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In this day and age I have a hard time believing teenage girls still think they can't get pregnant the first time or during a certain time. We are failing our kids-both boys and girls- by not teaching them better how to protect themselves.
CDC study: Many teen moms didn’t think they could get pregnant, didn’t use birth control - The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-study-many-teen-moms-didnt-think-they-could-get-pregnant-didnt-use-birth-control/2012/01/19/gIQA9P6zAQ_story.html?hpid=z3 - broken link)
abstinence only programs cleary are the way to go then
Well, the kids are already inundated with sex ed classes in school, with free condoms, etc., so if its being suggested that we need to dump more money and waste more time in the public schools on this, my answer is, "NO." That doesn't seem to be working so well, either.
How about beginning to boycott some of the TV shows, music and fashion that glamorizes sex without consequences.
What free condoms? I don't recall getting free condoms in school. And you do know that sex ed is not taught in every school? That parents who don't sign for you to take it ~and yes many don't~ means you never have it? That it spends most of the class dealing with puberty and very little to no time on BC methods.
Or fear sending the "wrong message", the message of approval with accurate information.
Teens are going to have sex whether one arms them with that info or not. People don't make the choices to have sex whether or not their parents might approve of it . It's too much a mix of biology along with personal morals, and the feeling of being ready.
I think we need to "clean up" our act as society and start modeling better behavior and rewarding better behavior rather than just keep pumping more facts and birth control their way. YMMV
Because everybody knows facts and birth control are bad.
I'm all for the schools preaching abstinence. And after they're done talking about abstinence, they need to talk about how to protect yourself if you decide not to abstain. Parents are not going to suddenly decide to talk to their kids about sex. A lot of parents, especially the ones with strong religious convictions, don't believe their children will have sex before marriage. I used to see lots of those parents in the waiting room at the high-risk ob clinic, reading the bible while waiting for their 12-year-old's prenatal appointments.
I used to belong to a forum where pregnant teens and teens who were afraid they might be pregnant went to get their questions answered. They asked things like, "Can I get pregnant from oral sex?" "If my boyfriend pees inside of me after he (ejaculates) will it wash out the sperms?" "If I shake up a bottle of soda and let it spray inside of me, will that cause a miscarriage?" "What's the age limit for buying condoms?" It was so clear that there were so many kids who never learned anything. And yes, they have the internet and they could educate themselves, but instead they were there trying to get answers from other teens. It was the blind leading the blind. I had to give it up after a while, it was too upsetting to answer the same questions over and over, questions they didn't even think of until they had already had sex.
I went to catholic school, so it's not surprising that I never had any kind of sex ed...but I was amazed to find out that they don't teach it in public school either. My parents were sure that the public schools here were handing out condoms and the pill and giving out the addresses of abortion clinics to all the high schoolers.
My 4th grader came home and said that some of the kids in her class were talking about how they were already having sex. She and I have already talked about the facts of life and birth control, and the important part about being able to respect yourself and treating your body with respect and not letting anyone pressure you into sex when you're not ready. Once I heard that some of her classmates were active (and yes, I know they could have lied, but if they're lying this year, they'll be doing it for real next year), I talked to her about the diseases people can get from sex. We looked at pictures of diseased genitals, we talked about how there are diseases you can't see, we talked about how when you have sex with someone who's had lots of partners, you're getting the germs from the last ten people they've been with, etc. We'll talk more about it as she gets older. We also talk about the teenager across the street, the one who was always having sex with her boyfriend in his car, the one who has a baby now and peeks out her window looking sad while the rest of the teenagers are going to school in the morning.
Just yesterday I had a student tell the class that her grandmother had told her that you get pregnant from kissing, so she never kissed until she was 15. Then another student said, You're still 15! And she said Oh yeah, I AM 15. It was funny but not.
Kids don't really know how their bodies work. If they are taught at school, and many are not, then it's just like anything else--they learn it for the test and then forget what they were taught.
About 20% of the girls at my school are pregnant or already have babies. Obviously, no one is using abstinence or birth control. I shudder to think of the STD rate, which is among the highest in the country.
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. It's too much a mix of biology along with personal morals, and the feeling of being ready.
