INTRODUCTION

Having a new baby in your life is joyous and exciting. They’re your perfect little bundle of joy. You have that glorious sense of achievement at having played a part in the creation of another human being, or in welcoming a new life into your home if you are adopting. And you share the happiness of being mum or dad with grandparents, siblings and your faith community. A baby brings the incredible feeling that God has deemed you worthy of nurturing a new life to adulthood.

These feelings are good and right. Marriage and parenting are the climax of God’s creative activity (Genesis 1:28; 20–25). Man and woman together are blessed by God and commanded to have children to fill the earth and subdue it. This, God said, is ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31).

But, as every parent knows, these early feelings of euphoria are transient. Very soon we realise that parenting involves sleepless nights, nappies and colic. We find ourselves praying not for wisdom for godly parenting, but for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Then, all too soon, we have toddlers and preschoolers with their endless curiosity and boundless energy. They have questions about their body and wonder where they came from and why daddy or mummy, brother or sister look different to them.

We realise that our children are sexual beings. In all their created goodness as boy or girl, their bodies are designed for sexual relations and their minds wired to appreciate the one-flesh, naked-and-noshame relationship of sexual intimacy (Genesis 2:21–25).

Childhood curiosity about their own body, and other people’s bodies, and sexuality in general, is good and natural. It is definitely not something to be discouraged or prohibited. Rather, it is an opportunity for parents to commence their journey as the primary sex educators of their children.

Gen Alphas (born on or after 20101) will, if they haven’t already, soon discover YouTube, Netflix, television, music videos and a plethora of social media apps. Some may even stumble across pornography. It is time for you to start the conversation.

Reflection

List your children by age and think about the various sources where they might get information (and misinformation) about sex.

Think about:

• friends (names)

• social media (specific apps on their phone)

• video games

• other sources: television, Netflix, magazines, billboard advertising.

You could use this activity for a discussion with your parent group.

1. McCrindle Research 2019, ‘Generation next: Meet Gen Z and the Alphas’, https:// mccrindle.com.au/article/generation-next-meet-gen-z-and-the-alphas/

Once you begin communicating with your child about their body, sex, intimacy and relationships, you will continue until they are an adult and leave home. They may even return with their kids—and you will continue your mentoring into the next generation with your grandchildren.

If your child is already a preteen or teen, they’re a Gen Z (born between 1995 and 20092). Gen Zs are internet-savvy, technologically literate children of the cyber-generation. Their communications, relationships, identity and sexuality all seem to be generated and determined by their smartphones. They are ‘woke’, having a global awareness of social issues. And, while technology buffers and brokers their relationships, it also feeds their loneliness3 and the toxic comparison that hollows meaning from their lives.

As your child grows, the methods and language you use to communicate with them will change, but the message of God’s good plan and purpose for their lives, including their body, identity and sexuality, will remain the same.

God created humanity male and female. It’s good for us to know ourselves as either a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. As either a boy or a girl, it’s good for us to ‘love’ other people—to care about them, want to be with them, and want them to be happy. Most of the time, and with the vast majority of people, this ‘love’ is not sexual. Sexual love, and the romantic and erotic feelings and actions associated with sexual love, is good—in fact, very good. But precisely because it’s so good, it is both powerful and fragile. That’s why God created a particular relational context for sexual love—the marriage of one man to one woman, for life.

2. McCrindle Research 2019, ‘5 factors de ning Generation Z’, https://mccrindle.com. au/article/topic/generation-z/5-factors-de ning-generation-z/

3. Twenge, JM, Haidt, J, Blake, AB, McAllister, C, Lemon, H & Le Roy, A 2021, ‘Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness’, Journal of Adolescence, https://district8sonpm.org/ wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Adolescent-Loneliness-Twenge-201.pdf

Nowadays, this idea that there is a healthy pattern to our sexuality is not popular. Sin—our rejection of God—fractures God’s pattern for sexuality in various ways. And our children are in danger of being drawn into a secular world view without realising it.

This book will support you as you help your children see that there are two ways to think about everything: the world’s way and God’s way. You can give them a glorious biblical vision of what God intends for sex, gender, intimacy and marriage.

The Bible consistently presents heterosexual monogamous marriage as the place where sexual intimacy is expressed in a way that is relevant to any cultural background, and every age and stage of life. It’s good for everyone because it’s a pattern from creation (Genesis 1:26–28; 2:18–25), as Jesus himself recognised and affirmed (Matthew 19:4–6; Mark 10:6–9).

The created ‘law’ of marriage is not the major reason we believe in heterosexual monogamous marriage. We believe it’s good because of its connection to the gospel. God uses heterosexual monogamous marriage as an image of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people, the church—his bride, for whom he, the heavenly bridegroom, shed his blood (Matthew 9:15; 2 Corinthians 11:2–3; Ephesians 5:21–33; Revelation 19:7; 21:2. For the Old Testament background, see Psalm 45; Jeremiah 31:32; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1–3). We trust Jesus with our sexuality first of all because he died and rose to bring us back to God. Or to put it another way, ‘we love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19).

This is the context for our parenting.