[N0help4u]

I couldn't find the other post on sex education in the schools.
I really think that one of the biggest problems with kids and sex is the irresponsibility and the consequences and have been saying that if they want to teach sex ed they should include responsibility and consequences.

Anyway I ran across this just now

What became big business for groups favoring conventional sex education also became a tremendous burden for taxpayers. When the 1960s sexual revolution ushered in “free love,” premarital sex suddenly became acceptable—even fashionable—for both teens and adults. Marriage became unnecessary, and children a liability. Sex became a cheap commodity without love or responsibility.

Not surprisingly, “between 1960 and 1999, the percentage [of out-of-wedlock teenage births] increased more than 430 percent.”27 Because babies born to teens more often suffer from low birth weight due to poor prenatal care, they require costly medical attention—often financed by tax dollars. From 1985-1990, the federal government spent $120 billion on teenage childbearing; an estimated $48 billion would have been saved if each birth had been delayed until the mother was more than 20 years old.

The rise in teenage pregnancy and illegitimacy has contributed to an unprecedented breakdown of the family, the building block of a healthy society. Mothers head 84 percent of all single-parent families in the United States.29 Further, about 40 percent of children who live in these homes have not seen their father in at least one year.30 Many of these fathers have abandoned their financial responsibility, leaving largely uneducated, unskilled women dependent upon the welfare system. In 1998, the median family income for two-parent families was more than four times that of families in which the mother never married.

Sadly, studies show that children born out-of-wedlock are more likely to repeat the cycle. In fact, daughters of single parents are “164 percent more likely to have a premarital birth of their own, 111 percent more likely to give birth as teenagers, and 92 percent more likely to divorce than daughters of married parents.”

However, these are not the only societal costs. According to Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “when teenagers have babies, both mothers and children tend to have problems—health, social, psychological and economic. Teens who have children out-of-wedlock are more likely to end up at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. … These numbers have enormous economic implications for the country—and for the rearing of children in America.”

In 1996, Congress took the first step in changing the system, in order to get welfare recipients off the federal payroll and into jobs. According to a recent conference, “The New World of Welfare,” caseloads have dropped by half, and poverty has declined.35 Still, as former National Fatherhood Initiative President Wade Horn and Urban Institute scholar Isabel Sawhill have noted, “By focusing so heavily on moving mothers into the workforce, states have neglected to work on the equally important task of increasing the number of two-parent families.” Welfare laws must indeed promote work and healthy marriages as well.

Teenage pregnancy is probably the best-known consequence of youthful sexual activity. After years of seeing the rate skyrocket, the news has been much better in the last decade or so. Significantly, this news coincides with an increase in abstinence sex education. After it reached an all-time high in 1991, the rate began to fall. By 2000, the pregnancy rate for girls aged 15-19 had fallen 22 percent.

However, the United States continues to have the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries.

Further, the CDC reports that of the estimated 1 million teen pregnancies each year, 95 percent are unintended.

In 1997, the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, or Add Health, was released on the health-related behaviors of youth in grades 7-12. The study revealed that the overall picture of teenage sexual activity is not encouraging.

Nationally, 17 percent of children in the 7th and 8th grades report ever having had intercourse.

For high school students, that rate rises to one in two.

Of the 7th and 8th grade girls who had ever had intercourse, one in nine had been pregnant.

Of the 9th through 12th grade girls who had ever had intercourse, one in six reported having been pregnant.

Other consequences are equally alarming—and deadly. AIDS continues to be one of the 10 leading killers of adults ages 25-34,12 and according to a study released in July 2001, the rate of teenage girls contracting HIV rose by almost 117 percent between 1994 and 1998.

In addition, an estimated 1.3 million babies still die each year through abortion.

20 percent of U.S. abortions each year are performed on teenage girls.

84 percent of all U.S. abortions are performed on unmarried women.

Although some statistics have improved in recent years, studies show that teens who engage in premarital sex are at high risk to “experience emotional and psychological injuries, subsequent marital difficulties, and involvement in other high-risk behaviors.”

Concerned Women for America - Abstinence: Why Sex Is Worth The Wait

[Gemini54]

Not exactly sure what you are putting up for discussion N0help4u. But, I imagine the stats are pretty similar for other, Western, developed (yea right), countries. Australia is similar, although I can't quote the figures.

I was interested in this:

However, the United States continues to have the highest teenage pregnancy rate of all developed countries. Further, the CDC reports that of the estimated 1 million teen pregnancies each year, 95 percent are unintended.

I don't think that it's possible to look at a phenomenon like this without putting it into its social context. We are bombarded with advertising, TV, movies, etc, etc that use sex as their 'hook'. The clothes that girls in their tweens and then teens are encouraged to wear are highly provocative. Models in magazines always look like they're about 14. Magazines that target teens talk about boyfriends, making out and blow jobs. It is commonly accepted that young teenagers will experiment with sex and they talk about each other in sexual terms - hot for it, frigid, etc etc. Everyone wants to be famous.

It's naïve to think that sex education has precipitated these changes. Our society is changing and has been since the sixties when 'free love' and 'flower power' were ushered in. Along with changing sexual mores, we are also now dealing with a society that is much more individualistic and narcissistic. People are less willing to accept responsibility for their actions and their behavior, and less likely to accept the consequences of their actions.

Many adults also behave as if sex is a commodity and teenagers feel they are mini adults these days so they emulate them.

Young people, or generations Y and Z as they are commonly called, have never really needed to be responsible or accept consequences. Many of them have never experienced 'lack' and only experienced getting what they want (please be mindful that I am generalizing here!). Modern technology makes almost everything be instantly available. In their minds, why should the same not apply to sex? It's just a physical act (in their minds) and it feels good, why not do it? Consequences - what are they?

I absolutely agree with the article you've quoted that we are yet to see the full consequences (some of them very negative) of this 'sexual revolution'. Although it's a start, I doubt that teaching consequences is going to work given the broader social context, given that teenagers are prone to and encouraged to experiment and given the fact that teenagers want affirmation and recognition from their peers.

I don't have any answers, but I would suggest that teaching teenagers about contraception is vitally important. Condoms must surely be an essential part of any teenager's purse or wallet. If sex is going to occur and 95% of pregnancies are unintended, then the priority should be to reduce the number of pregnancies.

Consequences are something we understand as we get older and have more life experience. Let's face it - you can't put an old head on young shoulders.

[N0help4u]

I am just saying that with sex education the way it is seems to not have solved any problems but has increased the promescuity and the welfare entitlement mentality.

I agree that teaching kids about contraceptives and other things are important but there must be something more that needs to be empathized like responsibility and consequences. I remember there for a while a few schools were having kids carry babies around and they had to take care of them just like real babies or it would cry and record that it wasn't taken care of at certain times and so forth. Something like that would probably be cheaper than all these kids on welfare and the burden it has put on family court going after dads that have babies to a bunch of different girls.

What you said "If sex is going to occur and 95% of pregnancies are unintended, then the priority should be to reduce the number of pregnancies'' is basocally my point. Unfortunately many girls use abortion as birth control.

[Ren6]

I don't think that teenage pregnancy can be blamed on sex ed. Teenagers have been getting pregnant out of wedlock since time began. My eighty year old mother told me last week about her own aunt going through this, plus a great-great grandmother. It's just that in those days, the young woman would go elsewhere to have the baby and give it up for adoption. In the case of my great-great, the newborn infant was found dead in the vault of the hotel where she worked. :eek:

[N0help4u]

But if you look at the statistics kids are sexually active and getting pregnant at a much higher rate and a much younger age.
I know it isn't sex education that is to blame but the lack of responsibility and consequences

I guess the main point I am making is that people criticize all the welfare people but at the same time seem to make excuses for their behavior that gets them there in the first place. So if we don't want to figure out what's wrong and fix it then maybe we shouldn't complain about our tax dollars paying for these kids.
Is cutting off welfare to these kids going to be a deterent or what can be done?

[Ren6]

But if you look at the statistics kids are sexually active and getting pregnant at a much higher rate and a much younger age.
I know it isn't sex education that is to blame but the lack of responsibility and consequences

I guess the main point I am making is that people criticize all the welfare people but at the same time seem to make excuses for their behavior that gets them there in the first place. So if we don't want to figure out whats wrong and fix it then maybe we shouldn't complain about our tax dollars paying for these kids.
Is cutting off welfare to these kids going to be a deterent or what can be done?

I certainly agree with you that getting pregnant, not finishing school, and not getting married seem to be one-way tickets to welfare. Teenagers tend to be impulsive and not foresee the consequences of their actions. I know that some schools send kids home with a baby "mannequin" that cries at all hours and must be tended to, as a way to let kids know how much work a baby really can be, but I don't know the success rate of these programs.

I don't think somebody should be able to sit on welfare their whole lives, but I don't think that keeping kids in the dark about where babies come from and how STDs are acquired is the solution, either. I honestly don't see how sex ed leads to pregnancy. I think that a better solution might be to monitor what kinds of crap one's kids are watching at home on t.v. It's amazing to me what my niece allows my seven and five year old grands to watch on t.v. and in movies!

[N0help4u]

Yeah the crying baby, the empathy pregnancy thing and classes on managing your life in the real world financially and otherwise are what I believe should be emphasised more than here's reasons to use a condom here you go.

I do agree that there is no way getting around kids having the sex education part and keeping them in the dark. At this point I don't think there is any turning back and finding any teen in the dark

[Ren6]

y

I do agree that there is no way getting around kids having the sex education part and keeping them in the dark. At this point I don't think there is any turning back and finding any teen in the dark

They certainly are sophisticated these days. I'm shocked at the some of the out-fits designed for young kids, they seem so revealing.

I'm forty-eight, and I had sex ed in beginning in fifth grade, with "refresher" courses in middle-school as well. Honestly, I was so terrified of the STDs I was learning about, I didn't have sex until I was an adult, and in those days, herpes was the big nasty!

[Torrid13]

That's why I keep my pants on. :)

No babykins for me. I know I'm not ready in any sense to deal with a baby.

And I know no baby is ready for me, either! :D