The things you read....

The Purity Ball is a nine-year old invention created by the Wilson family, a family with a ton of children some of whom have names like Khrystian. That's Christian, in case their prediliction escapes you.

This is ostensibly a really nice thing, sort of like its sister the Debutante Ball, wherein girls are presented to the world and each other by their fathers.

Both the Deb Ball and the Purity Ball, to my way of thinking, and you can call me cynical, put the ick in sick.

Let's return for a moment to the Purity Ball. Here girls get dressed up in ballgowns to go on a date with Dad. Their dads stand up and swear that the girls will remain virgins until their wedding nights. Or until death if no one takes them off the market. The dads swear they will be good examples, keep it in their pants, and won't run off with the secretary leaving the moms behind. The language is probably crafted more nicely, but that's the gist.

See for yourself:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/us/19purity.html?scp=1&sq=purity+ball&st=nyt

I have one of those non-modern dads who brought home the bacon and cooked it on Sunday mornings, who fixed things, who was the go-to for discipline when my brothers and I were particularly badly behaved, and who remained largely silent in my life. He was always very gentle and nice to our kittens, and adores my tiny dog. It's quite amusing to see this huge 6-ft 2-in man playing with a 3-lb scruffy mutt. We lived with a nice sort of benign indifference -- I knew he was always there should I need him, and I never did mostly because I knew he was always there. If you see what I mean.

Growing up is never easy, but it is especially not easy when you are closely scrutinized. How do you become yourSELF when other people are weighing in on what you should think, do, decide? Add to this the perceived humiliations and mortifications of adolescence. To have your dad stand up and talk about your purity, to talk about sex, strikes me as a huge infringement on something deeply personal and quite frankly none of his business. That he should have such an interest strikes me as a bit creepy.

How about this. How about if dad behaved like a good father every day, and how about if mom and dad sort of led by example? You know, skipped the "do as I say not as I do" trip? How about they raise their kids to have self respect and confidence? And then how about they simply step back and watch you flourish?

Rather than take you to a dance and swear to your virginity, which is fundamentally and utterly yours to protect or abandon as you choose. One of the few things you can use as a marker of the transition between childhood and being a grown-up.