If Stephanie Herseth was a role model

To high school and college students,

Many young high school students and college students—especially young women—look up to Stephanie Herseth as a role model.

Imagine, for a moment, if Stephanie seized her unique opportunity to truly make a difference in your lives. She could talk to you about the most important decisions you are making in your life—career, spouse, family and choice of friends, just to name a few. She could talk about alcohol and drugs. She could talk about sex, and she could talk to you about the connections of drugs and sex. She could talk about forming life-lasting relationships that will make you happy for the rest of your life. She could talk about love and why it is so important to give your love to one special person and why a relationship centered on God is so important—and that peer pressure is the biggest problem young women—and young men—face.

She could talk to you because she could relate to you. You would listen to her because you respect her. How many leaders have the opportunity to talk to people—to be a role model—about why pressure to have sex is so wrong; why love, a lasting love, is so important; that waiting to have sex should be encouraged, not discouraged; that marriage will work out best if God is at the center of that relationship, not keg parties or MTV at Spring Break; that many career women who have waited to get married to pursue a career have devalued sex—so that love no longer needs to be an ingredient to have sex.

Stephanie, unfortunately, won’t talk about the importance of shying away from alcohol or drugs, or waiting to have sex, or of peer pressure. She may think it is wrong, but she doesn’t want to offend anyone by saying it is wrong. She wants to go along to get along. Of course, she will say it this way. “You can’t stop people from drugs or sex.” But leaders must set the standard high. She should stand up and say it is wrong, and there is a better way. Instead, she believes that peer pressure is just too great. For this reason, she believes that abortion should be legal, and many of her friends want to legalize drugs and bring the standard of marriage down to the level of “two people loving each other”.

She isn’t even honest with you. She says she doesn’t believe in abortion, but since others will make mistakes, it should be kept legal. She says that she wants to see less abortions, but she won’t tell you that it is best not to cave into peer pressure and not have sex, for fear of being moralistic. Her friends think you should have sex—and she doesn’t want to offend her friends.

But she will still say she cares about you. I care about you. You may not like what I am saying, but I do care about you. I know what it is like to face peer pressure. I know what it is like to want to fit in. I know what it is like to be left out, when you don’t go along with the crowd.

It is for this reason that I want the crowd to think a little more like me and a little less like Stephanie. I care about you and I want you make your choices a little easier.

Before you cast your vote, consider these facts. Fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce. Promiscuity among college students reaches 65%. Out of wedlock births reaches 80% in some social demographics. Welfare programs have skyrocketed in the last 30 years to pay for those “mistakes.” Meanwhile, the emphasis on sex is tremendous.

Women have a difficult time accepting themselves for who they are. They have been lead to believe that supermodel beauty is the only acceptable beauty. Many women can hardly look at themselves in the mirror and can not accept themselves because their looks are so intricately tied into who they are. They want implants, tummy tucks and botox injections just to feel liked or to ‘finally feel good about themselves”. The pressure to look sexy has huge long term ramifications.

Stephanie believes that a 10% increase in tuition assistance, or an increase in student loans are the biggest problems facing young people.

I respectfully disagree. Young people have a shortage of role models telling them that it is ‘ok’ to be who you are; that it is ‘ok’ to not fit into the group; that it is ‘ok’ not to have sex; that it is ‘ok’ to look just the way God created you.

All of us that have gone on before you have a responsibility to help make your life easier. It will be easier for you to graduate high school or college without the burdens of being a single mother or a father saddled with the responsibility of making child support payments for the next 18 years. It will be a lot easier to be comfortable with yourself, instead of continually living up to the Cosmopolitan standards of fashion and fitness.

You will be surprised, that when you are comfortable with who you are, and feel good about who you are, you will prioritize your life better, you will not eat to feel better, you will have more energy to help you look the best you can, without having to resort to surgical procedures to improve your appearance.

Your actions have consequences, so when you vote, take into consideration the fact that the people that really care about you are the ones that sometimes tell you things you don’t want to hear, not what you want to hear.

Sincerely,



Neal Tapio