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Pornography
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Resist blaming the victim, yet, until the victim takes some responsibility……..
21 Aug 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
It’s easy to play judge. It’s easy to wonder at people who stay in destructive relationships. The patterns, to the outsider, are obvious.
Yet, the man who is with an alcoholic, ranting wife, or the woman who lives with a chronic womanizer, seems to be oblivious to the fact that things do not have to stay as they are.
He or she seems unaware that, at least in some manner, it is also the issue of the person who allows destruction to continue.
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I want to get rid of my son’s phone and the Internet – he uses them for porn…..
01 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My son (15) uses pornography on his cell-phone and on his computer. I think my husband and I should get rid of both. My husband disagrees. We are Christians and I will not allow this sort of thing in our house.”
Technology is not the problem. Monitoring your son’s use of technology is a wise thing to do but getting rid of his access to the Internet is unlikely to solve whatever issue your family has with pornography.
I’d suggest the three of you sit down and discuss the reasons you and your husband do not condone the use of pornography. Discuss the reasons men and women of all faiths are as prone to its use as those who proclaim no faith. Discuss with your son how the images off a page in a book or an image off a website is exactly that: an image. It is not a person with thoughts, feelings, and rights!
No blame or shame...
Such a discussion will require preparation and unity between you and your husband – it will require acts of purposeful, planned parenting. Dumping the boy’s phone and severing the Internet is easy – but such radical quick fixes will fix nothing and do nothing to enrich your relationship with your son.
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Mothers write about their sons and pornography…..
01 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
I have heard from several mothers of sons (13 to 15) who are toying with Internet pornography. Each mother says her “good boy” who is doing bad things. All but one mother is hesitant to tell the boy’s father because of the father’s health condition or because of how the father will respond. The mothers express love and distress for the children and feel powerless about their sons’ activities. Each letter reads as if the very sky is falling!
To the mothers:it feels like the end....
This is a tough situation but it is not the end of the world. Your son will emerge from this and be a successful man if he (not you) learns to handle his personal issues with some wisdom and restraint.
While you shoulder this alone you are being secretive (like your son) and are adding fuel his secretive front. Getting father involved allows the family to face a family issue (yes, pornography is a family issue).
Using pornography is not a “normal” phase for all boys. It is an addictive, abusive aberration – but your son will not refrain from its use if pushed, punished, or shamed. He is most likely to resist pornography if he understands why it’s damaging and learns about healthy sexuality from a caring, disinterested, adult whom is respects.
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Take up your life….? (Becoming more personally responsible for your own life)
16 Jun 2009 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
You frequently write: “steel yourself” and “hold onto yourself” and “take up your life.” What do you mean?
Your problems cannot be “solved” or “fixed” by reading this or any column. In fact, they will not be “fixed” even if you read this column, watch Dr. Phil daily and visit a therapist on a weekly basis. These would be, at best, helpful catalysts. At worst, you’d be wasting a lot of time and using yet another means to avoid facing your issues.
Take up your life
The “answer” to your life’s issues (if there is one – you might have to go with an approximation), no matter how large they may appear to you, or how trivial they may appear to others, always rests first with you. Healing begins when you gather up your metal, brace yourself for change, and decide to “take a hold of yourself” and address head-on the problems and complexities you face. “Steeling yourself” is gathering your strength (even if it is minimal) to do what you must do to begin your own process of recovery, healing, or untangling from unhelpful entanglements.*
Even if you have been a victim, grew up in severely adverse circumstances, and both your parents were alcoholics while you were destitute and hungry, your healing and maturity pivots, not on more sympathy, more empathy, or more understanding. it is not “out there” in some book you are yet to read, or on some website you are yet to discover, some guru you are yet to run into, or on some lover you are looking to meet. It is ALWAYS dependent on your acknowledgment of your role in how your life has unfolded (your response to whatever has happened, is currently happening, and will happen to you) and will continue to unfold. It is dependent on you shedding yourself of ALL “victim thinking” and of ALL blame. It is ALWAYS dependent on you taking personal responsibility for your decisions as much as you are able at THIS time (now, today!). This is what I mean by “take up your life.”
I am very aware of this being an unpopular message in an age and a time when “quick-fixes” are offered at every click of the mouse, pointing of the remote, and book shelves abound with every Tom, Dick, and Sally’s offer to deliver you into a perfectly fulfilling life. Sorry, it just doesn’t work like that. Until you become your own “Knight in shining armor” you might always remain a “damsel in distress,” albeit an insightful one!
* For me, a helpful metaphor is to imagine a diver on the edge of a high diving board. He or she STEELS him or herself before taking the leap.
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How men respond to pregnancy….reader responds to reader….. and I am grateful…
30 May 2008 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Lizz,
There are a whole range of responses that men have to women being pregnant and giving birth. Difficult though it is for me to understand, I’m aware that a significant number of men find pregnant women to be unusually attractive, even to the point of becoming fantasy objects. Likewise, some men see mothers as more attractive than non-mothers, possibly because of personality traits that seem to come to the forefront in a woman after she has a child.
At the other end of the spectrum are men like your husband, who feel that pregnancy and motherhood somehow diminish a woman’s femininity and sexuality. It’s easy to suggest that his view is wrong or short-sighted, but that doesn’t help anyone in this situation. To me, this sounds like a great time to engage a professional marriage counselor.
While it’s possible that this might cause your husband to see you in a different light, it may also bring to the forefront emotional issues that your husband is dealing with, but unable to talk freely with you about. In my case, seeing the birth of my oldest son caused me to feel a huge sense of responsibility that i was completely unprepared for. This may not be the case with your husband, but such things are always a possibility.
Regardless, if you can sit down with a third party who has professional credentials, he or she may be able to help both of you discover things that have become factors in your change in relationship. If cost is an issue (and when I was a new father, it most definitely was), look into counseling options subsidized (in part or in whole) through a local church or synagogue.
One last thing: Your husband’s response to you may feel like something that defines you as a woman, but it doesn’t. You remain a person of worth and value, regardless of anyone else’s actions. Your husband’s response being strong does not make you “more of a woman,” and his lack of response does not make you less of one. The role of mother need not diminish the role of wife, any more than becoming a father keeps me from being a husband. Yes, your body changes with childbirth, but I would suggest that your husband has changed (and will continue to change) just as much between his ears.
Becoming parents changes us. We can fight this, and refuse to accept it, or we can be the master of our path and define the role instead of allowing it to define us. My best wishes for you, your husband, and your children. – Tim
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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