Protect Your Kids mom talking to high school son
Protect Your Kids 4 minute read

My Worst Mommy Moment and How It Totally Changed My Parenting

Last Updated: February 6, 2023

When I became a mother, I was excited to teach my babies about life! They were like sponges. They just soaked up whatever I taught them. Talk about gorgeous.

I am an extroverted Catholic mom of eight. I had a lot to say to a lot of little people. Here’s the fantastic part: my kids totally embraced all that I taught them about God.

When my oldest child, Eric, was about seven, he was taking swimming lessons and the instructor said something like, Now, don’t do this particular thing, because then you’d die and that’s bad.”

I watched as my son’s hand rose into the air. The instructor called on him and he said, “Well, actually, if you die, then you go meet Jesus and that’s good. So dying is good.”

I stood up. I dropped the mic. My job was done here. That is how I felt. All was right in my world.

Now, as Eric started hitting his prepubescent years, I knew I would have to start teaching him about his sexuality. But I also figured that talking too much about things like pornography would ruin his innocence. So I gave him the basic sex talk. Period. End of story. Another check off the list.

As Eric matured, I tried not to think too much about his emerging sexuality. This is painful to admit, but I handled it by avoiding it. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want to know the answers.

Well, I was confronted with the truth of it all when I walked in on my beloved son, at the age of 16, looking at porn. I’ll save you the details. It was not pretty.

I was confronted with a massive challenge.

  • Was viewing porn a “rite of passage,” something that every kid had to figure out?
  • What was my role as mother? What was my husband’s role as father?
  • How could we parent more effectively?
  • This was not the most comfortable of topics. How could we bridge the gap?

As I grappled with all of these new questions, I realized that I longed for a world of peace and harmony; I wanted to wave a magic wand and live in a world without the Internet. Surely our family of ten could sell our house, pack our bags, and be dropped off on some deserted tropical island. We could live Blue Lagoon style. I could homeschool. My husband could teach the kids how to live off of the land. We would be protected from all evil.

Another part of me, the logical part, knew that there was a problem to be solved. I could pretend it didn’t exist or I could be part of the solution.

After running from the better version for a little while, I made my decision. I became part of the solution.

Related: 5 Tips to Help Kids Be Honest About Porn

Understanding What’s Really Going On

I knew I had to learn more about this underground world, at least from a parental point of view. Why was my moral kid so attracted to it? If I was going to help my kid fight this, then I had to do some research. I went to the library and checked out piles of books. I asked good questions to people way smarter than me. I read blogs. I went to presentations.

I realized, perhaps for the first time, just how devastatingly wrong pornography is. My eyes were opened to how porn objectified and humiliated God’s sons and daughters on both sides of the screen.

  • I could easily see the attractiveness of pornography. It hit the core of something deep within.
  • I could easily see that pornography was the devil’s masterpiece. In our culture, sex is seen as sacred. So good people protect it. They don’t talk about it. This allows the porn industry all sorts of leverage.

Those points became themes as I engaged with my child. Eric listened. He did not instantly change his behaviors, but he was open to the conversation.

We learned about and then installed Covenant Eyes on all of our devices. We kept talking. He kept struggling.

One day Eric was home from college and we were in the kitchen. After we talked for a bit, he looked at me and asked the question, “Am I a good person?”

He knew his intentions to quit porn were good. Yet he kept turning back to it.

His self-doubt fueled me. Porn had stolen much of my son’s childhood. I was not going to stand by and watch it wreck every shred of his self-worth. I became even more intentional in my research. What was the driver to this curse?

When Things Started to Change

Interestingly, I discovered the answers when I truly began to understand the brain and addiction. Porn was highly addictive. My son was addicted to pornography. It was as simple and as complicated as that. As such, it was not something that could be prayed away or willed away. I am a firm believer that once you name a problem, it is half solved.

So the next time Eric came home from college, we had a chat. He took the news well and he could see that, yes, he was addicted. And, here’s the exciting part: the science of addiction made sense to him. He learned that he wasn’t some sex fiend. He was a normal person, attracted to a highly addicting, super-natural stimulus. That knowledge was the beginning of the end for him. He was able to take the steps necessary to get out of his addiction.

See Mama Bear doing cartwheels.

The best part of this journey is how it has radically changed our entire family. I realized that if I really wanted to protect my children from porn, then I would have to use the right tools. (Avoidance is not one of them.)

  1. We now safeguard every electronic device from accidental or intentional porn use.
  2. We work hard to create an environment of emotional safety, where the children can talk freely with us on the topics of love, lust, sex and pornography, without being judged or shamed.

I am a work in progress; so are my children, but what a wondrous journey. The surprise of my life has been how God has used that one bad, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad mommy moment and turned it into beauty.

  1. John

    I wish I had been in a open house where we could talk freely about sex and sexual desires. I have tried to have this openness in my own home. As some one that is addicted to porn and trying to break free from it I have tried to ignore it and push it to the side, o have tried to hide it. Being proactive and digging into what God says about me has been the only thing that has consistently help me in this addiction. Surrounding yourself with people you trust that you can talk to about it helps good Godly people to pour into your life Gods word. It is a forever battle. But with God it is possible to overcome.

  2. Keith Boynton

    Pornography is a tool people use because a need is not being met. The person is not a good or a bad person. That’s not the issue. The issue finding out where the unmet need and once that’t taken care of, the need to watch pornography will vanish.

    For teenagers, there is an obvious need that is not being met. As a person matures and finds a spouse then the need should vanish. But it will only vanish if the need is satisfied. Just because a person a married does not mean that their needs are automatically taken care of.

    Both partners have expectations as to what each partner wants or needs. Those wants and needs of each partner must be discussed so that there won’t be a level of frustration in the relationship because the needs of each partner where not fully discussed and each partner understood what was expected of them.

    There should be no surprises in marriage unless it was done intentionally.

    • Kay Bruner

      I agree that porn can be used to meet needs.

      However, you are assuming that the need is sex. And you are assuming that if you get married and have the right kind of sex, exactly the way you want it, then you won’t need porn any more. Millions of couples can tell you that this is so false that it’s almost hilarious.

      When you’ve taught yourself to meet your needs with porn, you will continue to do so after marriage, regardless of the amount or type of sex that your wife gives you.

      That’s because the needs you’re meeting are emotional needs, and you’ve created a huge shame cycle with porn use that generates even more emotional needs that you can’t meet except by using more porn. The shame around sexuality in general in purity culture makes this particularly difficult for conservative christian men.

      The true need is for emotional intimacy. Unfortunately in our culture, men are trained against emotional intimacy from birth onward. Here’s a discussion I had on FB Live with Dan Anderson about what I think is the true underlying need that men use porn to meet.

  3. Matty Matt

    Hello Lori,

    I just want to congratulate you on your positive and proactive attitude to this problem you encountered in your life. I don’t think we should overreact, regardless of the wrong action anyone commits. We commit mistakes throughout our lives. We are not perfect, in fact we are really nothing. God is the All-Merciful and forgives out of His Generosity. He overlooks and not only forgives us but turns our sins into good deeds and elevates us even though we intentionally fell down. Even if a person commits a “smaller” sin, like maybe lying to someone about something, it’s worse if they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. I feel really happy for you and your son in this instance. A person might keep committing wrongs and mistakes throughout their life, it’s good that, with your help, he got up and even if he falls again and again throughout his life, the good in him keeping on getting up is worth him getting up every time. I don’t know if that makes sense to you. Stay calm, peaceful and hopeful throughout your life. Much love to you and your son. May God guide you.

  4. Adrian

    I guess, I’m confused…How is Porn a “supernatural stimulus”?

    • Chris McKenna

      Hi, Adrian – you can read more about why we (and others) consider pornography to be a supernatural stimulus in this blog post.

      Best, Chris

  5. Savitri

    It’s surprising that a Catholic would ask themselves if porn is a rite of passage… Objecting women could not be any more unchristian. I truly can not describe my shock in how the oldest religion does not better educated their perisioners. This is sad.

    More than half of the American male population admits to using porn regularly. That’s right, 64% admit it but many more most likely struggle. So chances are your husband may have struggled or does struggle with porn. It’s a wide spread epidemic, the effect of internet porn on the human brain is just as potent, if not more so, than addictive chemical substances such as cocaine or heroin!

    We all must be far more aware. Talk to our spouses about their experience with lust and/or porn so that as parents we can be a far more effective team in helping our kids navigate through this spiritual war.

    • Savitri

      Typo – objectifying women

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