My daughter is now eighteen. She has a healthy understanding of what sex is, and she knows that whatever choices she makes in the future - her worth is not tied to any of them.
Amy Young
Confessions of a GenX Mom
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