Sex Education

by Duffy McMahon on February 14, 2012 • No comments

I’ve often said, “To have a child, you should be required to take child development classes and get a license”. Maybe then we wouldn’t have a mother leaving a newborn baby on the front lawn of a home. That’s what happened to Baby Kathryn just a few days ago. According to police, Baby Kathryn, named for the street it was left on, was only a few hours old. It’s mindboggling to understand how anyone could do such a thing, but it happens all the time. Babies have been discarded in dumpsters, public bathrooms, stores and restaurants. While I can understand not being able to care for a child, leaving a newborn baby anywhere but a safe location is unthinkable.

Historically, it’s teenage girls who most often discard a newborn baby. It’s too easy to put all the blame on the girl. After all, “if she’s mature enough to have sex, she’s adult enough to be responsible”. Get real? Teens and responsibility are oxymorons. While I believe we need to teach our youth responsibility, when it comes to teen pregnancy, all of society should be accountable. After all, isn’t it our job to teach our children…not just teaching them the 3R’s…but, how about the 3R’s+S. Let’s add sex education to the equation.

Sadly, in America, for the most part we still don’t teach sex education in our school systems and it’s disheartening to see how ill informed some of our young people are when it comes to sex. I’ve spoken with young girls who thought they could get pregnant by kissing. I’ve had discussions with other teens that didn’t believe fellatio was a sexual act…just a way to say hello. Some of their belief’s are right out of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”. Growing up in the 50’s or 60’s, most of your sex education came from magazines and friends. The “Birds & Bees Talk”…come on! The last thing any kid wants to hear about, from their parents, is sex. Sex was more like on the job training. Let’s face it, at that time, married couples on TV had to sleep in twin beds with one foot on the floor. How’s that for “Reality TV”. Although today’s teens can watch more sex on television, movies and the Internet than ever in our history, their knowledge is just as limited.

So why not teach sex education in our schools and help prepare our youth for adulthood? Two words…Religious Right! The majority of Fundamentalist Christians believe sex should be taught at home…only it isn’t. One father I met got his 16-year-old son a hooker to teach him about sex. Happy Birthday! I asked him what he was going to do for his daughter. That was different. His daughter didn’t need to know about sex. Yeah right! Double standards are alive and well in the United States.

Anti sex-education proponents still spew their sanctimonious and erroneous information. Their antiquated idea, that teaching sex promotes promiscuity, is as outdated as vinyl records. Tragically, no matter what studies or statistics to the contrary you provide, their antediluvian mind-set won’t allow them to listen. Do they really believe if you just ignore the subject, it will go away? Talk about “don’t ask…don’t tell”.

The problem is, kids are still getting pregnant, feeling hopeless, helpless and alone. Even with organizations like Planned Parenthood and a myriad of helpful websites, if young pregnant girls don’t know about them they can’t get help. Maybe, if we actually taught sex education in schools, we wouldn’t have to worry about a newborn baby being left on someone’s lawn. We can discuss licensing to have a child later.