If you believe what you see at the movies or on television, love is an instant attraction you feel for another person. Perhaps, this could be referred to as love at first sight or a more accurate definition might be LUST, which is defined as desire, yearning or hunger for. I guess we could say many of us crave hamburgers and could say we LOVE hamburgers? Too many of our youth are growing up with the unrealistic notion of what love is. This complex emotion should include trust, friendship, fidelity and other qualities that are ignored in our modern society that focuses too much on physical appearances.
Most young people are looking for a soul mate or spouse with the proper outer appearance and personality while ignoring the more important inner qualities like patience, sense of humor, work ethic, etc. That’s where family members can help by modeling devotion to one another throughout the challenges of marriage.
Examining the topic of love or lust could help youth avoid problems. That important topic of sex education is best handled at home but is avoided in too many families as my poem about IT attests: The night before my wedding day / my mother wondered if I, soon to be married, knew about IT? / I guessed she meant the birds and the bees / or that “S” word not spoken aloud in her day. / Quickly assuring her that I knew, she left. Her parental duty done. / But I didn’t know about IT, only brief facts explained in / maturation lectures with embarrassing diagrams. / As an only child of a widowed mother, / I wasn’t acquainted with the male anatomy. / I wondered a lot about the subject / frequently discussed and giggled about / at late night slumber parties, / all of us were curious and mystified. / Did our parents really do IT? / We guessed so, because we were all born. / But did they only do IT once or twice / in their lifetime, to have another baby? / The topic dominated our lives, / someone always had some new tidbit / for our growing collection of erroneous facts / fueled by our wild imaginations. / Boys in high school bragged about doing IT, / while girls wondered why their parents / carefully avoided the topic and / didn’t explain the facts of life. / Nowadays we are more open––too open / as Viagra ads fill the newscasts and / bedroom scenes leave little to the imagination. / We’re overloaded, and overwhelmed hearing all about IT!