Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
TexasReb, this laptop won't let me C&P just one part of your post that I want to address. Forgive me. I think one reason why "saving oneself for marriage" has gone the way of the dinosaur is because many people, especially middle to upper class, are marrying much later. I was one of the first of my childhood crew to marry...oh, so many years ago...and I was 26. Out of my group now, most were married closer to 30 or even later. I honestly would not expect my kid to remain a virgin throughout her 20s! If that is her choice, great. But I don't think it's realistic.
The state pushes abstinence sex education yet it has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy. So why is the rest of the country paying half a billion dollars a year to support their teen mothers? An excerpt from Gail Collins’s new book, As Texas Goes…
Okay Texas, time to join the rest of us in the 21st century. Living in the 15th century ain't a good thing for your kids.
You've got it backwards. The high rate of teen pregnancy among certain demographics is a good reason to push abstinence.
Should Texas reward teen pregnancies with money? When you reward something, you get more of it. Perhaps other states would reduce their own teen pregnancy rates by dropping their subsidies?
TexasReb, this laptop won't let me C&P just one part of your post that I want to address. Forgive me. I think one reason why "saving oneself for marriage" has gone the way of the dinosaur is because many people, especially middle to upper class, are marrying much later. I was one of the first of my childhood crew to marry...oh, so many years ago...and I was 26. Out of my group now, most were married closer to 30 or even later. I honestly would not expect my kid to remain a virgin throughout her 20s! If that is her choice, great. But I don't think it's realistic.
You make a good point TXNGL, and I pretty much agree with that assessment. But just to clarify, I was really addressing the issue of teenage pregnancy rates; with many girls starting to become "quite active" in high school and even Jr. High or earlier.
And to reinterate, while I could easily support abstinence based sex-education, I am not naive enough to think it will work as intended because we live in a society in which sex seems to be the central theme of pop-culture. And if there is no longer any societal pressure to abstain, then it starts off at a disadvantage.
On the flip side, the approach of giving away condoms (so to speak), when combined with government "rewarding" promiscuous behavior is, IMHO, much worse. Yeah, I know some will say, well they are going to do it anyway...and to some extent that is true. At the same time, kids being kids, are not necessarily going to get the intended message; instead they take it as encouragement to do whatever they want so far as sexual behavior goes.
Hell, I know because that is the way I would have taken it back in my high school days! LOL Plus, I have dealt with high school kids for many years and that is exactly the way so many of them think...
I always wonder about, and grieve for, people who advocate ignorance over knowledge. Which is pretty much what advocating abstinence only sex education is, of course.
Also, ponder this, those of you who think sex education causes teen pregnancy and, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary over the past many hundred years, that without sex education there would be no teen pregnancies. Would you even be here if teenagers long long ago (and many more recently) hadn't figured out for themselves, long before sex education or even schools existed, without any instruction at all, how to make a baby? Animals figure it out; do you really think teenaged humans are that much more stupid than your basic cat or dog?
I always wonder about, and grieve for, people who advocate ignorance over knowledge. Which is pretty much what advocating abstinence only sex education is, of course.
I don t see how advocating abstinence is connected with ignorance.
What I do see is our society advocating abstinence successfully in a lot of areas.
We expect our teenagers to abstain from car theft, ratting out other kids to the authorities, to abstain from casual violence, from rape, to abstain from the blunter forms of racism, and a whole lot of other antisocial behaviors that benefit the individual but harm the larger society.
The problem we have is to find out why abstinence is successful for so many things and seems to fail for this one thing?
Actually, it fails for other things as well. Our teenagers do not abstain from bullying, cheating, binge drinking, lying to parents, etc., and there is an explanation for that, I suppose. We still insist they abstain from those, however. Even if teenagers still do it, we haven't stopped telling them to abstain, rather than accept bullying, lying and cheating.
You've got it backwards. The high rate of teen pregnancy among certain demographics is a good reason to push abstinence.
Should Texas reward teen pregnancies with money? When you reward something, you get more of it. Perhaps other states would reduce their own teen pregnancy rates by dropping their subsidies?
Its just not based in reality. Teens are going to have sex, period. I know maybe 2 or 3 people who were virgins on their 21st b-day. I was not and I came from great parents. It does not matter how hard or well you push abstinence. It's simply not going to work on the whole.
In my church growing up, we had a big save it for marriage drive among our 12 year olds each year. In my year, 21 people took the pledge. I don't know one that kept it. Granted I only knew 9 of us in that group.
In a perfect world, the ideal scenario would be what Rathagos suggested. However, 99% of parents are nowhere near as responsible as he/she sounds. Because of that, we have to make sure our kids stay as safe as possible. I'm not suggesting we hand out condoms, but we should teach our kids to use them if they are going to have sex (and on the whole they will).
Its just not based in reality. Teens are going to have sex, period. I know maybe 2 or 3 people who were virgins on their 21st b-day. I was not and I came from great parents. It does not matter how hard or well you push abstinence. It's simply not going to work on the whole.
There is no question on that score (bolded part), but I think the point that some of us are making is that the behavior should not be rewarded -- so to speak -- by taxpayer money. In other words, hey, if one chooses (both male and female) want to engage in irresponsible sexual behavior, then fine. BUT...they take the financial responsibility for the child. Just as it was in a saner day and age...and there were NOT so many welfare babies and generations of them.
Quote:
In my church growing up, we had a big save it for marriage drive among our 12 year olds each year. In my year, 21 people took the pledge. I don't know one that kept it. Granted I only knew 9 of us in that group.
But did it hurt anything to try?
Quote:
In a perfect world, the ideal scenario would be what Rathagos suggested. However, 99% of parents are nowhere near as responsible as he/she sounds.
In a free society, it has to be taken as a matter of foundation that the parents have the best interest of their children at heart. We all know there are irresponsible parents, of course. But I still have to ask where you arrive at the figure that 99% are that way? Are you a parent yourself? That question is important, I think...
Quote:
Because of that, we have to make sure our kids stay as safe as possible. I'm not suggesting we hand out condoms, but we should teach our kids to use them if they are going to have sex (and on the whole they will).
"Our kids"? The phraseolgy is upsetting in many ways. I promise I am not trying to be antagonist, but again, I have to ask do you have any of your own? And if so, do they belong to you or the government, in your opinion?
I appreciate the point you make in that you are not advocating handing out condoms. But it DOES happen, and where is the evidence the kids will actually use them if so? Hell, I bet a dime to a donut most of us -- when we were kids -- tried them...then threw them away.
That is why I say that just because the "official" message is given to kids to practice "safe sex" doesn't mean that is the one they receive. If they did, then the pregancy rates would have declined long ago...
Also, on a related tangent. It seems to me too many people take for granted that the parent has no control over what their kids do (especially, in this case, the daughter).
To bring it down to a personal level? Back when I was raising a teenage girl in high school? If I had reason to suspect she was out screuing every boy in town? I would NOT just accept it and roll over and play dead and say, hey hon, let me get you on the pill, cos I know, darling daugher, you are going to do it anyway.
Yeah, I would have given her a father/daughter talk, of course, but also bolted windows and "grounded" her till' hell froze over, if neccessary. And run off every sniffing boy around.
Sound harsh? Ok *shrug*... fine...I don't apologize...because the alternative would have been worse. This modern day school of thought that parents must surrender to the Latest Thing is pathetic. And I really don't think ones kids can respect their parents if they don't lay down a law...and enforce it as best they can...
Now, of course, once they reach the age of majority and move out on their own? Then that is different.
I always wonder about, and grieve for, people who advocate ignorance over knowledge. Which is pretty much what advocating abstinence only sex education is, of course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by justme02
Its just not based in reality. Teens are going to have sex, period. I know maybe 2 or 3 people who were virgins on their 21st b-day. I was not and I came from great parents. It does not matter how hard or well you push abstinence. It's simply not going to work on the whole.
In my church growing up, we had a big save it for marriage drive among our 12 year olds each year. In my year, 21 people took the pledge. I don't know one that kept it. Granted I only knew 9 of us in that group.
In a perfect world, the ideal scenario would be what Rathagos suggested. However, 99% of parents are nowhere near as responsible as he/she sounds. Because of that, we have to make sure our kids stay as safe as possible. I'm not suggesting we hand out condoms, but we should teach our kids to use them if they are going to have sex (and on the whole they will).
It may have to be more of a cultural imperative than just a classroom exercise. In a movie I saw, the aide tells a presidential candidate "you can be a president who gets the country into a war, or bankrupts the economy, or uses the FBI and the IRS to harass your enemies, and you can get away with it. But you cannot, cannot, sleep with an intern, get her pregnant and have her commit suicide."
If our entire culture has the abstinence of teenagers embedded into its vision of sane vs insane, acceptable vs unacceptable, then abstinence will work. On the other hand, if it merely an act of hypocrisy, then it will fail.
For example, there is a cultural idea that overt racial slurs are not to be uttered, and no one does it. Saying the N-word on network TV, you'll never work again. On the other hand, there is hypocritical lip service paid toward stopping bullying. Anytime a bullying victim commits suicide, his school claims they don't tolerate bullying, yet it goes on, and nobody loses their job.
The problem is that sexual abstinence campaigns are examples of the latter and not the former.
You've got it backwards. The high rate of teen pregnancy among certain demographics is a good reason to push abstinence.
Nope, nope, nope. Study after study has shown that "abstinence-only programs" do not work. Do. Not. Work. They are a waste of money. I could post dozens of references to this fact, but the Wikipedia entry is a good place to start: Abstinence-only sex education - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Evidence does not support the use of abstinence only sex education.[1] It has been found to be ineffective in decreasing HIV risk in the developed world,[2] and does not decrease rates of unplanned pregnancy.[1]"
Only "full-disclosure" education does that...
And now that many girls are beginning menstruation at 9 to 10 years of age, apparently due to diet and other environmental factors, it's an increasingly serious public health issue not to present the facts to our kids by middle school.
And the biological side of sexual education needs to be taught in public schools because so many parents are simply not up to the task... either they don't KNOW the facts, or they're emotionally unequipped to deliver the message properly. It's not the school's role to teach morality... that's the parent's role. But it is the school's responsibility to teach our kids at least the minimum acceptable to survive in the present world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by savanite
Should Texas reward teen pregnancies with money? When you reward something, you get more of it. Perhaps other states would reduce their own teen pregnancy rates by dropping their subsidies?
The error in your thinking comes from the inappropriate use of the term "reward," which completely begs the issue.
And by the way, studies also show that for every $1 spent on contraception the state averages $4 in savings in avoided public health costs due to uninsured pregnancies, so even conservatives can feel good about it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
