Statistics from the UN’s National Vital Statistics Report confirm the USA at 42.5 births per 100 girls aged 15-19 and the UK at 26.7 sit atop the global table! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Governor Sarah Palin’s official spokesperson expressed “shock and dismay” Monday that father of 1st grandson Levi went on Tyra Banks’ Show and said Her Honour had to know he and daughter Bristol were sexually active. Her daughter was similarly SPUN (smacked) down when she spoke truth during a television interview saying ‘abstinence-only just-say-NO’ sex education programs are “unrealistic.” It’s a pretty crazy family (that was nearly a heartbeat away from the Presidency) when Bristol is the most mature and sane of the lot.
42.5 births per 1,000 girls though is a very frightening number. Bottom of the table sits The Netherlands. THAT bastion of loose morals, wild sex, red light district prostitution and marijuana selling coffee shops had only 3.8 pregnancies per 1,000 (and most of those are because anti-conception measures failed).
66% of teens sexually active with virtually no education and instruction on safe-sex and handling exploding hormones is almost as dumb as the US army’s equally failed homosexual campaign “don’t ask, don’t tell” means a record number of US kids become pregnant needlessly.
Because parents are too embarrassed (having grown up in a post Queen Victoria era of sexual repression) to talk about “it” the 500 lb gorilla in the room as their kids hit puberty, hormones are still hormones and without preparation, it is a game of Russian Roulette. Almost everyone can find an empty chamber the first time in that game, how many though continue playing beyond round 1?
Yet teens routinely do. And even sex-ed programs that do talk about reproduction do nothing to tackle the behavioural and emotional side. Said Douglas Kirby, a neutral analyst who has studied teen sexual behaviour for more than 3 decades to Time Magazine: “Older programs were less likely to deliver a clear message about behaviour. It was “Here are the facts, here are the pros and cons. You decide what’s right for you.”
So compare and contrast my American experience with my Dutch wife’s in this exercise. I’m 51. My nurse mother gave me pamphlets to read and asked me if I had read them. I lied and said yes but was too embarrassed with my own body rapidly growing body to even think about that, who would want to with me, even though, like most boys that was all I could think about?
My 1st sexual encounter was at age 15. We used a condom because my girlfriend had more education and smarts than I did. It was over almost before it started and we improved. I stumbled and bumbled my way through University thinking the only way to “legally have sexual concord” was to be married so… I married at age 21 and was a father (and divorced) by 25.
My wife is 45. She started at age 14 in her rural eastern Dutch village. She, like most Dutch students knew the consequences, talked openly (with friends), practiced safe sex, was on the Pill from her GP at an early age (without parental consent). Her boyfriend was a fixture in her life for almost 20-years. They lived and travelled the world together unwed and with her mother. By the time she was 25 she had been to nearly every major city on every continent and still speaks four languages.
Her first child (ours) was at age 36. Her sisters were also near or above 30 when they started. Indeed Oma (grandma) did not have any grandchildren until 1999 and she now has 7. None of her children married until well into their 30s. They all travelled and enjoyed life before settling down and are remarkable people. All lived together for a period with their partner for decades before marrying just before the 1st child arrived.
We were visiting overnight in the home of good friends in The Hague. I was honoured to be in the living room when their two pre-pubescent daughters had an open, frank and beautifully honest conversation with their daughters about sex and love. It was one of those moments where every question was answered from their perspective and the level of detail would have made your Momma cringe. After the girls went to bed, Peter said, “we want them to ask and know everything so they can make their own decision… they will anyways.”
The Time article applauded new programs that take sex education away from the domain of the gym teacher who doubles as “health” teacher and are taking the stigma out of everything from terms to getting kids to openly talk about their emotions. Some states mandate it and so programs that talk both abstinence and sense are responsible for a 27% decline in even states like Bible belt South Carolina where straight talk advocates are winning converts withthose kind of numbers.
Hellfire and brimstone does not work when hormones are exploding everywhere. When we became sexually active there was no AIDS and STD’s where pretty much limited to syphilis that was not penicillin resistant. And you only caught that by consorting with “loose women.” Now you can die from everything from cervical cancer to AIDS and safe sex is paramount yet not practised often enough here in the UK.
We were desperate as teens for someone, anyone to tell us the real truth about sex and only one teacher would. And even that one session listening was not enough, we needed more.
The time for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell abstinence only programs because adults are too embarrassed to talk about sex ended in the 60s. As I routinely say to my blushing friends with teenage kids, “have a real talk.” Let them tell you what their fears are. Telling them not to do it is as effective as it was 35 years ago… not at all.
At least our kids know the door is always open to talk about this subject and talk they do.
