Solo Parent Society

Let's Talk About Sex

Talking about sex can be uncomfortable but it's necessary. The world around us, through TV, movies, and social media, inundates us and our kids with images, ideas, and perspectives on sex. We almost can't get away from it. That's why it's so important we talk about sex from a godly perspective so we can examine, filter, and correct the viewpoints we are surrounded by. God created sex as a gift. If we don't talk about His plan and intention for sex, the only voices out there will be worldly ones that do not reflect God's plan or design.

So, how do we navigate dating and sex with a healthy, faith-based approach especially in a world that has changed so much?

This can be especially challenging as we go from having active sex lives, while married or in relationship, to being single and finding our way through what seem to be changing values and expectations. Robert, Kimberley, Marissa, and Elizabeth gathered to discuss this, sometimes awkward topic, candidly and authentically about the following perspectives.

How has the dating world changed since you first started dating?

Sexual desire is natural and God-given

Dating and intimacy are about more than just sex

God created us for connection and intimacy, His way

What are some practical things we can do to prepare for dating?

So, if we can reframe our mindset around dating, what are some ways we can look at sex differently?

For the complete show notes go to https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/02/17/let-s-talk-about-sex 

What is love and how do we teach it to our kids?

We don't all start with a healthy concept of love. We often enter relationships with strong feelings and confidence, but we may not truly understand what love looks like and requires. Even when we have excellent examples of love from our parents, from God, and our childhood experiences, we still may not transfer that awareness into marriage or significant relationships.

Robert and Kimberley both share that despite opportunities to know what love looked like growing up, they still entered marriage with few actual skills to develop, maintain, and grow in healthy love with their spouses. Robert said he only started to understand what genuine love was about when the "bottom dropped out" for him and his marriage fell apart. Kimberley questions if she had a genuine grasp on God's deep love for her or how that could translate to loving anyone else. Sometimes it takes a crossroads or significant event to wake us up and help us realize that we really don't know how to love well – whether ourselves or another person. Becoming parents and adding kids to the mix makes it even more complex and more important.

How do we teach our kids what love really is, and how to love themselves and others well, when we may be wrestling with that as parents?
Paul Colman, single dad, former teacher, and Grammy-nominated artist joins Robert and Kimberley to talk about this further. We can't teach what we don't know. We may have head knowledge about love but until we have an experiential understanding of love, it will be very difficult to pass that lesson on to our kids. To really experience love, we must get to the end of ourselves and admit our needs. This requires us to pause, to make time to connect with that place inside of us that desperately needs the light to be switched on.

How do we pass along this experience to our kids?

We can only give from our own experience. Paul shares that as he began to accept God's love for him, bit by bit, he began to be a better conduit of that with his kids. When God reached out to him and showed him how much He loved him, Paul had nowhere else to go. Robert shared that this moment for him came when he became exhausted and when he had exhausted his pretense. He had run out of any ability to prop himself up or figure things out and this led him to surrender. Paul faced a similar moment and ever since he's been "trending in the right direction".

Transparency and humility makes the difference

For the complete show notes click - https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/02/15/what-is-love-teaching-our-kids

Many of us were raised to serve and give to others, and this is biblical, but this can become unhealthy when we give so much to others, we lose ourselves in the process. This tendency to give too much, to take on too much responsibility, to own more than we should in relationships, often comes from insecurities rooted in our upbringing and hurts we've suffered in the past. Perhaps our experiences taught us that others would reject us or get angry if we said no so we learned to pacify or overcompensate by being too accommodating. After doing this for long enough, we can fail to recognize we are caught in a destructive cycle. Unless we put up guardrails or boundaries, we are sure to implode emotionally, bringing our well-being and our relationships down with us.

Robert and Kimberley talked with single mom, Elizabeth, about how loving well includes boundaries. Sometimes we spend too much time worrying about other people's feelings and saying yes to too many things because we're afraid to disappoint them or have them get angry with us if we say no. While this may appear to be very giving and even seem like love, it really reflects a problem with not loving ourselves or respecting our own needs. 

Saying no and having good boundaries can be challenging for those who are Christians because we are taught to put others before ourselves. When we love ourselves well, first and foremost, we are able then to give our best yes to the right things. If we say yes to everything, our yes comes to mean almost nothing. Instead of coming from a place of genuine care and love, saying yes can become a subtle form of control. Too often our yes, our overcompensation, and our over accommodation, becomes a way to please people and seek man's approval and not God's, and often at our own expense. We are not called to please everyone around us. We are called to please God.

On today podcast we discuss 7 facets of love as a boundary.

*Boundaries help us give our best yes

*Boundaries require new ways of interacting

*Boundaries are God's idea

*Boundaries with our kids

*Boundaries with others

*Boundaries help us guard our hearts

*Boundaries are a form of love

For the complete show notes go to - https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/02/08/love-as-a-boundary

When we look at the world around us so much has changed in the last year. With the pandemic and politics, there has been so much anger, grief, and fear. People are hurting and that hurt stirs up discord and division. It's amplified when so much is out of our control.

We all face the temptation to react to the hate around us in ugly ways, but our mandate and calling is to love people like God loves us. On this week's podcast, former single parents, Robert Beeson, and Kimberley Mitchell, talk together with single mom, Marissa, about how we can maintain love and teach it to our kids in a culture of hate.

When one person introduces hate to a conversation or situation, it's contagious. But love is contagious too. The difference is that hate seems to affect us in the amygdala - where our fight or flight response lives. It catches us off guard and can grab hold of us if we're not careful.

Hate is often a reaction. Quick, thoughtless, visceral. Love on the other hand is an intentional response, a choice, a conscious decision of the will. Love is more powerful than hate but it can be harder to access and display. It takes deliberate effort to love and to avoid the culture of hate. We must choose to love in measured ways that go beyond what might be a knee jerk reaction. We must choose our response carefully.


How do we love in a culture of hate?
*Pray for people.
*Remember that hate is more costly than love because it destroys relationships.
*Choose your battles. Some things aren't worth fighting about.
*Listen more than you speak.
*Show kindness.

For the complete show notes with links go to - https://soloparentsociety.com/blog/2021/02/01/love-in-a-culture-of-hate