For the past few months, I have tried to grasp an idea that has been floating around in my mind. When I was growing up, we had Polaroid cameras. You know the type where you took a photo, and it came out on the white framed paper, and against the manufacturer’s suggestions, we shook it. I am old enough to remember when you had to take a roll of film to be developed, drop it off, and then return later to pick it up. There was also a crazy business that would develop your photos in an hour. Crazy. So now when I look back through the albums around my house and at my parent’s house, I notice that the photos are of the things we saw, the places we went, and the occasional family photo. What you do not see are hundreds of selfies. The selfies are the things that irk me. It is not the occasional selfie, but the constant selfies. We all have seen the person who posts selfies all day, every day. Our teenage girls are so obsessed with their image and appearance that they are suffering record-high cases of anxiety and depression. Our teenage girls are so wrapped up in their selfies, that when one that does not garner enough likes will be deleted. The amount of filters photoshops, touch-ups, lighting, and all the technology to make these girls look good are absurd. Somewhere along the way our daughters have been sold a lie. That lie is that their worth or value is wrapped up in their looks. This is not a new lie that women are hearing, but an old one. The new wrinkle is the total focus on self. Then our girls hear about a Proverbs 31 woman or a “virtous” woman and have no clue what that even means or how to become that. Then the culture is telling them that they need no man, they are all they ever need, and the world is against them because they are a woman. Meanwhile, our girls are lost, anxious, depressed, and eating disorders are raging throughout our teenage girls.
If you hang around teenage girls any amount of time, you will notice how addicted they are to their phones. It is their lifeline to their friends and the world around them. At my house, my daughter is trying to convince me that she needs a social media account. She will never convince me of that because of all the issues that social media leads to in our daughters. Here’s a side note, it is not just limited to our teenage girls either. We see grown women comparing themselves to other women on social media, and judging their life according to social media standards. As a parent, we just have to stay vigilant and help our daughters see how wonderful they are and how much value they really have. It is not an easy task but a huge undertaking!
Focusing On Godly Things 