Applications, Shotguns, and Proverbs 31

“This is priceless!!”

“Awesome!”

“I love it!”

“I’m using that.”

I’ve seen this picture before, but just recently ran across it on Facebook again. With almost 200,000 shares and multiple comments like the ones above, not to mention all the references to actual, literal shotguns being cleaned (I really hope they were joking, but sometimes I wonder), I decided I was ready to put my two cents in.

Before I get started, yes, I know this is a joke. I know most people, especially (I hope), the good Christian parents that I’ve seen post this, don’t take it seriously. But there is always some truth in humor and sarcasm and satire, and while you may not actually believe in actually using something like this, the fact that you find it worthy of sharing means you align yourself with the ideas it represents. (Seriously. Google it and see what you come up with. Doesn't it make you cringe a little?) The thing is, some people actually do take this, and things like it (Rules for Dating my Daughter, for instance) completely and 100% seriously.

So, firstly, I’d like you to take a step back and look at this critically with me. What sort of thing does a person fill out an application for? Jobs, school, apartments, etc. All good things. But there is one key point that makes me a little sick seeing something like this.

Each of those things is dispensable. Each of those things is part of consumer economy. Each of those things is, well, a thing.

You know what is not a thing? Your daughter.

I realize that you want to keep your daughter safe. You want to know that the boy she’s dating is trustworthy and will care for her the way you care for her. Will love her and respect her and treat her the way she deserves to be treated.

But I also know that your daughter is a human being, capable of making her own decisions. She is not an apartment that you are leasing, she is not a job that you are letting someone else take care of for a while. She is her own human. And while you want to protect her, she is not yours, not really. She is God’s. So if anyone should be handing out applications for permission to date her, it should be Him.

Too much in the Christian culture, I see society’s ideas of women as “less” than men seeping in:

“Women are the weaker sex.” “Women must be protected.” “Daughters belong to their fathers until they belong to their husbands.”

“Women are responsible for keeping their brothers in Christ from stumbling into sin.”

I could go on a tangent for that last one, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make here. The point is that I am not a possession.

But more importantly, I am not a prize to be won.

See, with “jokes” like these, you are teaching the boy that his past is more important than how he behave in the future. You are teaching your daughter that the boy’s past is more important than her freedom of choice. Beyond that, you are teaching both of them that if only this boy can “pass an application”, he is “worthy” of your daughter, no matter what her thoughts and opinions are.

All are very dangerous trains of thought, and dare I say, not biblical.

For some reason, I think first of the Capable Wife in Proverbs 31. She is said to be trustworthy, strong, honorable, filled with wisdom and loving instruction. She is not idle. She is called blessed. She is good, and it is clear she is capable and intelligent, as she is able to “evaluate a field and buy it”, and “sees that her profits are good”. She is generous and kind and good and fears the Lord.

What’s more, her husband is “known at the city gates”. He sits among the elders. He praises her, finds value in her. To him, she surpasses all the other capable/skillful/competent women.

I do not think that this woman’s father sat at the door with a shotgun or application for dating while she sat inside, waiting for him to make a decision for her. (Ok, yes, he probably gave his approval for marriage and may have even arranged the marriage because of customs at the time, but he clearly did more than that.) He taught her to go after what was right, to find value God, first and foremost, value in herself next, and then to do what was right in the eyes of God. 

Because of this, her husband is a good man, and clearly worthy of attention too. Not only is he well known among wise leaders of the community, he sees her value for what it is: hers.

Don’t tell me this is “just a joke,” because the mindset behind it is very real. And it is very dangerous.

It is dangerous because teaches daughters that they are not strong or trustworthy or intelligent. They are not worth their own thoughts or feelings or instincts. It teaches them to rebel.

It is dangerous because it excuses fathers from setting a proper example. It takes away the responsibility of teaching their daughters how to make a decision critically and wisely, of teaching them to respect themselves above all else. It teaches them that dad’s opinion on their life is more important than theirs.

It is dangerous because it teaches boys that all they have to do is answer the right questions and to please the father, instead of valuing the daughter for all that she is, all that she is capable of.

And it’s not just the “application” that teaches this. Dad coming to the door with a shotgun, telling young girls “you’re not dating until you’re 30”, lists of rules on rules for dating her, even interrogating the boy before the first date, all of it teaches these girls the wrong message.

I realize that this is done out of a place of love and protectiveness over your daughter, but there are much, much better ways of going about it.

Open conversation is one of them.

I know: I’m not a parent. I don’t have a daughter (though I hope to someday). What could I know about all this? Well, I may not have a daughter, but I am a daughter. I know what I expect from guys that I might want to date, and it certainly isn’t simply the ability to please my father.

Quick sidenote: pleasing the dad isn’t a bad thing. I want to make that clear, that’s not the point. The point is that “pleasing dad” isn’t the most important thing.

If you’ve raised your daughter to follow God, to value herself, and to make good decisions, “dating applications”, “shotguns”, and “no dating until you are 30!” simply aren’t necessary or productive implications to enter into the conversation.

I’m not against having rules in the household, especially for teenagers. Not dating exclusively until, say, 16, or not being alone/excluded with a boy, or parents meeting the boy before the first date. However, with these rules should come that open conversation I was talking about earlier, rather than just threatening an application or shotgun. (Which will only introduce fear and rebellion, two things I hope you’re trying very hard to stay away from.) If you present your reasoning for these rules to your daughter, making it clear that you do trust her opinions and choices, but want to be invested and on the same page, chances are you won’t even need to joke about “dating applications”. Make sure your daughter knows how much you respect her, how much you think she is worth, how skilled and smart and passionate and kind and talented and clever she is. Make sure she recognizes that she doesn’t have to settle.

If you do that, you might turn out with a Proverbs 31 woman, and with or without a husband, that might be more than anyone could ask for.

(Once she does start dating, get to know the guy. Find a way to interject the questions you are most concerned about with him, or even ask your daughter in a non-judgmental way. THEN if there are problems, ask your daughter to consider what you have discovered. CONVERSATION!!!)

So stop joking about things like this. Stop joking about little girls being their father’s property, about boy’s faults and past’s being the most important things about them. Stop devaluing people under a guise of being protective.

We are supposed to be in this world but not of it. Why then do we act so much like it? Value and trust your daughters the same way you would with your sons, and I think we might all be a little better off in the end. 

If you want to talk more about this with me, please, shoot me a message or comment or email. I'm  more than willing to keep this conversation going. As always, thanks for reading!