A little Twilight Hypocrisy

I was not an early adopter of the Twilight series. I always found the cover pictures on the covers of the books quiet weird. I saw the movie first, then I read the books. DH read the books. I've reread the books.

I've been thinking it would be nice, as a parent, mind you, to simply have had the ability to turn off the Song Children's sexuality until they were thirty or so. This would give time for so many other types of "achievement" required to be a sound adult in our society. Getting the Kid to adulthood with confidence has been real problematic. In some odd functional ways the early quasi-coming out for the Kid, has stifled other developmental progress. This is counter-intuitive I suppose to the commonly held notion, at least in the LGBT community, that early acceptance is better for young people.

By extension, I just wish we could have taken some of the sexuality and gender issue pressures off Girl Song and certainly off myself when I was young. There is a weird societal disconnect with earlier and earlier expectations of open early sexual exploration and ever later marital commitment. I'm not saying that marriages should take place at an early age, what I am saying is that I wish the sexuality and pressures to experience and accomodate sexuality could be postponed to a much later developmental phase for children in our society.

Yet, I do enjoy the Twilight series, and it is all about teenage sexuality and the pressures and the risks that brings in the lives of young people and people in general. Given that I married as a teenager, it is even more hypocritical I suppose. But that story is in the Twilight series as well isn't it? Without the pressures that I felt and the opportunity to meet DH as a teenager how different would my life be? I don't know the answer to that. I think I might have been more financially secure, but with this crazy economy, I just laugh bitterly. But, most people would agree that my life while I have lots of problems and things to deal with, is pretty good overall.

I guess I'm in a pretty typical "developmental" phase as a parent of teenagers and young adults. Funny how life has a way of turning you into a typical parent after all.

Desperately seeking safety

Lately, I've found myself wondering about the quality of decisions I made earlier in life and I cannot decide whether or not I would have been able to make other choices. I was not safe as a child or a teenager, but usually not because of my own choices. In retrospect, I tried hard to make safer choices, but they didn't always work out entirely as planned. Imagine that, a person's best laid plans don't work out!

Safety is a rather elusive commodity that is subject to the demand curve and our human foibles. And the human foibles of others. It's perplexing to me, a safety seeker, the existence of the human inclination towards risk taking. And, it is the most frustrating thing about raising teenagers and watching my young adult children move on with their lives. No risk equals little or no growth. Too much risky behavior equals little or no growth, damage or even destruction.

Finally, I've managed to carve out what feels like a much higher level of safety physically, financially, and emotionally. But I don't feel safe spiritually. I feel surrounded and alone too often. Reading this I know what the answers are to remedy this void of spiritual safety, yet I've let the expediencies of the moment control.

Scriptural role models abound. Moroni moves me the most because he was so physically alone and clearly at times felt spiritually alone. And, he was not safe physically. I love the change in his perspective as he writes and fulfills his calling. It becomes ever clearer that even though he is alone in an unsafe environment, he has found spiritual safety and was not spiritually alone.

I want the same.