I must be getting old.
Because more and more our society surprises me. And not in a good way.
The other night one of the anchors at the station that I work at came in with her I-Pod and a wide-eyed expression.
“Have you heard the song ‘Drunk in Love’ from Beyonce yet?” she asked me. No, I hadn’t. In fact, I tend to be horrible with song names, especially when 95 percent of mainstream music all sounds the same anyway.
“Well, don’t!” she warned before I could say anything. “It’s the most explicit song I’ve ever heard. And that’s saying something.”
Well, here’s something to learn about me. If you tell me not to do something, I’m like a toddler with a hot stove. I’ll touch it. And then I’ll regret it within seconds. So, like clockwork, I punched the song title into youtube and could barely get through the entire video–complete with lyrics–before I exited out of the tab and realized my jaw had gone slack. I knew mainstream culture was headed down an ugly path with sexual innuendos and half-naked advertisements and rappers going off about drugs and clubs and trigger-happy gangs. But still, time and again, the media and society prove to me that, oh just you wait–it can and WILL get so much worse.
I decided I’d never listen to that song again. Until I heard it tonight after stepping into a store on my break to look around and I almost got whacked in the face with the glass door. The kid ahead of me, no older than seventeen, let it fall behind him even though I entered right after him and his blond girlfriend. The couple held a phone between the two of them that played that darn song again and as I walked slowly through the racks and aisles I could hear them chattering over the music and making a mess out of the spring dress aisle. They laughed and more than once I overheard him call her a name no woman should ever be called. When they were in view I could tell she was getting annoyed with him and pushed him a couple times when he touched her from behind and told her she was acting dumb. Drunk in love.
The scene played out perfectly to the music I think.
And somewhere, underneath the annoyance that had built up since getting hit by the door he failed to hold open, I felt a hint of sadness that our kids, some as young as five and others as old as me, are being taught what love is by the lyrics of songs like these. They’re being shown what love is in movie theaters and on billboards and reality TV.
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And the music of the world is loud.
Chivalry slowly dies with each generation as ladies forget how to be ladies and as gentleman are no longer instructed to open the door. Girls are being instructed by these lyrics to raise the hemlines of skirts and put up with being used and slobbered over like a steak because THAT is how you get love. Boys are being told to take control, to seek after sex whenever it’s wanted, and to mistreat their mothers, their girlfriends, and their future wives. Girls are subtly told to look up to the women who are photoshopped on magazines and who belt out sassy tunes about “giving it all up” while boys are told girls SHOULD look that way…and should give it up.
Do I sound old-fashioned? If the answer you came up with is yes, than that proves to me how far we’ve fallen. I don’t know why respecting ourselves and striving for love that respects and strengthens and empowers us has become a vintage antique on a dusty shelf.Â
Even Heavenly Father knew this time would come, though. It’s something we all have to prepare for. In Isaiah 5:20 it says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
Bitter, drunk love. I couldn’t help but watch these teenagers chat alongside those lyrics as I browsed the store, wondering about the voice of his mother or the advice of her father. Perhaps they were taught everything right and the world just became too loud. Perhaps they were taught only by the world and no one else. Or maybe things have become so perverted, so mangled and distorted–that there’s nothing out of the ordinary with singing along to, “Can’t keep your eyes off my *****, daddy. Drunk in love, I want you.”
I’m not a mother yet and I can’t imagine the difficulties of raising a child in a world that no longer whispers, but screams. I don’t know everything there is to know about child rearing or advising or guiding and I’m not here to say that I do. But I do know that Satan is attacking everything that Heavenly Father put into place. Family. Marriage. Love. Kindness.
And I know that the only way to not be for it is to be against it. Dress against it. Listen against it. Speak against it. Teach your kids against it. Walk against it.
Because we’re falling, and fast. Yes, there’s good in the world. Of course there is. But we still have far to go as society is in rapid decline within the media and within our culture.
There should be more boys opening doors. There should be more girls demanding respect by what they say and wear and do. There should be more role models to look towards other than pop stars in bikinis and actors with three women on their arms. There should be more love–the real kind of love that is slowly becoming old-fashioned and out-of-date.Â
There’s no such thing as being “drunk in love” like the song states. There’s no such thing as love that comes from one-night stands or “smoking all night” or giving in to something that’s so plainly wrong. There’s no such thing as happiness through defilement.Â
The scary thing is– the world and all things that tear holes in the fabric of truth know that those messages aren’t real. But it wants you to be so “drunk” that you forget it..
And it wants our kids to never learn it.
all our lemmony things 
Thank you for your comments. How true they are!
I think the greatest confusion today is understanding the difference between “LOVE” AND “LUST”. Love is selfless, pure, gentle, patient, forgiving, repenting, compassionate, enduring…Lust is in the heat of the moment, arousal, temptation, selfish fulfillment (hope it was good for you, oh well), don’t bore me or expect commitment, give me what I want or eat my dust! One generation sees flaws in their parent’s monogamous, heterosexual relationship that never learned how to love and ends in flames of divorce then decides that kind of family doesn’t work. They abandon any trace of traditional family and values. The incorrect traditions pass and worsen from generation to generation. The only way to break the cycle is to truly try to follow in the Savior’s footsteps…a life of selflessness:)
Their are way too many songs that kids these days THINK, define relationships or how relationships should be! I agree that parents are not teaching their children the right way to be treated or how to treat people. Boys/men should open doors for girls/women, boys/men should talk in a ‘tasteful’ manner, girls/women should dress appropriately. Parents need to put their foot down & stop letting their girls go out looking like ‘street walkers’! I mean half their rear-ends hanging out of their shorts is appropriate? Not in my day & definitely not suitable for my daughter!! Life is so different than it was even 20 years ago, thank GOD!!! And yes, from the way our children act, their manners, the way they dress, the way they treat each other, their own families & their elders is disgusting!!!! The movies they think are suitable as well as music they think is suitable would make ‘our’ grandparents turn over in their graves!!! RESPECT is what it is all about & most, NOT ALL, have no idea what RESPECT even is!!! If they learned about Jesus Christ, they could learn about respect, then hopefully the rest would follow…..God Bless our young people……
Once again, you are a voice crying in the wilderness. I join mine with yours, Thank you for speaking out.
Gail at Making Life An Art
Hear, hear! Thank you!
Great insight and thoughts today Kayla. I don¹t listen to most secular music, and never heard of this song. Yet, I understand what you¹re saying with other songs we have heard, even lyrics of older songs we used to listen to. Thought they had great beat, good sound, but never focused consciously on the lyrics‹which thinking back is scary. Anyway, great share today. Thank yoU!
Paul
Paul and Susan Olmstead Missionary Training Center Partnership Development New Tribes Mission – USA http://www.psaaz.com
From: All our Lemmony Things Reply-To: All our Lemmony Things Date: Monday, March 10, 2014 at 11:36 PM To: Paul Olmstead Subject: [New post] There¹s no such thing as being Œdrunk in love¹, Beyonce: And our kids need to learn that.
WordPress.com Kayla Lemmon posted: “I must be getting old.Because more and more our society surprises me. And not in a good way.The other night one of the anchors at the station that I work at came in with her I-Pod and a wide-eyed expression.”Have you heard the song ‘Drunk in Love’ from Be”
Kayla,
I just posted your blog article to my Facebook page including in it as well comments from an article that I recently used in a research paper about Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault in the work environment about the fundamental need for change in the way we educate our youth about romantic love and sex. A paragraph from the article stated:
” Many Americans argue, of course, that this preparation is not school’s responsibility. But then whose responsibility is it? The vast majority of American families simply can’t–or won’t–take on the task alone. Parents struggle with how to pass on wisdom about sexual and romantic relationships to their kids or don’t see this guidance as their role. Many teens, of course, resist talking to their parents about love –let alone sex–in a way that begins to do justice to the nuanced layers of these topics or provides any kind of map for the vexing, subtle work of developing mature romantic or sexual relationships.
The lack of modeling and conversation creates a perilous void. Young people often wind up learning about sex and love from their peers, the Internet, or the media. The harm is not simply daily exposure to misogynistic songs, pornography, and other debased images of sex–serious as that harm is. The media also spawns all kinds of misconceptions and reinforces deeply ingrained cultural myths about romantic love–for example, that love is an intoxication, an obsessive attraction, and that “real love” is clear and unmistakable and happens suddenly. For adults to hand over responsibility for educating young people about love and sex to popular culture is a dumbfounding, epic abdication of responsibility.”
(Title: Preparing students for romantic relationships: schools could and should do much more to prepare students for romantic love and sex
Author(s): Richard Weissbourd , Amelia Peterson and Emily Weinstein
Source: Phi Delta Kappan. 95.4 (Dec. 2013): p54.
Document Type: Article
Copyright : COPYRIGHT 2013 Phi Delta Kappa, Inc.)
This post is right on the mark and I thank you for sharing!
I agree completely. I strive to teach my daughters to be modest, to night put up with a boy that doesn’t treat them with respect and to value themselves. They are a prize to be won, not someone to be knocked around or knocked up. I’ve told them over and over to seek the Lord and the Lord will provide a mate for them. He did for me. It does get harder and harder to make them hear me when the world screams and goes to hell in front of us.
Agree with you totally!
“Dress against it. Listen against it. Speak against it. Teach your kids against it. Walk against it.”
Amen. Thank You!! xo
Couldn’t agree more. You will be a fantastic mom one day! Loved this!!
Kayla, I started following your blog in January, when we lost our 43 year old son to pneumonia and swine flu, and I thank you for all the comfort you provide. Now I thank you for speaking out in such a beautiful way about such an ugly aspect of today’s society. May our Heavenly Father bless you abundantly in all that you do. You are a wonderful role model.
Amen! I am fine with my sober love. Completely fine!
You have a beautiful mind that you weave into words that inspires the soul.Love is sacred and is a feeling from God. But the world today has a cruel and mistaken vision of marriage and love. I want to live long enough for me to teach the true nature of love in God’s way. It is an immense joy and happiness if we are love and cherish in God’s way.
I just started following your blog today, after reading your comments in the Daily Herald & I just have to say thank you! for sharing the words that my heart is crying out. I somehow saw a portion of this Beyonce song performance during a recent award show & was shocked at the lack of respect they showed as a couple.
I couldn’t agree more! My son (he’s only five) has already learned to open door for the girls in his life (Me, Nanna and the Sister Missionaries lol) and he opens the car doors for them allows them to sit and then shuts the door once they are in safely. My only hope/worry is that when he gets older there will be girls that will let him do that for them, without calling him a sexist pig 😦