Crumpled Notebook

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week (or just simply don’t read entertainment headlines), you’ve no doubt heard about the Chris Brown & Rihanna fiasco. Long story short, they are both singers/R&B stars, dating and he allegedly beat her up the morning before the Grammy Awards. What makes it a little more unique and shocking to most people is that Chris Brown has always had a reputation of being a “nice guy.” People have always talked about his class and how he’s set himself apart from a lot of negativity that goes along with that particular business. I don’t listen to a lot of R&B, but even I had a level of respect for Chris Brown and enjoy his music.

So here is why I’m actually doing a blog post about this. It scares the crap out of me. I sit week after week listening to the teens talks about Chris Brown and how much they (the girls) love him. They look up to him and not just him, but all of those people. And unfortunately, like others, they are having a hard time accepting that this might have went down the way it seems to have. The first thing out of the of the teen girls mouth this week was “She (Rihanna) deserved it.”

I was floored and shocked yet again. So we went on to talk about how it really didn’t matter what she had done, unless perhaps he was acting in self-defense and there seems to be no indication of that. No one, girl or guy, deserves that.

Perhaps the most distrubing part was the fact that it just seemed normal. They weren’t shocked by it. They weren’t outraged. They defended the alleged attacker. Even though everyone of them realize violence is wrong and statistically, some of them have probably witnessed it, they still had this casual attitude about it. It just scared me for both the girls and the guys. The girls that they would actually find that in any way acceptable in a relationship, and the guys that again, they would find that acceptable behavior and not care about respect for their partner.

Now, I’m in no way saying that any of my teens would sit and say that they would ever be okay with it, but when they are just so casual about it, it makes me nervous that they don’t actually put enough thought into what is acceptable and what isn’t in a relationship. Sure they’re teenagers, but Chris Brown and Rihanna are just barely out of their teen years.

Anyway, it just distrurbed me and is yet another example of why I’m constantly worried about the cultrure in which our teens are growing up in today. It also makes me question how well I’m doing in helping them find some sort of focus on the good things and their relationship with Christ to get them through the murk.

I just sometimes feel like I’m playing tug of war with the world and my kids are stuck in the middle.