Let's talk about values

Glennon Doyle (author, activist, founder of the non-profit Together Rising) says that “a boundary is the edge of one of our root beliefs about ourselves in the world.” She says that we are like computers, and our beliefs are the software with which we were programmed. And our beliefs are programmed into us without our knowledge, by our culture, community, religion, and family… and even though we don’t choose those subconscious programs, they run our lives. They control our decisions, perspectives, feelings, and interactions; so they ultimately determine our destiny.

The core of what I do with Beyond Birds and Bees is help parents think about their values, so they can help teach their kids those values, rather than simply focus on behavioral expectations. So I was really struck by what Glennon wrote about boundaries and beliefs. For most of us, values and sex are intertwined, and cannot be separated. The problem is many of us don’t even know what our value about sex is! We have a behavioral expectation that we’ve been told, or that we want to tell our kids, and it’s a rooted in some belief that was programmed into us by our culture, community, religion or family. But what is the value?

Not having sex until you’re married is a behavioral expectation. That is not a value. Not having sex until you’re out of high school is a behavioral expectation, not a value. Limiting the number of sexual partners that you find appropriate is a behavioral expectation, not a value. Do we want to teach our kids behavioral expectations, or values? Maybe both. But the problem is most of us simply tell our kids our behavioral expectations and we don’t make the connection to values, so they don’t see how their own values align with those behavioral expectations.

We tell our kids that we don’t want them to have sex until they’re married, or we don’t think they’re old enough to engage in sexual behaviors, but we rarely tell them a good reason why! And when we do, it’s something about how dangerous sex is. “It’s dangerous because of unplanned pregnancy, it’s dangerous because of sexually transmitted infections, it’s dangerous because your religious belief tells you it’s a sin.” But those reasons are not values. We’re still missing that part. We’re teaching our kids that sex is a behavior, with consequences, and that’s it. That’s ultimately what we’re doing: “Sex is a thing that happens, I don’t want you to do it, because there will be a consequence.”

Oh – except one day, magically, you are allowed to have sex and it’s beautiful and wonderful and there are no more negative consequences! The day before you get married there are a lot of negative consequences, but the next day when you are married, sex will be wonderful. For a lot of us who grew up in that sort of “purity culture,” that was a very strange and confusing message. We grew up thinking sex was ultimately bad! I don’t believe that was the intention… The people who taught us about sex wanted us to know that sex is wonderful, but that it’s only wonderful in a certain context. But what we heard, and what we internalized, is this: “The behavior of sex, could lead to negative consequences, and that would be bad and we would feel bad, and therefore the behavior is bad. But then we will get married and it will feel wonderful, and it will always be wonderful.” Sound familiar?

For many people who have that expectation going into marriage, and then do not find sex to be wonderful, they are wildly confused. They waited to have sex, but now they are in the "right", or “appropriate” context, but it’s not as great as everybody said it would be. It can be complicated, tricky, messy, and we suddenly realize that sex involves our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits. And we realize how very little we ever learned about sex! Or for people who grew up in that culture, and chose to take that risk of having sex outside the context they were told it was appropriate, many of them brought shame and embarrassment and guilt into their future relationships! Because for them, sex always felt wrong. It felt dirty. It was something they should not have done. And those beliefs stick with us. They’re programmed into us and they control our perspectives, feelings, and interactions.


How do we raise a different generation of kids who view sex in a positive way? And how can we still teach them that we might have expectations about when and with whom they have sex? We want them to make their own behavioral boundaries, and we want them to choose that for themselves because they understand their values. It is their values that will drive them to follow sexual boundaries, or behavioral expectations. They need to have their own boundaries and their own behavioral expectations to follow, not yours. They need to understand why they should follow those expectations; and in order to do so, they need to understand their values.

So what are values?
Determining your own values is something you need to do for yourself. But let’s work through some examples. If you are religious, your value about sex might come from your faithfulness to (a) God. If you believe that God designed sex to exist only in the marital relationship, then it is your faithfulness to God’s plan that you are following. And by the way, if you have faithfulness to follow God‘s plan, this also means you’re teaching your children to be faithful about all of God’s other plans. We tend to spend so much time worrying about setting sexual behavioral expectations, that we forget about all of the other behavioral expectations that are related to our values, that are related to our faithfulness to God. This means equally emphasizing things like kindness, helping those less fortunate, taking care of our bodies, taking care of each other…

For others, your value related to sex might be a value of intimacy. If you value intimacy, then you likely have a behavioral expectation that sex should occur between a loving adult relationship. If you’re teaching your kids to wait to have sex until they are in a committed relationship, it’s likely because you value commitment and intimacy. And perhaps your value of intimacy also contributes to your belief that sex should be in a safe and consensual relationship. And so, you spend time talking to your kids about what safe relationships are, what a consensual relationship is, and how to show intimacy in a variety of ways.

And for others still, you might have a value about sex that is linked to protection. You value protection of body, mind, and/or heart. You might be focusing on teaching your kids to abstain from sexual behaviors until they’re mature enough to understand the consequences for their body, the impact it might have on their relationship, or how it might impact their self-concept. Your value might contribute to your desire to help your kids protect themselves from getting hurt, or protect their futures from unintended outcomes. So you might focus on helping your kids understand consent, or health and safety.


Here’s what I want us to think about: Let’s just make sure that we understand why we have the behavioral expectations we do. Do you want your kids to abstain from sex because you are scared of those negative consequences? If yes, that’s okay, but just remember that sex isn’t scary. We are nottrying to raise kids who are scared of sex. We’re trying to raise kids who understand sex, in such an in-depth way, that they can make decisions about safety and intimacy and consent. We want to raise kids who understand their values and can make decisions based on their values, not decisions based on their parents’ expectations. Imagine how much more confident our kids will be in their choices if they feel like it is their choice.

Imagine how happy our kids will be when they follow their own behavioral expectations, because they know that they trusted themselves. They know they made a good decision because it was their decision to make. Imagine how confident they will be in their relationship, when they ultimately choose to engage in sexual behavior, because they understand the role of intimacy and love and pleasure… And they made a conscious decision to engage in the behavior together.

So much of our embarrassment, or fear, of talking about sex actually has nothing to do with talkingabout sex to our kids… It’s about our own feelings and complicated relationship with sex. And thinking about why you have the beliefs and values you have about sex is a great first step in helping raise your own sexually healthy children.


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Final thought

Going back to what Glennon Doyle says, our beliefs are things that we can change, we can continue to accept them, we can return them, or we can exchange them. Especially when we remember that we inherited most of our beliefs, we didn’t create them. It’s okay to outgrow our beliefs if they are not true anymore or if they do not serve us. If we don’t want to pass those beliefs down to our kids, then we need to take the time and do the work to change the beliefs. Maybe your belief was that sex is bad. Or maybe more specifically your belief was that sex outside of marriage was bad. And maybe you still hold on to that belief. But I know from talking with so many parents, that beliefs like that contributed to confusion around sex, or shame about our bodies and choices.

So maybe you want to change that belief. We can exchange it for a truer, more appropriate belief that actually aligns with your values. Maybe it’s that sex is GOOD. Sex is wonderful. And sex in the context of a marriage can be incredible. But that does not mean that sex outside of marriage is bad. It just means that sex inside of a marriage is good. This belief doesn't even need to change your behavioral expectations, it just emphasizes a newer, and truer, belief and value about sex. And then, every time we are nervous about our kids’ sexual behavior (or nervous about talking to them about sexual behavior), we can remember that it’s actually because of this old belief we have about sex being bad or dangerous. Then we can remind ourselves of our new belief – That sex is amazing. And we want it to be an important part of our children’s future relationships. Imagine how this will shape how we talk about sex with our kids!

Dr. Heidi Croatt is a professor and researcher who lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and their two young kids. She regularly speaks to parenting groups with her program, Beyond Birds and Bees: Communicating Your Values to Raise Sexually Healthy Kids.