Sometimes there is a theme. Sometimes I’m a little slow to pick up on it, but this time I noticed right away.

We have an almost-sacred date night at our house. Once a week, after the kids are in bed, we will make a fun dinner – sometimes sushi, sometimes a new find on the internet, sometimes Chinese. Occasionally we’ll get take-out from our favorite Chinese food restaurant and justify it as the control group in our attempts to learn to make the perfect homemade honey sesame chicken (we must do more research on this). And we’ll settle onto the couch with our plates of yumminess to a fun movie that we’ve been looking forward to, usually interrupted only, oh, three or four times by children coming out of their rooms. Bliss.

But not lately.

The food has been good (wow). The movies have been…different. Still good, but not “fun”…not date-night material. Movies that are important, not entertainment. It feels like we’ve enrolled ourselves in some unintentional curriculum on opening our eyes to more of what needs our attention. Each time, I’ve both dreaded and looked forward to the growth.

We were both justice students in college, and in our less discerning days we read and watched and studied unspeakable criminal history. Vin came to know Jesus as a result of seeing the depravity of man and lack of answers in secular humanism, but as we’ve gotten older and wiser, we’ve also gotten more critical about what comes into our home and into our minds now.

A couple of years ago we saw The Stoning of Soraya M. I’ll be honest and tell you that we fast-forwarded a little, and still saw enough truth to haunt me. That said, it is still one of the most important movies I’ve ever seen, and I recommend it to every adult.

A few weeks ago is when the theme really started, though. Please note that I am not necessarily recommending these other movies, nor do I agree with everything in them; I’m saying that they’ve been broadening to me and God has been using them to move me further. Maybe this kind of education is not what some of you need, that’s okay. I also love a good Jane Austen flick, so you’re safe with me.

We saw this movie, and then this movie. History-geek husband warned me about the setting of the first, and I knew about the issues of the other, and I struggled through them both, changed. Angry, but prayerful. More educated. And then we saw this movie last weekend, and our eyes were vividly opened to what we had already been learning about and what we knew at least one, maybe both, of our adopted children were likely headed for.

My God…my God.

The theme is this – why is the culture of men taught that women and children are merely commodities to profit from, to exploit, and to dispose of when inconvenient? And why do we have a culture that puts up with this cheapening of us?

No, no, wait, this is America. We don’t stone and otherwise brutally victimize women here, we don’t recruit child soldiers here, and slavery was outlawed a century and a half ago.

Except…it is here. In America.

How bad will it have to get before we have enough of this and decide to raise a generation of sons to be real men, and daughters who will accept nothing less?

Our women are convinced that they are too weak and helpless to deal with pregnancy or childbirth, so their unborn children are slaughtered by doctors for profit. Our politicians give it a thumbs-up in exchange for votes, hailing themselves as champions of human rights and women’s issues while passing laws that protect predators and pedophiles…while the women they’ve victimized wonder when their child’s birthday would have been, and bleed from their vitals.

But it’s not called that. It’s called “choice.”

Slavery was called “choice,” though, too.

Real men…they’re the ones that aren’t addicted to exploitation. They’re the men that are not so insecure that they cover their own weakness by destroying someone else’s dignity and safety, manipulating the women or children around them when they feel threatened.

Will we decide to raise a generation of daughters to know their worth, who are not intimidated by creeps who are only interested in consumption and disposal? Our girls need to know that they are not take-and-trash.

Our boys need to know that the safety of women and children is worth battling for. Heroes will fight for their protection, so cowards can’t prey on their exposure.

Our girls need not sit in the middle of the crossfire and just wait to be rescued, though. Our girls need to know that their femininity is not something to apologize or atone for, that pregnancy is not a disease, that motherhood is a role of honor, victory, and battle. Our girls need to know that they are not a program to be bought or sold…because they are priceless.

If you haven’t already, please read this. And this, too.

And then take a load off. Breathe, hug your kids, and pray. Love them fiercely, so they will love others fiercely. Teach them well, so they will recognize the frauds instead of falling for them. They are meant to transform the world…just like their parents.

We’re looking forward, finally, to a fun movie date this weekend. The Hobbit and some bacon-wrapped-cream-cheese-stuffed-jalapenos are on the menu. All in the name of research, of course.