what about our daughters?

 Moms and dads, we are failing our daughters.

The world is telling them how to dress and how to carry themselves, and we're allowing it. We are letting Hollywood and social media teach our daughters how they should look, how they should speak, how they should carry themselves--and in that world, for some reason the only voice telling them they should be "demure" comes from an overweight man pretending to be a woman.

What are we doing?!

The world is telling our daughters that their value comes from how others perceive them. They are being told that they should dress "to catch a man" from childhood. They are shown women with unrealistic body types and told that if they don't measure up, they are somehow not good enough. I see teenage girls every day who are wearing skin tight leggings or booty shorts with tight, low cut tops. They are being taught to reveal every curve of their bodies while simultaneously being taught to conceal every perceived imperfection of their faces.

As parents, we should be teaching our daughters that their true value lies in how God sees them. We should tell them, like Peter did, "let your adornment be what's inside--the real you, the lasting beauty of a gracious and quiet spirit, in which God delights." (1 Peter 3:4) Our daughters don't need to dress provocatively to attract a guy. In fact, I want my daughters to bring home the guy who thinks she is beautiful no matter what she's wearing--a prom dress, jeans & a t-shirt, or gym shorts. We need to teach our daughters that they should take care with their appearance, but their true beauty comes from how they treat others and how they carry themselves, not in the clothes or makeup they are told they should wear. We should teach our daughters to model themselves on the woman of Proverbs 31, not the women of Hollywood. We should teach them that a beautiful woman is one who is "clothed in strength and dignity" (Proverbs 31:25), the one who speaks in wisdom and kindness, the one who sacrifices her own comforts and desires for the sake of those she loves. A woman's beauty is something that springs from the very core of who she is, which is a wonderful thing when you look at the long term. After all, looks change. If a man's desire is based purely on the physical, then what happens by default when a woman's physical beauty changes?

And on that note, can we stop telling our daughters, "A man's lust is his problem, not yours"?Yes, men struggle with lust. As Christians, we should be working to hold one another up and help each other follow Christ. We are told not to be stumbling blocks to each other (Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8). When a woman dresses in a way that shows off her body, that's a temptation for men. Don't get me wrong--there's a space for sensuality. That space, though, is only between a husband and wife, because his desire for her isn't a sin: "I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me" (Song of Solomon 7:10). However, choosing to dress in a way that invites men to look at you in a sexual way is purposefully making yourself a stumbling block.

So instead, let's teach our daughters to be the "helpmeet" God created a woman to be for a man (Genesis 2:18-24), even before she actually becomes a wife. Let's teach her to guard the hearts of the young men around her because that will teach her to one day guard the heart of her husband and children.

Let's teach her to guard her own heart, too. Teach her to value herself, to see that she is the daughter of the King. Teach her that she should carry herself as such--that in all things she should strive to represent her Father well. Teach her to focus on developing the fruit of the Spirit instead of developing a following. Teach her to strive to become a woman after God's heart, a woman who seeks Him first, because "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be given to you too. So do not worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Living faithfully is a large enough task for today." (Matthew 6:33-34)