Temptation's Door

Oh it's a whole new ball game. I was expecting this with son #2, but not at 8 years old.

He's a passionate one, is our Max. When he decides to do something, he throws himself into it. When he is angry, the rest of the town know about it. When he is happy, he is bouncing off the ceiling with pleasure. When he didn't like girls, he would pretend to be sick every time we mentioned the words 'girl', 'wedding' or 'love'. And now he does like girls again..... Well, I'm sure you can imagine....

And so I find myself, eyes widened in horror, watching my little boy fending off girls. They like him. He's a handsome (in my Mummy opinion), funny young man. I can understand where they are coming from. What I can't understand is why they are coming from that particular place at 8 and 9 years old. I have lost count of the number of texts I have received the last few days from one particular girl wanting to speak to my Max. My Mixy Maxy Moo. Oops, I'm doing that uncool Mummy thing again.

Suddenly my boy is thrown into a world of who is 'going out' (except that they don't actually go anywhere) with who. He, thankfully, doesn't want to 'go out' with any of them. He doesn't understand why girls want to just 'chat' and why they talk on and on all the time when he just likes to play tig and chase around with his mates.

Except he's not the only one doing the chasing. And some of the ones doing the chasing are beautiful, almost seductive, and used to getting what they want. And they want my boy. So, we have to teach him things I certainly wasn't expecting to be teaching yet.

A long time ago, a wise dad writing about a seductive woman, wrote this to his son:

"Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house." (Proverbs 5 v 8)

I'm not an over-protective mother. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I will be teaching my boys to stay away from women who will not do them good. I want them to be full of wisdom to make the right choices for themselves. I want them to be able to resist temptation. We need to equip them for this because if we don't, they will walk right up to temptation's door and step through it. The consequences of this are not even worth thinking about. Our job as the parents of our three passionate boys is to teach them how to cope with the honey dripping calls of temptation.

Bring back those days of throwing up at kissing and vowing never ever to get married because girls are disgusting. They were much more simple.