For this discussion, we would like to set aside the dark paranormal element of Twilight, though that is a concern on its own. We believe what ultimately draws women into this series and other romance novels in millions-strong droves is the same thing that lures men into an estimated $3-4 billion-a-year pornography industry.

Journalist Alisa Harris explains: “It’s called emotional porn. When men glut their physical lust with pictures of airbrushed girls pumped full of silicone, they become dissatisfied with real women’s bodies. When women plug their emotional caverns with chick flicks and chick lit, they become dissatisfied with the real men they know because they can’t measure up to the guys from The Notebook or Pride and Prejudice or Walk to Remember.” (Alisa Harris, “Beating Darcy Down”, Kritik Magazine)

Pornography is not simply about pictures. At its core, pornography starts with:

1. A desire to use people as self-gratification machines
2. A preference for man-made reality and man-made people over the real thing.

These hold as much temptation for women as for men, though romance novels often feed their fire better than pictures. (It has been found, however, that pictures of Robert Pattinson don’t put a damper on anything.) [4]

R.J. Rushdoony asks, “Why should an unreal female be exciting, and a far better and real woman not be so? The key is the essence of imagination: the fantasy woman is totally the creation and creature of man, whereas the real woman is God’s creation and creature. It is essential to imagination to create a man-made world and a man-ordained decree of predestination. It is the essence of sin to demand such a world.” [5]

Why should Edward, Mr. Darcy and other romantic heroes be more interesting than “far better and real” men? Because these men are the creations of women, tailor-made just the way we want them… rather than the way God made them.

Though some may profess immunity to teen-vampire-horror-romance, everyone tainted by sin faces this temptation to escape to another world. A different “reality,” where what is impossible in real life is possible in our minds – where we can indulge in desires we would never fulfill in the real world. It’s about more than going batty for vampires. It’s about a chance to take a “time off” from law and consequences.

R.J. Rushdoony points out, “Because ours is an age with a will to fiction, the role of imagination is extremely important. Men who will not be governed by God’s word will not be governed by reality, because reality is not of their making. God having created all things, reality reflects the mind of God, not man. Hence, it is the essence of sin to resort to imagination to escape God’s law world.”[8]

We who feel “the urge to escape sometimes” should ask ourselves why a world apart from God’s character, God’s laws, and God’s created order would be a world a Christian would desire to live in? [9] What would make us want to run, like Jonah, from God and His presence? “Escapism is only medicine to one who views the reality of God and His creation as a disease.” [10] The answer for those in need of “escape” from life’s hardships is running to God – not away from Him.

You can read the rest here.

Editor’s Note: Several commenters seem to have mistaken the above quotations as having been written by me. They are quotations from a blog post written by the Botkins. They are not written by me.

If you want your wife to be beautiful for you, then you understand how she feels about your eyes being just for her.

Why on earth would that be? It goes like this.

Men desire the sight of women’s bodies. They actually derive emotional comfort and meaning out of looking at a hot, sexy woman.

And, in just the same way, women desire to be desired. They actually derive emotional comfort and meaning out of being cherished as their husband’s one and only source of passion.

When a man disregards one of his wife’s most fundamental longings and places his desire in any woman besides his wife, his wife feels exactly the same way a man would feel if his wife were to disregard his fundamental longing for enjoyment of her body and become frumpy and frigid, rebuffing him every time he asks for sex, and going around all day in an old stained bathrobe, with unkempt hair, picking her nose, and passing gas.

The disgust is the same.

The disappointment is the same.

The feelings of being cheated, unloved, and unvalidated are the same.

Men don’t understand how much porn hurts women because they think about porn in relation to masculine needs not feminine needs. They imagine how they would feel if their wives were into it, and it doesn’t sound all that bad. But that’s because it doesn’t threaten men. Porn has no effect on how beautiful their wives are, and therefore men’s deepest desires are not put in jeopardy. A porn problem seems no worse than an anger problem or a problem with lying. And since it demonstrates an interest in sex, it can almost seem like a sign of something positive.

But for a woman, it is a betrayal of the one thing she wants most in an intimate relationship.

Our sons need to understand this. Before they get involved.

For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn….

…The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness. What they don’t know is how to get out, how to find each other again erotically, face-to-face.

What’s her solution? Wolf can’t bring herself to actually recommend modesty, but she does a pretty good job of praising the wisdom behind it and shares a powerful vignette from a visit with an Orthodox Jewish friend in Jerusalem.

When she showed me her little house in a settlement on a hill, and I saw the bedroom, draped in Middle Eastern embroideries, that she shares only with her husband—the kids are not allowed—the sexual intensity in the air was archaic, overwhelming. It was private. It was a feeling of erotic intensity deeper than any I have ever picked up between secular couples in the liberated West. And I thought: Our husbands see naked women all day—in Times Square if not on the Net. Her husband never even sees another woman’s hair.

She must feel, I thought, so hot.

Due to the nature of the subject matter, I’m definitely not recommending this to younger readers, and I do suggest that you exercise discernment. However, given how pornography has swept our society, it would behoove us (especially those of us with sons to raise) to understand its true effects so that we can adequately warn our children. It all reminds me of what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,

Nothing spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.

If you want to appreciate fresh fish and potatoes, stay away from the Witch’s Turkish delight. If you want a steamy sex life, stay away from porn.

It works.

Read the full article here.

Let this information from the article, What Parents Need to Know About Porn and Their Kids take a moment to sink into your mind:

…according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17. And there’s more. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. Eighty percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography. Nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.

Now that you’re awake, go over and read the rest of the article. Don’t worry, we’ll all wait for you.

So what are we, as parents, going to do about this? How are we going to guard our children’s hearts and minds in this new era of easy access to some of the most vile, defiling images known to man?

Recently, I received an e-mail from someone who reads my blog, wondering if I could recommend a good internet filter for a Mac so her kids could play games online. She was concerned about allowing them Internet access, and rightly so! I had to admit that we don’t have any experience with filters. Since our children are very young (our oldest is only five), we have simply not allowed them to surf. We have bookmarked a few select sites that we allow them to go to. The computer is in plain sight in the living room, and I can monitor to make sure they are only going where they are supposed to. But, like I told the lady who wrote me, this is just a Bandaid. As they grow, our children are going to need a lot more than this to help them.

A filter is a good start, and I’d love to hear from those of you who use filters what you have and how it’s working for you. But, as my husband pointed out to me, all a filter is is a list of sites that the computer will not load if you click on them. There is no way that list is going to have every porn site on it. According to Enough is Enough’s statistics page, there are 420 million pornographic web pages, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States.  A friend of mine has a filter, and she says that some stuff still gets through. And furthermore, a filter is not going to stop the page title and description from coming up, so even if they can’t click on the page, our children still run the risk of reading about what’s on it.

A filter is fundamentally a sheltering tool, and as I pointed out in another post, sheltering isn’t enough. Our children need to be aware of what’s out there, how it’s likely to make them feel, and how dangerous and destructive it really is. Also, we must never let a filter lull us into a false sense of security. We still need to be diligent in checking our children’s browser histories and in asking the hard questions. And if you think your children don’t have a problem with pornography, ask yourself how you would know if they did.

Pornography addiction is rampant and skyrocketing. It affects men and women, young and old, and is a danger for both our sons and our daughters. I’d love to hear from you what your family is doing to protect your children and to teach them how to live lives of integrity online.

In reality, men sometimes make decisions that seem frustrating, stupid, or just plain sinful. They don’t always share our convictions. And we don’t always feel very respectful, trusting, or adoring about it. Sometimes, our men will let us go ahead and do what we feel we must, but we feel terribly the lack of unity and wish we were being “led” the way we so deeply believe is right.

Recently someone asked the following:

Do you have any advice for women whose husbands are OK with them being at home but seriously admire and respect women with high powered careers? And “allow” them to be at home for the children but have no respect for what they are doing at all? And I don’t mean that the wife is sitting around being irresponsible all day.

This really isn’t all that uncommon. In fact, I would bet that every wife faces something like this over one issue or another at some point in her marriage. I know there have been times when my convictions didn’t match my husband’s. So when disagreements come, what do we do?

Step 1: Search the Scriptures

If you are going to presume to disagree with the authority God has placed over you, then you’d better make sure that your opinion is truly a Biblical one and not just a deep and heartfelt preference. If it does turn out to be a preference, then we need to submit, die to ourselves, and let Christ live through us. OUCH! I’m not even going to pretend that this isn’t very, very hard. But it is God’s standard, and what a marvelous opportunity to glorify Him and to see His miraculous power in our lives!

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. –Ephesians 5:22-24

But what if, upon serious study and reflection, it still seems perfectly clear to you that following your husbands desires would be sin? Then, we must say with Peter and the other apostles,

We ought to obey God rather than men. –Acts 5:29

But how do we go about that? How do we remain sweet and submissive wives? How do we cope with our husbands’ lack of delight in us?

Step 2: Make sure you really understand your husband.

Talk about your feelings, not because you are trying to convince him that you are right, but because he is your leader, and he can’t lead you if he doesn’t know what’s going on inside you. Humbly, and that’s the operative word–remember “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6), explain why you feel you cannot follow him on this issue, then tell him that it is your great desire to be able to follow him, and ask for his help as your spiritual head. Try to find out where he’s coming from. It is always possible for wives to misunderstand. In the case of the situation the commenter brought up, it is possible the husband really doesn’t have any respect or admiration for his wife, but it’s also possible that she’s not reading his signals the right way. This is where a calm, loving heart to heart is desperately needed, not a debate about the issue, but an attempt to have both husband and wife genuinely understand the other’s feelings and convictions.

If, after gently drawing your husband out, and talking through all that both of you are feeling, you are still in disagreement, then it’s time to look for all the things that you CAN do to please your husband. Are there ways that you could become more like his ideal, even if it does not include overstepping a certain bound? It’s also time to work very hard at loving, honoring, respecting, and admiring your husband despite your differences. Women tend to get bitter in situations like this. I know because I am guilty, guilty, guilty. It is vital that we tell ourselves over and over that this is the man God has given me to love, and follow, and complete, not anyone else, this man, and so it must be possible for me to do it.

Also, be very, very sure that you don’t air your disagreements to all sorts of people. Women love to talk to and connect with other women, to get sympathy, and to vent. When this venting is about people, the Bible calls it, “talebearing,” and has nothing good to say about it.

A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. –Proverbs 11:13

The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. –Proverbs 18:8

Honor your husband in every word you speak about him, and if you feel that you absolutely must get help and counsel, choose a godly, older woman, whom you know to be the model of discretion. Do your husband good and not evil all the days of your life (Proverbs 31: 12), including the days when you disagree.

Step 3: Pray like crazy

Never underestimate the power of prayer!

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. –James 5:16b

When I was going through  a time of testing in this area, I prayed almost daily that the Lord would change the mind of whichever one of us was wrong. Praying that way enabled me to lift up the issue without becoming self-righteous about my “right” position. I also prayed in general for my husband to have wisdom to lead the family and about his walk with the Lord, his work, his fathering, our relationship, everything I could think of. I just prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. And you know what? The Lord worked it out. It took about four years, but we are now in complete agreement. The Lord did change the mind of the one of us who was wrong. It was a hard road, and some women walk it for a lot longer than four years, but having made it to the end of this one particular journey, I can see how the Lord has blessed us, strengthened our marriage, and is now even allowing us to help others who are facing similar issues.

For further reading, I highly recommend Kelly of Generation Cedar’s post, How Can a Wife Cope With an Unbelieving Husband. The comments are FULL of wise voices of experience that apply not just to this extreme example of conflict, but to lesser cases of disagreement as well.

…and nothing else.

Her legs were crossed and hands strategically placed so her nipples weren’t exposed. But there she was, smiling at my children as we hurried past, she and her friends like the woman in Maxim, legs spread for the camera, oversized blouse just barely falling between them as well as falling off her top half.

I know that some people don’t see anything wrong with images like this, but I find them tragic. They divorce sexual excitement and fulfillment from the relationships that God designed those feelings to feed and cement. In short, they are robbing marriages. Bit by bit, they are slowly eating away at men’s enjoyment of and whole-hearted union with their wives. Rather than being a special, sacred glue that holds a man and wife together, sexual gratification becomes a free for all. Provide it for whomever. Get it from whomever. And it’s not just currently married men who are being damaged. Young men who become addicted to lust in their youth will carry their skewed version of sex into their future marriages, losing the depth of delight that God intended for them, and often leaving them sneaking around behind their wives’ backs collecting titillation from the same shallow, glossy sources they did in their single years.

Thankfully, my children were distracted by the airport tram and looking the other way. My three year old son probably isn’t struggling with lust too much yet anyway, but he is beginning to notice the world we live in. Just a few days before this miserable episode, as we sat at the lunch table, he pulled his sleeve down his arm, tucked his little baby cheek down on his bare shoulder, and looking up at me through his eyelashes asked, “Mommy, why do ladies in magazines look like this?”

The usual method for raising godly children in Smutland is sheltering. And sheltering is a good, good thing, both for our children and for ourselves, but you can only shelter so much. We don’t have a TV, we don’t get the newspaper (lingerie adds and all), we avoid most movies, we even stopped going to 7-eleven because of the “men’s” magazines under the counter right at children’s eye level. But we can’t protect our children from every sexual image. We can’t drive down the highway without seeing billboards. We can’t get through the check lane at the grocery store without seeing magazines. We can’t surf the Internet without seeing ads. And we can’t take our children on an airplane trip to see their grandparents without passing newsstands.

And while many parents seem to hope that their children are just oblivious, that there will always be that convenient tram, I’m way too jaded for that. Maybe as preschoolers they aren’t suffering too much, but the day is coming, and coming fast when every fiber of their being will be screaming at them to notice. The teen years will be here before I know it, years when their bodies will be fully functioning, ready to have babies, and not the least bit concerned with whether they’re through with their studies or well prepared for a stable financial future. They’ll be like dieting housewives with empty stomachs shopping for groceries on Saturday afternoon, free samples around every corner. “Would you like to try a mini cream puff?”

I’ve seen a lot of parents who find the idea of their children’s budding sexuality a little embarrassing and hope that as long as they don’t tell their kids too much or talk about the images and experiences the world is all too willing to offer, that their children won’t get involved. They blush and act squeamish when questions come up and are quick to emphasize that “that won’t matter for you until you’re much older.” This is a bit like acting squeamish and embarrassed about food. There’s nothing wrong or unnatural about liking food. As long as we’re eating the food the Lord has given us, food is a blessing. The problem comes when we’re stealing from other people’s lunch boxes. Pretending that food doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t an issue for our children is like pretending a starving man won’t notice your sandwich. A child who discovers that he likes the way food smells and looks may feel a bit ashamed of his fancy if it clearly embarrasses his parents, but he isn’t going to stop liking it. And if he doesn’t have his own lunch box yet, he’ll be all too happy to grab a chip here and a cookie there from the free sample stations that the world has set up at the end of every aisle. “Would you like to see what a woman looks like with her clothes off?”

If we expect our children to be able to win this battle, or even to fight in the first place, we need to prepare them for it. They need to know their enemy, and they need to know how to fight.

Proverbs chapters 5, 7, and 9 all contain detailed warnings to young men about harlots. I don’t think the modern day woman on the cover of GQ is all that different. After all, she’s giving away something that should only belong to a husband (the right to see and enjoy her body) for the sake of profit. So I think the Proverbs approach is probably a good one for helping our children learn to confront these kinds of temptations. These three chapters contain wonderful descriptions of the “enemy,” the women who are trying to trap them, as well as the consequences of going after these women. You may want to consider reading them frequently to your sons or having them memorize parts, but at the very least, go over them thoroughly. Here are a few highlights (and notice how this advice is addressed to “children;” this is not just advice for “adults,” it’s something that we need to teach our children before the temptations are assaulting them):

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed –Proverbs 5:3-11

For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,  And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)…He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.  Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.  –Provers 7:6-12, 22-27

A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways:  Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.  But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. –Proverbs 9:13-18

There’s a LOT we can learn from these passages, but some important things are these: the harlot is enticing, she is everywhere, and she is deadly. No man should think himself immune (“many strong men have been slain by her”), but it is the fool, the simpleton, the “young man void of understanding” that she calls in particular. Lets look at these one by one.

The harlot is enticing. Naked women and sexual release make men feel wonderful and go hand in hand. We must admit this or we will lose all credibility with our sons. They need to be warned that when they see a woman with “the attire of an harlot” that it’s going to be titillating, exciting, even empowering. Otherwise, we run the risk of having them reason, “Naked women make Mom feel squeamish, but she just doesn’t understand how much fun it is for me. I’ll keep this to myself. I know it’s probably wrong to keep looking at women this way, but it makes me feel so good I can’t stop.”

The harlot is everywhere. “Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” We do all we can to avoid her, but there will be times we have to confront her. She’s just an innocent click away on the Internet, waiting around the corner on the billboard, or hanging from the department store ceiling under a sign reading “Intimate Apparel.”  Our sons need to know they have to be ready always and never let down their guard.

The harlot is deadly. This is where the sternest warning is needed.  For all her enticements, she has the power to destroy our sons’ souls, poison their marriages, cripple their futures. Solomon does not mince words, and neither should we. Our sons must know in no uncertain terms that “her guests are in the depths of hell.”

The harlot especially targets the simple and the foolish. Seeking genuine, biblical wisdom that starts with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10) is a strong defense. After all, those who are walking in the spirit will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

Once our sons know their enemy, they have to know how they’re going to fight. And it is up to parents to teach them these skills. Just knowing that lust is wrong is not enough. Our sons have absolutely no clue how to deal with it on their own, and they will fail unless they are shown a way out.

Their most powerful weapon is retreat. They need to run away, to “flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22). And to be able to do that, they need to train their eyes not to get stuck on images they should be running from. Our sons need to understand that they have no right to let their eyes stay on a woman who is not their wife.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. –Matthew 5:28

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?–Job 31:1

Like Job, our sons need to make a covenant with their eyes. They need to train their eyes to “bounce,” to borrow a term from the excellent book, Every Man’s Battle (which my husband strongly recommends). That simply means that if they see anything that even begins to titillate, they need to look instantly away. They can’t “think upon a maid,” either. That means no dwelling on what they’ve accidentally seen. Our sons need to simply acknowledge the unintentional charge they felt and let it go. It doesn’t belong to them. No long looks. No second looks. No lingering thoughts. It isn’t theirs. Tell the free sample lady you’re saving your appetite for the dinner your Father is preparing.

Our sons also need to be taught how to be careful not to go “nigh the door of her house,” in other words, they have to learn to shelter themselves when Mom and Dad can’t, to “make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). That means if they even see a newsstand up ahead, they should already be looking the other way before they catch a glimpse of GQ or Maxim. If they have to shop at the mall, they should plan a route that doesn’t take them past the larger than life posters of lingerie models at Victoria’s Secret. If they’re in a check lane, their eyes should be looking straight ahead before they see the woman on the cover of Cosmopolitan spilling her not so mini cream puffs out of her dress.

Last of all, our children need the accountability that can only come from a close relationship with the people the Lord has provided for their protection, their parents.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. –Proverbs 23:27, 28

When we have our children’s hearts, we have a much greater chance of having an open enough relationship with them that they will tell us about their struggles. However, we may need to ask! Don’t expect your children to come to you and talk about this sort of thing on their own, especially if you’ve had the attitude in the past that they couldn’t possibly be having trouble with lust at their “young” age. They may be all too happy not to shatter your good opinion of them and mistakenly believe that they can handle things on their own.

We need to take seriously the difficult position our children find themselves in today with sexual free samples available at every turn and a huge gap, often on the order of a decade or more between discovering how hungry they are and actually getting a legitimate meal. They are starving in a world of free samples, and if we want them to have a chance of saying no the smiling sample ladies, we had better get busy and prepare them for it before they get their first taste of mini cream puff.

But while there are some women who struggle with giving up the attention and stylishness of dressing immodestly at inappropriate times, there are also plenty of women who struggle with being immodest when it’s immanently appropriate, when they’re doing it for their husbands.

Thanks to our flesh obsessed culture, we are all treated daily to visions of perfection, not only in the real life, half-clad college students we pass picking up a couple of apples and some Diet Coke while we wrestle an overloaded cart of family packs and several preschoolers down the supermarket isles, but countless images of flawlessness smile up at us from magazine covers, billboards, even the labels on our bras. They’re all the same: young, thin, creamy skinned, large breasted, looking like they’ve never had a baby in their lives, mocking our stretch marks and laugh lines, the extra pounds we gained giving life to other human beings, and the unfortunate facts of biology that only a small handful of us can both be a size four and wear a DD bra cup without plastic surgery. And so we wilt a little and feel the temptation to hide our deficiencies, even from the one person from whom we aren’t supposed to have any secrets.

Recently, I received a comment from Rina on one of my first modesty posts, A Garden Enclosed: The Importance of Modesty…and Immodesty. She says,

…I love what you’ve written here and wonder if you might have any advice for those of us who don’t feel very comfortable with our own bodies and have trouble being revealing, even to our own husbands. After struggles with annorexia in the past, and having five children, I’m overweight and would be embarrassed to let my husband see me in an “immodest nightgown.” Do you have any advice for those of us who struggle with this?

This is  such a good question! I hope many of you will weigh in on this as well, but here are my humble two cents.

To start with, I can relate! And so, I think, can most women, even the ones who approach our culture’s ideal. I’ll never forget a dancer I knew in high school, who to me seemed to have everything: flat tummy, ample bosom, skinny thighs. I would have thought she’d be happy. She wasn’t. She felt that her backside wasn’t cute. To her, it was too flat,  and she was so embarrassed about it that she nearly always wore a sweater tied around her waist so no one could see her “flaw.”

The desire to cover up our “flaws” is natural, but when it comes to marriage, it isn’t good. Our bodies were created for our husbands to enjoy. Take a glance through Song of Solomon and watch the Bride and Bridegroom praise each and every part of each other’s bodies. They’d be hard-pressed to do that if they couldn’t see each other’s bodies.

But how do we get to the point of being comfortable with being revealing? I think the best answer comes from Martha Peace’s wonderful book, The Excellent Wife. She calls it “The Put Off/ Put On Dynamic,” and in my experience, it’s the best way to deal with any kind of wrong thinking. Basically, when we find ourselves overcome with a worldly, sinful, or otherwise just plain hurtful idea, we can’t truly get rid of it until we replace it with the truth. In other words, we can’t put something off until we put something else on. So with that in mind, let’s look at some Scriptures containing truth we can put on as we attempt to put off any embarrassment we might feel being revealing in front of our husbands.

1. Don’t Compare

…but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. — 2 Corinthians 10:12

If only I could get this one through my thick skull! I’d be a much happier person in general as well as a more radiant wife. It applies to so much of life, and nowhere more than our physical appearance. As we go about facing college students and bra labels, what do we do? Well, I don’t know about you, but I compare. And I almost never look at the things that are actually beautiful about the body God has given me. Oh, no. I always zero in on the one thing the other woman has that’s better than the corresponding body part on my body. Then, it’s just a heartbeat to the inevitable feelings of inferiority and the worries about how my husband could possibly be attracted to me when xyz body parts don’t look like Buffy’s over there. But this is not wise! In fact, it’s foolish. Comparing myself to other women is always foolish. This is the body that God has put me in to fulfill all the duties He has for me, including the very pleasant duty of being my husband’s delight. God didn’t choose any other body for me, so looking at other bodies and thinking about how this or that attribute is so much more “serviceable” is pointless, even ungrateful and faithless. And sometimes just quoting this verse to myself can stop me in my tracks, “they…comparing  themselves among themselves are not wise.”

2. Don’t Focus on the Past

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 3:13,14

Not only are we tempted to compare ourselves to other women, so often we are also tempted to compare ourselves now to a younger, thinner, better rested, etc. version of ourselves. This is only a good thing when it prompts us to make positive changes, eating better, getting more sleep or exercise. There is always room for improvement, and we should always be seeking to improve, but we need to press forward, not look back, and sometimes comparing ourselves today to ourselves in the past is as far as we get, and we just feel depressed and unattractive. The thought may even cross our minds that maybe if we stay covered up, then our husbands won’t notice how we’ve changed. But we need to make what we have right now as beautiful as possible, working with what we’ve got, finding our best attributes and accentuating them, wearing colors that make our skin glow, trying a little perfume, fixing our hair. (Even if you wear a head covering, there are times you’ll want to take it off for your husband.) And we should try to see the blessing in the things that bother us. Overweight? You probably have lovely cleavage. Now’s the time to use it. Bust line or backside too flat? It probably means you’re nice and thin elsewhere, so show off those lanky legs or that delicate collar bone.

3. Remember God’s Plan for Marriage

Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. –Genesis 2:24

Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. –1Corinthians 7:2-4

God intended for married people to be physically one. He wants you and your husband to have sex, often! He says that your husband’s body is under your power, and yours is under your husband’s. Most men enjoy sex a whole lot more if they can see their wife’s body, and since my body is under my husband’s power, if he wants to see it, then he should get to see it. It’s not about my feelings of embarrassment over looking too pregnant, or still working off baby weight, or whatever. It’s about my body’s belonging to my husband. It’s about his freedom to enjoy what is his.

4. Remember that Your Husband Doesn’t Get to Enjoy Anybody Else

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. –Proverbs 5:15-23

God means for your husband to enjoy you and you alone. Not only is it true that your husband has power over your body, but it is also true that he does not have power over anyone else’s. Your husband must be ravished with you and not with a “strange woman.” That can be tremendously freeing. I’m not competing with Buffy the Bra Model, or the college girl in the produce section. My husband has no right to look at them. If he does, then he is sinning. It’s natural for a woman whose husband does that to feel crushed and compared. But the truth is that life isn’t a beauty pageant. I need to be as beautiful as I can for my husband because I belong to him and because pleasing him pleases the Lord, never because of how anyone else looks who might catch my husband’s eye. The LORD is pondering my husband’s goings. I don’t need to live in fear of another woman’s provoking my husband to lust. I need to be what God created me to be. I am my husband’s cistern. I am his water source. When he is thirsty for a cool drink of sweet femininity he gets to come to me. I am what God thinks he needs, and what God declares to be enough for him. I just need to be joyfully and freely open to satisfying my husband’s thirst.

You may find these or other verses helpful, but find some that address your specific hang-ups and focus on them. Pray about them and about how you can be all that God intended you to be for your husband.

Then, once you get a good start on renewing your mind, it’s time to take the plunge. Comfort never grows without practice. Swallow your fears and try. Talk about your feelings with your husband, and ask him what would please him most.  If your budget permits, maybe a shopping trip for something new to wear to bed is in order. Or maybe you can get creative with what you already have. Remember, you’re trying to please your particular husband, so find out what he’d like to see you in. Most men would be thrilled with these kinds of questions and feel very loved that you’re trying so hard to take care of them.

These are my thoughts on this, but I’d love to hear from all of you as well. What advice do you have for overcoming those all too common feelings of just not being pretty enough to be that undressed?

Here is my attempt at that post for Cristina. In a lot of ways I am still very much in rehabilitation myself. I still have so much to learn! But over the past several years, my attitudes really have changed. I have gone from feeling utterly worthless, forgotten, and sidelined to feeling excited, hopeful, and privileged.  I came to this new outlook along a very circuitous route, so I’ve tried to organize the steps I’ve taken into a more logical order to present them here. I don’t know if any of the things that have helped me will help others, but perhaps it will at least be encouraging to know that it is possible to change your cultural mindset, your value system, and your worldview.

Step 1: Exonerate Yourself and Your Noble Profession

The world has two lies about being a stay-at-home wife and mother: 1. that it’s easy, and 2. that it’s boring, depressing drudgery. So when we come to the realization that being at home isn’t easy, we are often tempted to blame ourselves and think that we’re somehow deficient in raw mothering material or innate womanly talent. And if our experience is one of boring, depressing drudgery, a lot of us never even think to do anything about it because it doesn’t occur to us that we can (short of returning to our previous employment). So the first step in rehabilitation is just to understand that these are lies, and give yourself permission to live like they are. The truth is that being a stay-at-home wife and mother is challenging and rewarding. Some of it does involve repetitive work, but so does being a lawyer, engineer, or organic farmer, and those professions don’t have anywhere near the bad reputations that mothering does. I don’t know you, but I can pretty much guarantee that the reason you’re struggling is NOT that you are too stupid, or too naturally disorganized, or just not enough of a “kid person” to succeed at this job. I can also tell you that you don’t have to be depressed or bored. Decide right now that you are going to turn your back on the world’s vision and do whatever it takes to get one of your own.

Step 2: Renew your mind

You can’t really get rid of a wrong way of thinking unless you have a better way of thinking to replace it. This is perhaps the strongest force for change in my life. There’s a saying, “You are what you think.” And it has certainly been true for me. Five years ago, while bouncing my first baby in her sling I read a book standing up that turned my whole world upside down. I was elated for weeks. I told my husband that finally I understood what I was supposed to be doing. The cloudy feeling of uselessness lifted. I got it. It was one of the biggest “Aha!” moments of my life. The book was Mary Pride’s The Way Home. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Another wonderful book that might have changed my life if it had been published when I was still feeling lost is Jennie Chancey and Stacy McDonald’s Passionate Housewives Desperate for God. Even though I read it recently, I still found it tremendously encouraging.

Both of these books will help you to glimpse how high your calling is and will shatter the myths of the world about your worth as a woman and your potential in the home. Get yourself some used copies and read them while you nurse the baby after the big kids are asleep.

Step 3: Find Fellowship

Nothing helps so much in any exercise program, whether physical or mental, as having friendly folks to do it with you. Mothers at home can feel isolated, lonely, and downright weird sometimes. It can make all the difference in the world to find other women who are working on the same things you are. If they don’t go to your church or live in your neighborhood, there’s always the community of cyberspace. Finding like-minded women on the Internet has been a tremendous source of strength and grounding for me.

A great place to find friends is through blogs. And for that Ladies Against Feminism is a great resource. Not only will you find lots of helpful articles on all aspects of being a wife, mother, and homemaker, but a great many of their articles are in the form of links to various blogs. Find some blogs that are encouraging to you, and become a regular commenter. Before you know it, you’ll be getting to know other commenters as well as the gal who writes the blog.

You can also visit other blogs and start reading the comments to look for other women you might have things in common with or want to learn from and start reading their blogs. Two great blogs with lots of encouraging content and a high volume of readers are Generation Cedar and Domestic Felicity. And it goes without saying that I’d love to get to know you here on my blog as well!

Step 4: Tackle your personal problem areas

OK, so you get to the point where you no longer feel like a stupid, deficient, worthless freak, but you still feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. Now’s the time to get specific about you. Make a list of the things that feel out of control in your life. Realize that they probably bother you because you lack the necessary skill set to deal with them, and then, like any good student, work on your three R’s: research, research, and research. Start with the area that gives you the most trouble, and work until you find some solutions. Talk to people. Search the Internet. Read books. And then, try it! Implement what you’ve learned. But this is the most important part, pay close attention: Give yourself permission to fail. You might have to try something several times before you get it. It is only in failing that you will be able to find the gaps in your knowledge and ability so that you can then go out and find the missing pieces. Don’t give up in despair. Few things ever go right the first time.

Nowhere was this more true in my life than in the area of cooking. When I got married, I did NOT know how to cook. Meal plans from my first year included things like spaghetti from a jar and pot pies. That gets old pretty fast, so bit by bit I learned to make the things I wanted to be able to eat. Making my own whole wheat bread was something that was always a dream of mine, so once a week, I baked a loaf. It never rose. We ate it hot with lots of butter to accompany our canned soup every Thursday evening. The next week, I would try a different recipe, which would likewise flop. For weeks I did this. For weeks we ate dense, flat bread. I kept trying to find out why my bread wouldn’t rise. I learned all about proper kneading technique, homemade dough enhancer, and vital wheat gluten. And you know what? Today I can make fabulous bread (if I do say so myself)…as long as I use packaged yeast. Sourdough is my next project, and I’ve already had one glorious failure, so I’m well on my way to mastery.

Here are some things that I’ve struggled with over the years along with some resources that helped me grow in each area. You may have already found things that work for you (and if so, I’d love for you to share them in the comments section!), but if you’re looking for ideas, you may find a gem or two here:

Confronting my own sinfulness (anger, feelings of entitlement, etc.): The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. This is a great book on marriage, but it also has a special emphasis on personal holiness that has been a huge eye-opener for me. If you feel like you’re chafing under some of what the Bible commands (like forgiveness, dying to self, or submitting to your husband), this book will be a treasure! And Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit by Teri Maxwell. This wonderful book isn’t just for moms whose children are old enough to be officially homeschooling! It could just as easily be called, Mothering with a Meek and Quiet Spirit, and it is GREAT if you’re like me, and you struggle with anger and irritation towards your family.

Feeling lonely and frustrated by the long hours my husband’s job demands: Creative Counterpart by Linda Dillow. This is a wonderful resource on marriage, mothering, and homemaking in general, but it has a lot to say to us wives of today who are suffering the effects of modern society on our beloved breadwinners’ career options. It won’t tell you how to fix your husband’s job, but it will help you with your own attitude.

Knowing what to do with a newborn: Breastfeeding Made Simple by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. (Warning: this book has a not so discreet picture of a baby nursing on the cover. I just taped some paper over it and read it anyway. I was SO glad I did!) Not only is this the best researched book on breastfeeding I have ever seen, with the most up to date information on technicalities like latch positioning, but it also explains newborn behavior more clearly than anything I have ever read. I WISH it had been available before I had my first baby. It would have saved me so much consternation and bewilderment. Even reading it after my second baby was born, I was saying, “Oh! That explains it!” on nearly every page.

Child Training : Raising Godly Tomatoes. This is down to earth, common sense from a mother of ten on how to have the family you want. You can read it for free online or you can buy your own copy to cozy up with in your favorite chair. It’s a great sanity saver and slices cleanly through all the modern psychobabble about parenting so prevalent today. Also Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp, an inspiring blueprint on how to nurture our children’s relationship with God. And Parenting from the Heart by Marilyn Boyer, mother of fourteen. This is a delightful book that covers all stages of childhood from birth to marriage, and is great for those times when you just don’t know what to do with a house full of kids.

Time management: Managers of Their Homes by Teri Maxwell. This is the classic for homeschool moms, but the principles can be a great help for women in general, even if your children are still young, or even if you don’t have any. I do need to offer one caveat, though. While this book is truly wonderful for the most part, it does have a chapter on scheduling babies that is not medically sound. If you are considering it, and you have a baby, please read Breastmilk, Ice Cream, and Infant Feeding Schedules: How Much Space is on YOUR Counter Top? for an explanation of breastfeeding physiology and why scheduling feedings can be dangerous for some babies.

Cooking: The Internet! It is great to be able to just type “recipe for______ (fill in the blank with anything from whole wheat bread to Hungarian goulash)” and instantly find several recipes to choose from, many with reviews, advice, even step by step pictures sometimes. Plus, the Internet will help you decipher cooking terms you may not know, and it’s a great place to be able to actually talk to people who know how to cook via their blogs. (My online friend, Kathy, at Bona Vita has been a delight for me in this way. Just a few weeks ago, I asked her how she cooks her Thanksgiving turkeys, and she wrote a post for me about it!) And of course, we can’t forget all the “real” (offline) people in your life, too. Whenever someone serves you something you like, ask for the recipe and go over it asking questions if you need to. Most people feel very complimented and are glad to share.

Organizing: This is still a big learning area for me, but I have been helped by another online friend’s blog, Organized Everyday, in particular the post, Organizing for the High-Brow Types, and the before and after pictures from various organizing projects around her house. I have also enjoyed the book Clutter Control by Jeff Campbell.

Housekeeping: The absolute must have here is Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson, the definitive encyclopedia for everything from how to properly set the table for every kind of meal to how to get baby spit up off your favorite dress. It is daunting if you try to read it cover to cover, but it’s invaluable when you have a specific question. Put it on your Christmas list. You’ll be delighted. Just remember not to hold yourself to Ms. Mendelson’s standards on frequency of household chores. She only has one child, and he’s not a baby anymore! This book is a fabulous guide for the how of housekeeping, not always the how often. For a more realistic picture of a weekly cleaning routine, check out Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell.

Recently, Joanna, of Jo-with-it’s Portfolio left me the following comment.

Do you wear skirts all the time? I think I would like to try it for a week or something, but I don’t know if there are any verses that say you should, and I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to do it for the wrong reason.

Yup, I pretty much do wear skirts all the time, but not exactly because I think the Bible says I should. Rather, I think the Bible has certain principles that should affect our clothing choices, and wearing skirts is the easiest way for me to keep them all in balance. I do not think mine is the only way to do this. It’s just the one that makes the most sense to me. The personal outworking of Biblical principle, is exactly that, personal. And above all, we need to follow the leadership of our husbands and fathers in that outworking.

Uncle Freddie will be our constant companion through this discussion because, just as he has an unhealthy relationship with food, there are an awful lot of men out there who have unhealthy relationships with women’s bodies through lust. And the way we prepare food for dinner for an unhealthy loved one has a lot of correspondences to the way we prepare our bodies for a day out in an unhealthy world.

The first Biblical principle that should affect clothing choice is modesty. Modesty is like keeping your cooking low in calories. It’s a slippery issue, hard to make universal rules about, but vitally important, especially when Uncle Freddie is coming to dinner, AND in the case of modesty (not low cal cooking), it’s actually commanded in Scripture.

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 1Timothy 2:9-10

The closest I can come to a good working definition of modesty is, “not drawing attention to yourself,” not putting up the big, sizzling, neon sign that screams, “Look at me!” “Look at me, I’m so rich!” or “Look at me, I just walked off the cover of InStyle,” or perhaps most crucially, “Look at me, I’m hotter than hellfire, I got more curves than the Pacific Coast Highway, and you’re gonna be dreaming about me all night, baby!” Maybe the simplest way of saying it is that modesty means not showing off.

And we really need not to show off because our brothers in Christ are living in a sex-saturated world, just like Uncle Freddie is surrounded by fast food restaurants and cheap candy bars. Sexual images are everywhere, easily available, addicting, and anonymous. A 1996 Promise Keepers Survey at one of their rallies found that over 50% of the men admitted being involved with pornography within one week of attendance. And according to a 2001 Christianity Today Leadership Survey 37% of pastors say that porn is a current struggle. It’s been a few years, and I’d be really surprised if the situation hasn’t gotten worse.

Men who are struggling with porn are guaranteed also to be struggling with objectifying the women around them, with viewing women as nothing but bodies, with living each day in a state of unbridled lust. And that lust is killing them spiritually just as surely as being morbidly obese is killing Uncle Freddie physically. Some of these men are completely given over, but others are fighting, struggling to keep their heads above water. And while we may sometimes be able to tell who these hurting men are, the numbers are so high that the majority of them are going unnoticed. You see them at church, at the store; they’re watching you from their cars as they pass you on the street. Do you love these men? Do you want to help them? Do you care if they lust after you? Or are you just annoyed with them? Are you angry at Uncle Freddie for eating way too many Twinkies and then overeating at your table?

The second principle is being feminine, the desire to look like a woman. This is akin to having what you cook taste good. The main verse people usually quote on dressing in a distinctly feminine way is:

The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. Deuteronomy 22:5

The important thing to keep in mind here is that this is part of the Law, and Christians have argued for centuries about what that means for us. Many people would be quick to point out that this same chapter forbids plowing with an ox and an ass together (v. 10) and wearing fabric made from combined fibers, such as wool and linen (v. 11). Most Christians, even the ones who say that verse 5 means that it’s an abomination for women to ever wear pants, would not rise up in righteous indignation at a poly-cotton blend, so a lot of people would like to throw out the idea that a women wearing masculine clothes is wrong, too. But there is a difference in verse 5. It’s unique in that a reason for the command is given. And that reason is that “all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.” “Abomination” means God hates it. When God says He hates something we’d better take note, no matter which part of the Bible we find His declaration in. Indeed, we take very seriously other “abominations to the LORD” mentioned in the Law (idolatry: Deuteronomy 7:25, human sacrifice: Deuteronomy 12:31, involvement in the occult: Deuteronomy 18:10-12, deceitfulness in business: Deuteronomy 25:13-16, and many, many more). God, who does not change, has declared that He hates it when men look like women and women look like men. Now exactly what that means in terms of the actual clothes is going to be cultural, but I think we can at least take away from this the principle that God does want us to look like what He made us to be.

OK, now comes the hard part, a balancing act tougher than menu planning for a 600 pound uncle, because the easiest way to look feminine is to wear clothes that are small and tight, that show lots of your delicate skin, gracefully follow every curve, and leave no doubts about how small and soft you are compared to the average man. But, oops! That is not terribly modest. Now what? More fabric? Baggier? More androgynous?

It’s really easy to be modest without being feminine, and it’s really easy to be feminine without being modest, just like it’s really easy to cook low calorie chicken that tastes like rubber, and it’s really easy to cook succulent chicken that’s fatty enough to clog seven more of Uncle Freddie’s hardened arteries.

Take jeans for example. Jeans can be kind of modest if they’re really loose and straight cut. Some men, to be perfectly blunt, are going to have trouble with having their eye follow the line of your legs up to where they meet (a place it would be better if the men around you weren’t thinking about), but you could always mitigate that with a really big shirt that hangs half-way to your knees. And if you’re super careful about not letting your hips sway too much, depending on your hair, you might even pass for a wimpy little man, and then for sure, you’d be modest. But, ew, not to mention “abomination.” So maybe we don’t want to go there, but the minute your jeans are tight enough to show the world that you’re actually female, you’re cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a convertible. And, um, we all know how men are about…cars.

So, what do we do? I tend to think that modesty has to come first, but not to the absolute exclusion of femininity (because God does want us to look feminine). We constantly have to strike a balance, and that is governed by the most important principle yet, the Principle of Love.

To illustrate what I mean, let’s return to Uncle Freddie for a moment. How are you going to cook that chicken? Look at these menu options and the thoughts behind them, and try to think which one is the most loving.

Well, option one is, you could say to yourself, “It’s Uncle Freddie’s fault he’s so fat. If he overeats at my house and gains six more pounds, he’ll have no one to blame but himself and his own out of control lust for food. I’m getting out the Crisco and frying that chicken because that’s the way my husband likes it. Anyway, if Uncle Freddie doesn’t eat fried chicken at my house, he could always stop at KFC on the way home, so it doesn’t really matter how I cook.”

Or, you could say to yourself, “Poor Uncle Freddie, food is just too hard to resist! Maybe if I boil the chicken in several changes of water, I can remove all the fat. My family’s not going to like it, but I don’t want to feel like I killed Uncle Freddie!”

Then there’s option three: “I love Uncle Freddie, and I know he really struggles with food. I want to make a nice dinner for my family, but I don’t want to sabotage Uncle Freddie’s efforts, either. Maybe I could fire up the grill to give that chicken a nice mesquite flavor without adding extra fat and calories.”

In my mind, option three is the most loving. You’re balancing your love for your family with your love for Uncle Freddie and sensitivity to his struggles. You’re trying to make food that will be yummy for your husband and children, but that won’t contribute to Uncle Freddie’s problems. Of course, he could still overeat, but you’re giving him a fighting chance at staying on his diet.

It is this balance that I’m striving to achieve in my clothes. I want to be feminine and pretty, to look like a woman, but I don’t want to show so many curves that the men around me start hearing engines revving and feel the salt air on their cheeks. And for me, that means wearing skirts. Skirts are obviously feminine (just think of the little outlines of the people on the doors of public bathrooms–the canonical woman is wearing a dress). You can tell at a glance that I’m a woman, but (if my skirt is long and full enough), I’m not showing all that many curves, far fewer than in the average pair of pants. It’s great mesquite flavor without too many calories. My family has a nice dinner. Uncle Freddie lives through the night.

***

Note: There are some women who have been sexually abused who cannot handle wearing skirts. My mom had a dear friend who was in this situation. I asked her to be in charge of the gift table at my wedding, and after much anguish, she finally told my mom she didn’t know if she could do it. She figured if she had an official wedding “job,” she’d have to wear a dress, and she just couldn’t bring herself to put one on. I told my mom to tell her that I cared about her, not her clothes. She could wear whatever she wanted to my wedding. I still wanted to honor her with a special role.

I do think that skirts are a great option for most people, but I would never want anything I say here to be used to make someone who’s hurting feel guilty.