Posted by Valerie on August 8, 2011
Christian women think about modesty. As we grow in the faith, we consider it with increasing care and teach it to younger women, especially our own daughters. We do this because God addresses it in His Word and because we have seen and hopefully repented of our own sins in this area.
I believe that we older women are given this curriculum in Titus 2:3-5 and other places, because we know a woman’s heart, and we understand (in a way that guys might not) that a halter top and micro shorts are not the moral counterpart of the respectful, appreciative glance, but of the catcall and the lustful look.
There are occasionally younger girls who have no idea what they are doing, but most teenagers and women who put on immodest dress are not acting from innocent motives. The more extreme the dress, the more likely it is that the motivation is impure. This is not to say that girls generally understand that this impurity is evil, or that some immodest dress does not eventually become just a habit, but this is an area where the most egregious faults, at least, are the product of inward moral impurity.
Many of us remember being 12 or 13 (and I hear that it now often starts at 6 or 7) standing at a mirror, brushing our hair with other girls and comparing notes on what to wear and how tight it needs to be to attract the boys most effectively. In the 70s, in public school bathrooms, we learned from each other how to turn any modest blouse into a halter top, for the purpose of displaying more skin in a seductive way. The conversations evolve somewhat as fashion does, but they generally do not revolve around what’s purely beautiful, or what would bless others, but what will most effectively attract boys visually.
Girls know that sexual attraction is easy, and most of us have pursued it at one time or other. I’m a woman. And I’m friends with a whole bunch of other women. And we’ve told each other the truth: when we’ve looked into the histories of our own hearts, we don’t see a lifetime of innocence.
“Everyone knows” that within a man’s heart there is usually something that says, “Look,” and that this impulse must be directed to his own wife. I think it’s less often revealed that within a woman’s heart there is usually something that says, “Look at me,” and that this is a virtuous desire only when it’s directed toward her own husband.
Now we understand, hopefully, what I mean when I say “look.” I’m not talking about men noticing and appreciating the fact that an attractively dressed woman is beautiful. I have eight gorgeous daughters, and I have had godly, respectable, discreet men say, “Your daughters are so pretty.” And I like that. I enjoy that. I enjoyed it when they were babies, and no less now. When admiration is accompanied with propriety and discretion, it’s a good and honorable thing.
So that’s not what I mean when I say “Look.” A virtuous woman wants her husband’s eyes to be pleased and satisfied with her, in a way that is unique to their relationship, and not for everyone. This is all over the Song of Solomon, so we know that it is good. But both genders are born with an evil tendency to take good, virtuous impulses and pervert them. While I know there are some, I’ve never heard a woman say that she has never experienced the desire to purposely snag the eyes of men in an impure or inappropriate way. I know many who will say, “I’m ashamed to say so, but I used to do that all the time.”
Apply Romans 3:23 to this area, and you may see that it’s not such a stretch.
Women take this subject seriously because we know our own hearts. We also take it seriously to the degree that the men in our lives suggest that we ought to take it seriously. I was brought up in community, and I live in community, so I must thoughtfully consider the opinions of the men that I know. My husband, my father, my brothers, and other men in my community all say that they wish more women would take this seriously. Should I proceed to call them all legalists and take it less seriously? That would be hubris, along with unkindness and disrespect.
In most real churches where the Gospel is preached, women who have been Christians for years have a high tendency to be discreet–and to directly or indirectly encourage the younger women toward discretion. This does not mean, as some have asserted, that most mature Christian women are legalists consumed with jealousy, or ashamed that they are “past their prime” and no longer look like cute little teenagers. Mature men do not normally find ideal feminine beauty in a cute little teenager.
Just go out into the world and look how indiscreetly many, many women dress even into their 50s, 60s, and 70s. A young man might not realize this, but a woman can flaunt it at any age, and there will be a stranger to lap it up.
We want to obey the apostles who taught us how to follow Christ, because we love Christ. We read their teaching and we say, “Lord, what does this mean? Lord, you own all of me, and whatever you want from me, it is my joy to lay down.” This is part of what it means to have no other gods before Jehovah, so we take it seriously. As individuals, we don’t all draw the same conclusions on the exact expressions, and that is fine. We are giving our best service to God, because we have a new inclination to take whatever comes from Him seriously. And He accepts our offerings, not because they are perfect in themselves, but because of Christ, who died for us knowing that we’d never get it all right.
Be aware that Christian modesty is primarily for the church. Our place is not to run about the world trying to create forms of outward morality among people who don’t love Christ, or to boast about our extreme displeasure when unbelieving hearts express themselves visually. The Gospel is not about that. We’re not after the outside of cups; we’re begging the Holy Spirit for something far more radical, all over the world.
Honesty, charity, modesty, discretion, and all other virtues interest us Christians. All these virtues start in the heart, but the heart is living, with a direct connection to outward appearance. What we believe and how much we treasure others is made visible in how we live, in how we talk, in how we dress, and so on. If a mother teaches her daughters to say “please” and “thank you,” this isn’t legalism; it’s just one aspect of having a tender interest in others. It is good.
Modesty and chastity were given primarily to women to teach because women know a woman’s heart. I think that there are good reasons why pastors don’t often preach on this. They must at times, for it’s in the Bible, but I think that many pastors assume and accept that this is something that women are discussing out of care and love for each other and trusting that ongoing discussion to be the primary means for communicating a godly interest in this area.
And I think it’s important, most of the time, to avoid implying that immodest dress is ugly, especially as we counsel our own daughters. Usually, that just isn’t so. It may indeed be very lovely, while very inappropriate for community display. I have occasionally been heard to say, “That is absolutely gorgeous! Your husband would love it!” And from this my girls have learned to infer, “But that should be for his eyes only.”
I don’t want to underestimate the very great benefit that daughters derive when their fathers say either, “You look lovely, dear,” or “That’s not appropriate dress, honey. Please change.” When I was young and my own father complimented one of my outfits, I immediately considered it one of the nicest things in my closet and especially loved to wear it! And I was most comfortable and least embarrassed when my father engaged my mother to tell me that one of my outfits was inappropriate, kindly letting me know that the message came from Daddy. (Not to say that I always responded well, but just that this seemed to be the most gentle approach to my heart.)
While a pastor’s preaching and a father’s help are invaluable, a woman has special things to teach that a man probably won’t understand until a woman (a wife) teaches him. There are other areas of life that similarly benefit from a woman’s experience and perspective. For example, the Bible can be applied to the nourishment of infants. Not that this will necessarily lead to a very tiny set of cookie cutter applications, but the Bible’s teaching can be applied to infant care. Breastfeeding is therefore another part of the curriculum that older women teach younger ones, under the heading of cherishing both their husbands and their children.
And there are good reasons why not many men presume to be the primary teachers of these subjects.
Posted by Valerie on July 22, 2011
Ask RC: We can’t find a family integrated church, what should we do?
Yes, this is it.
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Filed Under: CPSIA
Posted by Valerie on September 25, 2010
One of the blessings of being a homeschooling mommy who’s also a bookseller is that for much of the last 15 years I have had the opportunity to touch, examine and evaluate most of the books that have been published for children, including many that are scarce or very hard-to-find.
In my travels, I’m not only thinking of what I can sell, but I’m also steadily working on building a children’s library for my family’s future. As I find better books in every subject, I remove some that I like less and so increase the overall quality of the library. As time passes, there are fewer and fewer books that I have not seen, so content exchanges occur less and less often.
I made one yesterday! I have a new favorite book for teaching children both the history of mathematical symbols and counting and calculating in other bases!
How to Count Like a Martian by Glory St. John is well-illustrated, clear, logical, thought-provoking and frequently humorous. That’s just the level of quality that I like to give my kids!
But what about you and your kids? How to Count Like a Martian was last printed in the 1970’s, so–like cigarettes, alcohol and pornography–it’s illegal for sale or distribution to young children.
As a result, those who understand the law and want to obey it are throwing some of the final remaining copies in the garbage. I have a copy for me, but it’s not likely that I’ll ever find one for you.
See This is What We’re Reading and check out the discussion here and here.
Just because this is old, does not mean that it is outdated. Just because a book is old does not mean it is not good. Are we seriously having this cultural argument in the twenty-first century? Well, to my astonishment, I guess we are!
Just because it is not feasible to reprint 100,000 copies doesn’t mean that the last few hundred would not be very good for some of this nation’s children.
Consider that with CPSIA, the cultural agreement is that we should not have another Robert Schneck. “Schneck has been math crazy since elementary school, when he remembers devouring a book called How to Count Like a Martian, which described the various ways that different cultures handle numbers.”
What possible value could such an experience hold against the theoretical possibility of a medically unimportant variance in lead levels should Robert’s baby brother choose to chew on his book?
How to Count Like a Martian has been recently recommended for educators to use with children in the following resources:
- Math Through Children’s Literature: Making the NCTM Standards Come Alive, Kathryn L. Braddon, Nancy J. Hall, et al., 1998.
- Applying Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development to Mathematics, Bobby Ojose, The Mathematics Educator 2008, Vol. 18, No. 1, 26-30
At this writing, it is not possible to buy any copy of this book for less than $40 online. A nice copy in a dust jacket will set you back over $100.
You’d be buying from a seller who either doesn’t like the law or doesn’t know the law, but you’d be paying more than you should. If you remember your studies in economics, supply and demand, you know that this book would be more affordable for more families if selling it were legal and unrestricted and, especially, if fewer inventory sources were not obediently discarding literal tons of high quality vintage children’s books.
Kids don’t read old books. Do they?
Educators don’t use old books. Do they?
A math book from 1975 couldn’t be useful to anyone. Could it?
Legislators assumed these statements, but never asked the questions.
It would have made much more sense for Congress to mandate face masks and protective clothing for all children under the age of 12 who want to explore the great children’s literature of the 20th century. At least that would have been fun and interesting for the kids, for the first day or two.
Don’t get me started on the wonderful Thomas Y. Crowell Young Math series. And why should I? As long as there’s a single set of dry textbooks being published, we have all the math we need for the next generation.
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Filed Under: CPSIA
Posted by Valerie on September 23, 2010
“Underwriters Laboratories® is an independent product safety certification organization that has been testing products and writing standards for safety for more than a century. UL evaluates more than 19,000 types of products, components, materials and systems annually with 20 billion UL Marks appearing on 66,000 manufacturers’ products each year. UL’s worldwide family of companies and network of service providers includes 68 laboratory, testing and certification facilities serving customers in 102 countries.”
Why do so many think that for every problem, government has the best, safest and most effective answer? (A majority of Americans clearly invested every HOPE for CHANGE in government in 2008–and not for the first time.)
If Congress had done nothing and said nothing about lead in children’s products, we could have expected to meet the twenty-first century’s William H. Merrill. We could have seen him develop and market a sensible, reputable and genuinely valuable testing and identification service for children’s products.
Our loss.
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Filed Under: CPSIA
Posted by Valerie on September 20, 2010
Remember? Our congressmen were too wise in their own eyes to be distracted by our uproar over 2009’s Child Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), too intelligent to be taken in by legions of (their assumption) uneducated (their words) “mommy bloggers.”
The fallout of their coldness, indifference, selfishness and foolishness continues every day, all across the country. Take a look at one of the most recent, tragic stories at Amend the CPSIA and remember that Jolie Fay is a mom like some of us, one of tens of thousands of parents, representing even more children, socially and economically harmed, sometimes economically crushed, by this evil law.
When it was time to speak, we eagerly defended Jolie Fay and so many others, but Congress would not listen. Congress is still not listening, so–for this and many other reasons–it is time for a new Congress. It is time to be clear and firm: ”You don’t listen? We’ll fire you and hire others, and we’ll do that as many times as necessary to find folks who are willing to humbly serve this people. We have had more than enough of those who outrage justice by abusing us.” (CPSIA is a draconian law that affects me harshly, but it is not by any means the only draconian law that affects people harshly.)
My initial specialty as a bookseller was vintage children’s books–special content and special editions. When I sell a vintage children’s book for hundreds (sometimes, thousands) of dollars, that’s my mortgage, that’s clothing and shoes for my kids, that’s utilities paid, that’s food on the table, that’s the necessities of life.
Over the last ten to twelve years, bookselling has become increasingly competitive. Those of us who were selling 15-50 years ago are now vastly outnumbered by those who have been selling for 5 years or less. These new sellers have bar code scanners for newer stuff, but unlike them, we have years of knowledge derived from ongoing, intensive reading, study, and independent investigation.
As the number of booksellers has increased and the congestion at book sales has reached previously unimagined levels, that knowledge has been our edge. Here at Jacobsen Books, we know that God is our provider, and we understand that He uses means. He has enabled us and blessed our efforts to learn.
We know what it means when one Dr. Seuss book has one signature rather than the usual three and another has several tiny white dots in the corner of one picture. (We know what a bookbinding signature is; many sellers don’t.) We are blessed to have the ability to identify extremely valuable books that most modern booksellers immediately pass by, not even suspecting their value, but we can only buy these vintage children’s books for resale if they have not yet been thrown into the garbage by a diligent and obedient sale manager.
As we go to sales now, vintage children’s books are seldom seen in quantity. Innumerable children’s books have been thrown in landfills over the last 18 months or so, making these historical artifacts permanently irretrievable. This loss continues to be a daily occurrence in many areas of this country, wherever libraries, non-profit groups and thrift store owners are knowledgeable about their risk of high fines and jail time under this unjust, unkind, unwholesome law.
It seems that TPTB don’t care about kids or history or collectors or booksellers. I hope but doubt that they realize that this heritage of twentieth century children’s literature is not being “responsibly recycled.” Beautiful writing and lovely pictures are not being shredded and disintegrated to mush to make grocery bags and boxes. These books are molding and distintegrating in landfills, and it is too late to rescue them.
I talked to a major box board company and was told that books are BAD for a finished recycled product because of the glue and sizing used in their manufacture. Books do reach the box board factory, but they are removed from the mix and thrown in the garbage unless covers and spines have been previously removed, a procedure that libraries and thrift stores cannot afford the time or energy to implement.
In my experience, librarians are unaware that books put in a recyling bin are not recycled. We’re bookstore owners. We’ve called recyclers and environmental groups from Chicagoland to Mad City to Milwaukee County and no one has any idea how to get unwanted books recycled as whole volumes, without expensive advance preparation.
We never had space in our landfills for a first printing Cat in the Hat in a nice dust jacket ($4000-7000) or a nondescript but highly valuable Seven Little Stories about Big Subjects set ($2000-3500), but I can guarantee you that there are hardworking booksellers who are willing to sort through hundreds of thousands of books to find such as these, booksellers who have room in their typically lean wallets and tight budgets for that much income.
More, there are collectors who would joyfully preserve these books for the next century and beyond. Certainly, many books like these are now lost forever. CPSIA is an assault on history that is unparalleled in its combination of tremendously wide scope and very low visibility. These deletions from our children’s and grandchildren’s heritage may not be heaped up bonfires, but they are just as destructive.
The designers of this law, who supposedly cared about kids, don’t. Remember? Immediately after CPSIA became law, Gymboree threw 1.7 million pieces of NEW baby and children’s clothes into the landfill. No one had any reason to suspect that these pieces of clothing were unsafe, but Gymboree couldn’t afford to unpack it all and test it piece-by-piece. This left the landfill as their only legal option.
Why didn’t they send this clothing to needy babies and toddlers in other countries? Why didn’t they give it to one of the thousands of missions to the poor, worldwide?
In most parts of the world, clothing is a necessity; it’s cold at least part of the year. I’m no ascetic, not one to despise a sweet, simple luxury. In many parts of the world. ONE PIECE of attractive, brand new children’s clothing is an unbelievable and very precious luxury. I would have liked to see children have those tons of attractive, generally 100% cotton Gymboree clothing!
Some of my own kids never wore a piece of brand new clothing until they were teenagers, unless I bought it at a garage sale with the tags still on, so I certainly wouldn’t begrudge a low-income mama in rural China her one piece of brand new clothing for her (probably) one little baby.
Why did Gymboree, with all its resources, not send this clothing to bless the poor? Understand this: IT WAS ILLEGAL FOR EXPORT. Demonstrably safe, but illegal for sale or export. Such a kindness, such a mercy was and is today preposterously illegal.
Oh, and is anyone on the other side publishing articles raving about measurable improvements in childhood lead poisoning since February 2009 Not at all! We do not have a shred of evidence that there has been any positive impact from this law, for anyone.
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Filed Under: CPSIA
