A few weekends ago we hosted a parenting seminar in town and Jessica ran a kids club. We had a light dinner together inbetween the afternoon and evening sessions. As I was serving the kids their sausages in bread, I thought I would use the opportunity to encourage the young boys to let the girls go first. To be honest I wasnt very impressed with how the boys had just pushed and raced to be first in the food line. So it had two fold purpose!
But it is important to help the boys learn that they need to treat girls as special. Some of the boys responded beautifully, some not so. So come dessert I asked the boys (who had rushed to the front again) what is one way they can show their manners most of them knew what I was getting at. And they stepped back and let the girls forward.
Now that is all very fine and good but what about the girls. I must admit I wasnt too pleased with what happened there either. There were smirks, grins and bragging. So it was an opportunity to encourage the girls that they werent to be smart about this, but they need to be gracious and thankful that the boys were being kind to them. The second round (with the icecream) the girls did much better. Next would be to teach the girls to say thankyou as they moved forward in the line.
Why is this important? One little boy challenged me and said, It doesnt say to let girls go first in the Bible. And he is right, it doesnt. The Bible does say that we are to prefer one another and to put off selfish thoughts. The Bible also talks about men laying down their lives for their wives. Now, I know that none of these little boys are married but I hope that they will be one day and I want them to develop a heart that will respect, love and honour their wives. Unfortunately the world isnt helping this attitude in our men and so we have to do counter-cultural things to help develop a heart to see girls as special.
After this situation I talked to Peter about the different ways we need to work on boys treating girls as special, and girls being gracious towards their brothers in our family. Maybe it could be something you could discuss at your next date night.
