BUT THEY ARE SIBLINGS

After my short talk to the teenagers on "Managing Your Sexuality and Peer Pressure", I asked them if they had questions.

But as is always the case with these my friends, none of them indicated interest to ask any question. So I resorted to the method that works with them almost all the time.

I told them to write their questions on a paper, fold it and drop into the offering bag. Oh my! They were set lose! I got more questions than I bargained for.

Some of the questions were very funny, some were ridiculous, but a lot of them were actually serious and required credible answers.

I tried my best to do Justice to their questions. I always advice program planners to allot less time to the main talk and a greater percentage of the time to questions and answers when dealing with teenagers.

During the main talk on any topic, the speaker speaks to their head and appeals to their conscience. But during questions and answers, the speaker speaks to the heart of the teenagers in the course of answering their questions.

Heart knowledge makes more impact than head knowledge.

Let me continue with my story before I deviate too far from it. One of the teens asked a question that touched me to the marrow.

The question was: " Ma, by elder brother is having a crush on me. I am 13 while he is 15 years old. He never stops talking about how much he loves me. He drops a love note into my school bag every other day. On many occasions he tried to rape me when our parents were not at home. On one of the days, he almost succeeded. And now it seems that I am beginning to like him so much. I have two younger brothers but I don't like any of them the way I like this my elder brother. Sometimes, I am afraid that two of us may do something bad. But my parents don't seem to understand me. If I tell him to leave the room when I am dressing up my mum will start shouting at me. She would ask me if I don't know the difference between my own brother and an outsider. My mum does not know what is happening between two of us, so she encourages him to sleep on the same bed with me. Please ma, what can I do in such situation? I can't tell my parents, in fact I don't even tell them anything about me. They will just shout and draw their own conclusions. Ma, I need your help seriously. Thanks".

Does this story/question make any sense to you? Have you heard anything similar to that before, or in recent times?

Matters arising:

1. The girl in this story is helpless because their parents are not parenting.

2. Having a crush on someone is a natural and common phenomenon among teenagers. Your own teens are not excluded, even though both you and they are "good Christians", or very religious folks.

3. Sexual feelings are real and natural in every healthy individual, especially in teen age.

4. Feelings of " love" or romance are induced and controlled by hormones. These hormones do not know boundaries. Whether the people are siblings, parent and child, friends, relatives, neighbours, or strangers, etc., the feelings are the same once the fire has been ignited.

5. It is a costly error for parents to keep their passion obsessed teen sons and daughters carelessly together and assume that all will be well. All may not be well ooo! You can't keep healthy goats in the same room with tubers of yam unprotected.

6. Many parents unconsciously promote incest in their homes. There is no reason under heaven why your son and daughter, especially teens should dress and/or undress before each other. It is evil for them to bath together. And if they must sleep on the same bed, you need to put some checks and balances.

7. I don't mean to insult anyone, but I will like every parent to know that parent-child relationship is one of the ways to know whether a parent is responsible or not. And it is a sure mark of irresponsibility for your children to draw their conclusions about you, and carefully eliminate you from things that matter in their lives.

8. Many parents are busy guarding against cartoons, friendship with strangers online, external pedophiles, etc. while the flame of lust among their biological children is about to set the house ablaze.

9. Some sibling rivalries exhibited in the presence of parents are actually meant to divert attention from the real thing going on between the children. Every parent needs a third eye to see all that they need to see, and know all they need to know about their kids. Don't take everything at face value.

10. The sin of immorality does not go away by speaking in tongues or being active in church. It goes away by conscious, deliberate and determined effort to be pure. Help your children to get to this point in their desire to be pure and chaste.

This post is not meant to cast a blanket of suspicion over good relationship between siblings. Not at all. It is intended to arouse the parents' curiosity and intentionality, so that some vital things are not left to chance.

Shalom!

#incest
#intentionalparenting
#parentingteens

(c) Ijeoma Irene Igwesi, 2020