understanding

I generally want to be understood.
If I don't feel that someone understands me well, or that they don't agree with me, it's like I NEED to explain myself. And often the things I feel most strongly about are the most difficult to explain (add a second language to the mix, and the complication multiplies).
Like the time in my DTS when I tried to briefly explain how I felt about the tolerance zone (part of the city where prostitution is overlooked, though not legal)... all I could say was how angry it made me that the police just drive by and LOOK at the women and men who are selling themselves in every doorway.
But what I meant was it boils my blood to see humans stripped of their God-given dignity!

Our eleven-year-old has a school activity on Thursday. They sent a note home that she needs to bring "a shirt that shows her belly button and a very short skirt" as her costume for a dance that her class is going to perform. The dance itself is extremely inappropriate, even if they are doing a toned-down version.
I wrote a letter to the teacher, to say that we didn't feel it was suitable and asking for an alternative activity for her to participate in that day. They are respecting our decision, thankfully, but I know that they don't understand why.
And that they won't understand.

How do you talk about the spiritual impact of an overly sexual dance on children, to someone who doesn't see the spiritual realm as equally real as the physical?
How do you convince him that these kids have experienced too much, too soon, and that dancing this, or even watching others, will only serve to open more doors in their lives and further awaken what should be left dormant for a longer time?
How do you explain that the problem isn't with studying culture, but rather with which elements of that culture are age-appropriate, and also that as Christians, we aren't to conform to any culture other than God's.

You can't explain that. So you listen to his disappointment on the phone, but thank him for respecting your decision as her caretaker. Then you disappoint her by telling her she can't participate, knowing that she doesn't understand, but praying that she will know it's in love.