The Sunday Times on the Web Mirror Magazine
18th April 1999

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Our cover girl this week is svelte model Uschi who displays outfits created by Senaka de Silva who also did her make-up. Uschi's hairstyles were done by Wimal of Salon Ramzi and she was photographed for the Mirror Magazine by Mettasena

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Dear DaughterNever be sorry about being chaste

My darling daughter,

These last few days I have been in bed with the 'flu and my young friend next door has been piling me with books, all popular romantic novels of this new generation! They helped me to while away the time and were interesting in the love-hate relationship with which the hero and the heroine started out and how the story then ended with promises of love eternal!

What intrigued me was the way in which the heroine was usually so apologetic that she was yet a virgin and had not slept with any other man and the hero was generally astounded by the fact. I was saddened in a way, daughter, for I wondered whether continuous exposure to such thoughts would not influence our youth too. Why on earth should any girl be sorry that she is chaste, she should not only be proud of it but should safeguard it, not because traditional society deems it necessary but because it is her unique gift to the man she will love and marry.

Yet in some ways those novels did highlight the sense of joy the man had in the fact, that the girl he loved had not given of herself cheaply to others. In a way it is the responsibility of the mother to establish between her daughters and herself a friendship which will enable her to talk to them, explain the longings of their growing young bodies and tell them that it is in their hands to control emotional situations by not allowing their friendship with a boy to go too far into physical relationships.

Often even, my little friend next door is so confused. There is the peer pressure of a generation of youngsters who appear to want only a good time, and there is a section of adults who believe that not only should sex education be taught in schools but even such things as contraceptives (which in our times was never even mentioned!) should be freely available for youngsters. Surely all young people whatever generation they belonged to had the same longings and desires, but parents imposed a moral consciousness then, there were some things that were right and some wrong, and the line between them was strongly demarcated. Why don't parents do that today?

Surely a child has to learn what is good and bad, not as society wills it but as is accepted in a moral society. I often think daughter, we have abrogated our rights as parents by not providing the guidance the young need and then we also suffer for it for when the child falls into a mess. Even though she does not say it, in her now bitter frightened eyes we see our guilt. Don't you think daughter that it is time we parents woke up to our role? Maybe the relationship that you and I have when even today I can tell you if I feel you may be wrong and you could give me your reasons, would be the best parents could strive to build with their children. Do you agree?

Ammi


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