Protecting our daughters, part 1

Recently I read an article wherein a father told a disturbing story about allowing his daughter to be subjected to continual harassment by a drunk man on a plane. Ironically, even though the father let this man persist in his unacceptable behavior, he actually believes he was protecting his daughter!

The father is Scott Brown. His daughter is Kelly Bradrick. (She was not yet married at the time this took place.) The article appears on the Vision Forum website.

"In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Believe me, we were exercising much Christian patience with this man who persisted throughout the entire flight. He did not realize that he was facing deadly force, if he persisted. He actually touched her once and was making bold advances. He even continued the pursuit after the plane landed. I am convinced that, if we had not been with her to protect her, she would have been in serious danger." (Read it in context.)

Really? This creep was "facing deadly force, if he persisted"? But this guy DID persist - even after the plane landed - and absolutely nothing happened! Are we really to believe that men who are too cowardly to intervene and protect a woman from such obnoxious behavior are suddenly going to use deadly force? After sitting there passively and allowing his daughter to be mistreated in this way, does Scott Brown honestly think he is capable of manning up if things exceeded even his tolerance? And what were these men patiently waiting for? For the man to get physically violent?

"Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party..." Don't make me laugh. Fortunately for him (from his perspective) these men gave him full permission to persist in his harassment of this young woman. I'm sure he had a wonderful time at Kelly's expense. I can only imagine what sort of awful ordeal the flight was for her.

From this account, I cannot help but conclude the following:

1. Mr. Brown sees no need to protect his daughter from "very aggressive" drunken flirting.

2. He saw nothing wrong with allowing this behavior to continue for the entire flight.

3. He saw no reason to intervene even when this man touched his daughter.

4. His daughter's feelings in this matter were of no concern to him. Can you imagine having to endure this while your father watched passively?

5. It was more important to exercise Christian patience with a man than protect a daughter.

6. He never taught his daughter how to behave in such situations. But, wait - maybe he did: "Exercise Christian patience and do nothing. Let the man's horrible behavior continue without challenge or protest. Here, observe my example."

7. Kelly would have been no less protected if she were traveling alone. She may actually have been safer. Perhaps, in the absence of the passive "manhood" accompanying her, someone else might have intervened - offering to trade seats with her, calling the flight attendant, and/or insisting, "Back off, buddy, and leave the young lady alone!" I know we can't count on being rescued by bystanders; at the same time, in my younger years, I benefitted from men who wouldn't tolerate a woman being treated disrespectfully. In Kelly's case, onlookers must have thought, "Well, if her father is perfectly OK with how she's being treated, why should I jump in?"

The huge irony is that Mr. Brown follows his story with these words:

"Where do we get the idea of protection from the Bible? We could make a long list, but here is a short one. Godly behavior is defined by shepherds who protect their flocks. The strong should support the weak. Women are the weaker vessels. And daughters should be protected by their fathers who are commanded to give 24/7 watch care over their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). This is enough for me to be convinced that women should be protected by men."

Let me respond: Please spare young women from your notions of "protection". I can't imagine any man I know allowing me to be treated as your daughter was. And if they did - out of fear perhaps - they would be ashamed. And, if they wrote of it, they would describe it truthfully - not pretending it was an example of the very thing they had so grievously failed to do.



Here are my alternate versions...how I wish things had played out...



Version 1:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Believe me, we were exercising much Christian patience with this man - apparently too much, because an elderly woman seated nearby took matters into her own hands.

"Young man!" she addressed the drunk, even though he was much older than my daughter. "I will not sit back and allow you to treat a young lady in that way. You need to stop immediately or I will ring for the stewardess! Young ladies have the right to travel alone without being molested by strangers!"

I was shamed out of my passivity. Frankly, I'd been afraid to say anything. I didn't want to cause any trouble and I'd been hoping that, if my daughter continued trying to ignore this man's bold advances, he would give up and leave her alone.

"Um..." I said, feeling my face redden, "I'm her father."

"And you see nothing wrong with this man's behavior?" The elderly woman was incredulous. "In my day, fathers protected their daughters!" She then insisted on trading seats with my daughter. The rest of the flight was peaceful...giving me plenty of time to repent and to promise to treat my daughter with far more respect in the future.

Where do we get the idea of protection from the Bible? We could make a long list, but here is a short one. Godly behavior is defined by shepherds who protect their flocks. The strong should support the weak. Women are the weaker vessels. And daughters should be protected by their fathers who are commanded to give 24/7 watch care over their children (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). This is enough for me to be convinced that women should be protected by men.

My failure to protect my daughter on the airplane was without excuse. Thank God for an old-fashioned, elderly woman who taught me by her example.



Version 2:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. Even more unfortunately for him, he had no idea who he was dealing with. Kelly turned to face him and said, calmly but firmly, "I will say this once. Leave me alone. Do not speak to me. I am not interested in anything you have to say. Stop harassing me."

He responded with something I will not repeat. Mistake number one. Then he made an even more foolish mistake: he touched my daughter.

We knew what was coming next. Only he had no idea.

She caught his hand. Her hands were moving in a subtle but effective way - we could tell by his gasp of surprise and his grimace - and she kept applying pressure while saying, at twice the volume as before, "DON'T...YOU...DARE...EVER...TOUCH...ME...AGAIN!"

Then she summoned the flight attendant and explained the situation. The man was immediately moved - and this time he was seated by another man.

"You know we were ready to jump in," I assured my daughter.

She grinned. "Yeah, but I had it under control."

"That you did," I agreed.

Sometimes the best way a father can protect his daughter is by making sure she gets excellent self-defense training. Her lessons paid off. So did the hours I let her practice on me. Remembering, I rubbed my wrists, knowing exactly what the drunken man had felt, but I didn't feel sorry for him at all.



Version 3:

In 2003, I took my daughter with me on a mission trip to Romania. On the plane, there was a drunken man flirting with her in a very aggressive way. Unfortunately for him, there were 535 pounds of manhood in our party ready to protect her. We love her too much to allow any man to treat her like that. In addition, we would have intervened even if she had been a complete stranger. But, since she is my daughter, I had zero patience with this man.

"Sir," I said. Once I got his attention, I went on, "That's my daughter. See these other guys here? We are going to make sure you leave her alone."

He sputtered something unrepeatable and I motioned to Kelly to change places with me. Once I was seated next to him, I turned to the drunk and said, "Listen carefully. You have a choice. Either you sit next to me the entire flight or I call the flight attendant and have her find you another seat. After the way you dared speak to my daughter, I think you would be much more comfortable sitting next to anyone but me."

He opted to change seats. I let the flight attendant know why.

Kelly thanked me. Honestly, until she told me how this guy had made her feel, and how much my protection meant to her, I'd been on auto-pilot and my actions seemed like no big deal. Really, all I'd done was trade seats with my daughter and ask some creep to leave her alone. Hardly worth mentioning...but that's not how Kelly saw it.

I learned something that day. It's the simple acts of fatherly protection, the things we do automatically without even thinking, that speak volumes to our daughters. When we are faithful in the little things, they have the confidence to trust us in the big things.




Obviously I prefer happy endings...especially when evil has been thwarted rather than tolerated.

Theirs been a few things on my mind lately...

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World's Cutest Baby

Here she is, my adorable first grandchild, right after she was born in November:




A few weeks later, we briefly placed her in the travel bed/playpen we used with her mother and uncles. In protest, this amazingly brilliant child uttered her first words:





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Beauty

Recently one of my Facebook friends made some posts about feminine beauty and how women perceive themselves. If I understood him correctly, he was saddened by the fact that not every woman thinks of herself as physically beautiful, and he had an admittedly romantic notion that each woman should/could find a husband who would affirm our beauty and find us drop-dead gorgeous. We had a bit of a dialogue back and forth, and I've found myself thinking some more about the topic since then.

The truth is that we are not all physically beautiful. If we claim all women are, we render the word "beautiful" absolutely meaningless. By insisting that, no matter what a woman sees in the mirror, it is some sort of tragedy if she does not "feel beautiful", we are making plain women believe they now have two problems: their physical plainness and their inability to conjure up feelings based on wishful thinking or pretense.

Over the years, I've read a few books and articles on dealing with a poor body image. Over and over again, the solution is some variation of, "Look in the mirror, preferrably naked. Admire all your wonderful features and say out loud everything you like about your body. Embrace those extra pounds...remember, real women have curves!"

This ignores and invalidates women who cannot bear to look in the mirror because of hideous scars from trauma, because of deformities, because the sight of their body triggers painful memories and feelings. It ignores those of us lacking in the curve department. But who cares? Apparently we are not real women.

Real women, it seems, are all beautiful. If we don't think we are, we should pretend otherwise and "feel beautiful". If we can't do that -- because we're too realistic and honest, or because what faces us in the mirror is too broken and scarred, or because we are not "womanly" enough -- we are basically invisible, as if we don't exist. We don't matter, and it's our own fault.

On the one hand, we are told that our worth is not determined by our beauty or lack thereof. On the other hand, we are told that we need to "feel beautiful". We are told that, if we are not confident in our beauty, we may never attract a husband and, if married, we will never be able to fully please him sexually. As wives, we are duty bound to be uninhibited and to act as if we were incredibly beautiful and sexy...and then somehow we will convince him.

The underlying message seems to be: It's bad enough if we are not beautiful. It's even worse if we can't pretend otherwise so convincingly that we fool ourselves and almost make people forget our crime of not being beautiful.

Christian books repeat this message. They tell us men NEED (not just want) us to be beautiful, that they need a "beautiful woman to rescue" and that we need to "reveal our beauty".

When you're not beautiful, all of this is like yet another cruel taunting reminder, a slap in the face. "Oh, but all women are beautiful," some men will blithely say...and yet these same men will make disparaging remarks like, "Even an ugly woman can find some guy somewhere if she is confident enough in her beauty and femininity." Don't they see the glaring contradiction there?

It's become somewhat popular in certain Christian circles to bemoan our society's standards of beauty. "Don't fall for the media's false messages!" we are told. We are reminded that we shouldn't feel inadequate and should not compare ourselves to media images of surgically-enhanced and airbrushed professional models and actresses. "That's not real!" we are urged to remember. We are told how tragic it is that, because of these false images and messages, teenage girls are growing up thinking they are worthless because they don't realize how beautiful they are.

At the same time, we are told that our beauty is dangerous and that we need to conceal it carefully lest we cause great damage to our brothers in Christ. Besides, "modest is hottest", so if we really want to be sexually attractive, we should wear modest yet feminine clothes that will make Christian men admire our beauty.

We are told that our value is not determined by what men think of us, yet we are urged, every time we get dressed, to prayerfully consider what every man we might encounter that day might possibly think when he sees us. How we appear to men, how they think and feel about us, is of the utmost importance. We are urged to read books and "study" men so that we can learn exactly how they think. One man might be "stumbled" by this, another by something else, and we need to keep all that in mind. A godly woman, apparently, somehow manages to walk that fine line: she is modestly hot, feminine, confident in her beauty, and appropriately attractive in every way -- yet not too sexually alluring to anyone but her husband.

The real problem is not our culture's standards of beauty. It's not that women are refusing to recognize their own beauty. It's not that women aren't realizing that, if they really want to be "hot", they should dress to appeal to certain conservative Christian men. The problem is that even Christians in America can't get it through their thick heads that a woman's worth has nothing to do with her beauty or lack thereof, or what men think of her, or whether her husband thinks she's gorgeous, or even whether she has a husband.

A woman's worth is determined in exactly the same way as a man's: she is created in the image of God, and that has nothing to do with her appearance. [Yes, I know there are some wackos who teach women were NOT created in the image of God. Read Genesis1: 27. "Man" doesn't always mean just males.]

Our worth as women is determined by God, and he doesn't look at our outward appearance the way shallow humans do. He sees the real us, who we are inside. There is no Scripture that admonishes us to be or feel beautiful. That is all a distraction, a diversion from what really matters to God.

I am as much a child of the King as any male...or as any beautiful woman. There aren't any ugly ducklings in His Kingdom. When He bought me with a price, it wasn't at some discount because of my flaws and blemishes.

When I stand before Him someday, my appearance will not matter. I doubt He will say, "If only you would have had a better body image! If only you had determined to feel beautiful!"

In fact, I prefer to think I will be so hidden in Christ that, for the very first time ever, I will be really beautiful -- because all that anyone will see is Him.

That is what really gives us our worth: Christ's sacrifice on our behalf. The only beauty that really matters -- really and truly matters because it is the only beauty that will last for eternity -- is His.


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Rape Prevention

I've been preparing to teach some classes on personal safety and self-defense for young women. As a martial arts and self-defense instructor, I have read my fair share of material on this subject. I can honestly say that the following rape prevention tips, if followed, would be enormously successful, far more so than any other tips I've read.

Please pass them on to everyone you know.





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Most popular posts???

While doing a little blog housekeeping, I installed a widget that displays my five most popular posts of all times. I'm disappointed in what I learned.

I mean, really? Why not one of my posts about how amazing grace is? why not one of my humorous posts? why not one that brags about how incredible my offspring are?

But, instead, we have the ones about wacky teachers. That's what I'm known for? Controversy?

[said somewhat in jest...but I was surprised...] 

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Remembering and reflecting: where I've been

It's been quite a while since I blogged semi-regularly. It's been so long that Blogger has come up with all sorts of cool new features since I last did anything but a quick post. It's also been a long time since I was active in the world of blogs. There are a few I keep up with sporadically, but I rarely comment. I have no idea what new controversy has everyone's knickers in a twist in what used to be my corner of the blogosphere. I am utterly and completely out of the loop. For all I know, some new wacky teacher may have arisen and convinced the gullible that patriarchy -- true, Biblical patriarchy!!! -- requires living in tents or that the reason men don't have concubines today is all the result of some vast feminist conspiracy.

I miss some of the people in that world, but I don't miss that world. It feels good to be free of it.

A lot has happened in my life and in the life of my family since those days. Life and death stuff, or I should say, near-death stuff. Crises. Heartbreak the likes of which no one should ever have to suffer. Anguish. Dark nights of the soul. But also incredible joy in the midst of that sorrow.

In other words, real life. Real nitty, gritty life.

When life gets that in-your-face overwhelmingly real, despite all the chaos and confusion that might ensue for a season, some things become really clear. You re-examine a lot when you're treading through deep waters. You begin to realize what and whom -- and Whom -- you can grab onto for safety and what and whom will only pull you down further. You realize who you can go to with your burdens...those who will weep with you and rejoice with you...those who will hold your darkest secret heartaches as sacred trusts...those who will walk with you through the darkest valleys.

There aren't many of those sorts of people.

Years ago, back in the day, I remember an online discussion of homeschooling mothers during which one brave soul dared mention a minor issue she was having with her teenage daughter. This girl was no longer content to play "Little House on the Prairie" and read Elsie Dinsmore for the 20th time; she wanted more out of life; she longed to do something that made a difference and was exciting at the same time. A number of the other moms, who only had young children, tore into this mother and her daughter. You would have thought this girl had announced, "I want to be a harlot" and that the mother had answered, "Whatever you want, dear, is fine with me; let me buy you some harlot clothes" -- that's how these other moms carried on. They gave advice that this girl's "rebellious spirit" needed to be rebuked and punished, that the mother shouldn't listen to her nonsense, that both were in sin, etc., etc.

Needless to say, these are not the sort of people you turn to in a crisis.

A few years went by, but it was still back in the day, when the son of a homeschooling family died under unfortunate and disturbing circumstances. The parents decided to alert other families to what had happened, so that others might be spared their tragedy. I was horrified at the lack of empathy, at the other callousness, in which some in the online world responded. There was much holier-than-thou shooting of the wounded.

Needless to say, these are not the sort of people you turn to in a crisis.

More than one mother, way back in my days of writing about my concerns regarding the Ezzos' teachings, insisted that they had the whole parenting thing down and would never have to deal with any problems because their one-year-old was already "characterized by first-time obedience".

Needless to say, these are not the sort of people you turn to in a crisis.

Also, back in the day, there were certain online teachers, some of them leaders in their own churches, who thrived on controversy, who loved to declare their authority over anyone who commented on their blogs, who sounded convinced that they held a special corner on doctrinal correctness, and who loved to argue until they didn't have the upper hand, in which case they banned people from their blogs.

Needless to say, these are not the sort of people you turn to in a crisis.

In May of this year, I went to a retreat. It was my second year going. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. When my mother heard of my plans, she asked with some trepidation, "Is this the same retreat you went to last year? the one with the...troubled people?"

It's always after the fact that I think of what I should have said. In this case, I should have said, "Yes, that one...because I am one of those troubled people." 

Jesus said, "In this world, you will have trouble..." Some people are just more honest and open about their trouble than others. Some people know what it is like to be broken, wounded, and lost. Some people know what it means to find joy after sorrow. Some people aren't afraid of messes. Some people will let you grieve in ways that wouldn't look pretty in a movie, and they will sit with you in your pain, without condemnation. Some people know the joy of finding hope after despair, and they share it with you. Some people will walk with you as you try to find your way out of the darkness, out of the deep waters, and they will carry you when you are tired. Some people are like beacons in the night. Some people will give you permission to fall apart if need be. Some people will let you be real, as real as real can be, without any pretense, without any self-protection, and their complete and total loving acceptance of you will be like a healing balm to your soul. Some people will love you so much and so obviously that they earn the right to speak painful truth into your life, and they will do it with tears in their eyes. Some people will, with a hug and some whispered words, give you hope to sustain and encourage you for another year.

There aren't very many of those people, but I've been blessed beyond words to have found some.

Needless to say, those are the sort of people you turn to in a crisis.

And they are also the sort of people you turn to during times of joy and laughter, because they will celebrate with you like no one else will. They totally get the "rejoice with those who rejoice" part because they already have the weeping part down.

When I grow up, I want to be that sort of person.


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