Pornography from a Mom’s Perspective

Before I share this story, I want you to know I asked my son if I could share, and he agreed. He has shared his own journey as part of his testimony of faith and God’s healing many times, though I have never felt comfortable sharing it for him. But my heart is heavy with the need to share it so that parents know how pornography impacts the kids who see it and the families who love them. And the danger begins early: The average age of first exposure to pornography is 8 years old. (This is not usually from intentional seeking but accidental exposure, such as a book in the bookstore, a favorite video game with a back door, or a favorite YouTube channel that has been pirated.)

My son was in the seventh grade and 12 at the time of this story. I was preparing for an upcoming parenting class on technology and wanted to try out different monitoring tools. I had been after my son to let me load a couple of those apps on his phone and tablet, to see how they worked. He had a dumb phone that only texted and made calls, but a tablet that had full unfiltered access to the internet. I was dropping him off at 6:15 a.m. for athletics and reminding him that I wanted to set up the apps on his phone and tablet that evening. He looked right at me, with the most serious look in his eyes, and said, “Mom, before we do that, there is something we need to talk about.”

My heart stopped instantly. I remember having that cold, sickening feeling as if all the blood were draining from my body. As calmly as I could muster, I asked, “Do you want to talk about it now?”

He said “No,” and got out of the car.

I drove to work at the church just sick to my stomach. I remember it was a dark and rainy morning that added to the chill I felt. I immediately called my husband. I told him about the conversation and asked him what he thought it was going to be about. Honestly, I wanted it to be anything but pornography. My husband was positive it was going to be about pornography. I felt a desperate desire to run to school, pull my son out and hug him, and reassure him that we would love him no matter what was going on. Instead, I held strong and walked through the day in a fog of emotions.

That evening, I made all of my son’s favorite foods for dinner. As we sat down, I was nervous, he was nervous, and my husband was ready to get it out. Instead, we walked through the normal motions of dinner. How was your day? How was work? Tell me one bad thing and three good things that happened today. I think my son was hoping I had forgotten what he had said that morning, and I was hoping he would just get to it already. Finally, I asked, “You mentioned there was something we needed to talk about?” The room was dead silent, his body language looked defeated, we all held our breath, and then he shared.

Two years prior (age 10), my son had heard some words and things at school that he didn’t understand, and he came home and googled them on his tablet. He had opened the gate to porn through a simple internet search. He said at first it confused him and scared him. But he was drawn back to it each day. Then he was able to participate in conversations with the other guys at school and in the locker room. The more he knew, the more powerful he felt. He started watching more and more, and it was starting to consume him. He decided the summer he turned 11 that he was not going to watch it anymore, but the more he didn’t want to watch it, the more he was drawn to it. He knew he should tell us about it, but he was afraid he would lose everything. At 12, he confessed he had a full-on addiction to pornography. I still see the tears and fear in his eyes as he shared this.

I was heartbroken and devastated for him. I had enough knowledge to know the choices he made, and we had allowed to happen, would affect him for the rest of his life. I wanted to fix this, and I was so frustrated that I didn’t know how. Do you realize how much information is available about the impact of pornography, and how little is available about what to do when it is in your home and life?

I remember that first night, he was scared to go to bed. He had not gone to sleep without porn for two years, and he didn’t know how he was going to go to sleep. We encouraged him to hang out with us until he was tired, but he was torn between running from his own shame and facing his fears. All I wanted to do was to hold him tight, but it was clear this was not mom territory.

I kept mentally flashing between the cute five-year-old kindergartner I loved and images of him hiding in his dark room with his tablet. Reflecting, I had noticed he was spending a lot of time alone in his room, or upstairs in the game room, or in my bedroom. I wasn’t too worried about it, and just figured it was preteen boy angst. And then the guilt came crushing in. I knew better than to give a kid unfiltered, open access to the internet. I knew to monitor his technology but didn’t want to make the time. My kid was in pain, and I felt responsible.

To say we handled recovery elegantly would be an exaggeration of how poorly we had dived into the path forward. I did online research for programs, books, and conversation kits to help. I would send my poor husband in to talk, armed with talking points from the latest thing I had read. This only resulted in more awkwardness for everyone. We took the tablet away and moved the game room to a more open space. We loaded parental controls on everything that we could, but it still didn’t seem like we were getting to the heart of the issue. We made our son plug his phone in downstairs at night, only to have him sneak down later and take it back upstairs. We suggested therapy, but that seemed like too much at the time. He was drowning in his own shame, terrified of what people would think of him if they knew and wondering if the desire would go away and he would be normal again.

The cycle went on for months. Just when I felt we were making progress, we would get an alert from one parental monitoring tool or another, and we would be back where we started. I found myself moving from heartbroken to desperate. I would look at him and, in every way, he was a good kid—the kind who never gets in trouble, happy to help and please—but Satan had a hold on him. I felt like he was (and we were as a family) drowning in this darkness.

Prayer was my constant companion in that first year. These were prayers pleading for God’s intervention in my son’s life. Prayers for God to fill the darkness with His light, prayers that would lift this burden from my son. I hung onto my belief that God would restore him, making him strong, firm, and steadfast. 

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast.

1 Peter 5:10

After about 18 months of battling, we were all road-weary, frustrated, and frankly just tired of it. Part of me wanted to just give up and allow him to do what he wanted to do. But the mom in me knew he was worth the fight. A dear pastor friend had been serving as a mentor to him for a few years. My son loved this man and loved spending time with him. We told our son, one more incident and he was going to have to confess to his mentor all that was going on. It was not even a week later when we sat with our son while he contacted his mentor and set up time to get together.

It felt like for the first time in a year and a half, we could breathe—that maybe there was hope.

My son and his mentor have walked the last five years arm in arm. When my son feels temptation start to creep in, he knows to reach out. They met a lot in those first few months after that phone call. Now they meet frequently, but they get to talk about other topics of life and the future. Having a person outside your family whom you love and trust to speak truth to your child and over your family is one of the greatest resources of healing.

Recently, I had the opportunity to listen to my son share his story with other students. And while I would never want to go down that path again, I can see God’s hand in all of it. God has given him a testimony to open the door out of darkness for many of his friends and kids in his community.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5, NIV
(This is the Scripture passage my son chose to put on his letter jacket.)

While we still have many conversations about dating, healthy sexuality, and developing appropriate intimacy, I confess I am still a bit heartbroken we must have these talks in the context of pornography. Dating has been a struggle, and the mom in me wants to fix that. But stepping back, I can see the knitting of God’s plan in all of this.

If your child is struggling with pornography, please reach out to us. We know the struggle between guarding our children’s privacy and getting help. We want to walk with you, pray with you, and help you navigate the journey ahead.

If you would like more resources to improve both your awareness of pornography in your home or conversations with your children, consider reading:

When They Have Seen Too Much

Author

  • Christine Clark

    Christine Clark is the Ministry Leader for Family Ministries at Stonebriar Community Church. She has a passion for supporting parents and helping them gain confidence and tools to be spiritual leaders in their homes. She is blessed to be the mom of a one son and the wife of her college sweetheart for 25 years. She and her husband are finding their way as empty nesters, and enjoying the new found freedom that comes with this stage of life. She is also an avid sports fan who loves all things NASCAR and football, especially in the fall in Texas.

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