Mysteryman makes my point exactly. It's not the sex ed that sets me off. It's what they're teaching and how they're teaching it.
Montana wrote:Mysteryman makes my point exactly. It's not the sex ed that sets me off. It's what they're teaching and how they're teaching it.
But Montana, just up here you wrote, "I agree that children need that sex ed and I don't have a problem with the schools teaching it as long as there is parental consent."
In response, some of us were writing about - what if parents refuse their consent? What if
they do get "set off" by sex ed, itself. Should sex ed to their children then be halted?
You have your standards about what you dont want them to teach your children - "sexual positions", for example. Mysteryman has his - schools should not teach his children "that being gay is normal and ok for them".
Other parents, again, would personally rather not see schools inform their children about condoms. The Muslim site mysteryman linked to is an example of that - it speaks of "the now notorious distribution of condoms in schools".
Now noone is saying we should force those parents to teach their children about safe sex. But should we give those parents the right to block schools from telling their children about condoms, too?
nimh,
Read the article I linked to.That states my objections better and more concise then I can.
I just did. I edited my post above to include a quote from the article.
I applaud the article's effort in encouraging Muslim immigrants to engage in sex education of their children, by the way.
But the advice to pull out one's children from sex ed because of, for example, the way it teaches about homosexuality being "just as legitimate as the heterosexual married family unit" - a position the article obviously considers scandalous - is troubling, to me. It's one of the things that would make me hope that, one day, it wouldnt be allowed to withdraw one's children from classes just because you dont like what they might be hearing - just like, already, I'm sure you cant just pull your children out of history class just because you dont want them to hear about evolution, or slavery, or etc.
No, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. The way it is now, they're corrupting these kids minds with filth and they don't touch base at all with the emotional aspect of sex. My son use to come home from school and tell me things that they taught him in school and I was shocked and it takes a hell of a lot to shock this girl.
I am going to have to get off this subject because it really hits home with me and I need to keep my blood pressure down. Not that anything you said is making me upset, it's having to go into the past and relive it that gets to me.
I have already debated this issue as far as I can anyway, so I will end in saying that I respect all your opinions and hope you respect mine as well.
Cheers :-)
Montana,
I have always respected your opinion,even when you are wrong...LOL
I don't know if this will be a short post with coherent points or a long osso ramble. Stay tuned.
- I went to a catholic girls high school in the fifties and had apparently the same lecture and movie that Wy got at her school. Nothing from my parents. Learned what I could from reading disparate material including the Ligorian (no! no!), Battle Cry (where I think I first saw/heard the word '****'), and Seventeen magazine.
- experienced quite a lot of changes in the sixties, including the famous Catholic Girl syndrome plus, eh, the Sixties...
- and then there was the Seventies.
It took me quite a while to equilibrate.
- On my way to adulthood, I was a bacteriology major and became eventually a licensed clinic/research med tech. I have certain public health and safety viewpoints.
- Later I studied in another field, and when passed boards and got my state license, I had interview exams regarding the health, safety, and welfare of the people of California (landscape architecture). I am sort of famous for being more safety oriented when I first see a place than design oriented.
So, so far you can assume that I am pro general education and not relying on parents.
- I have a strong connection with my niece, now almost sixteen, a child who has been through some horrendous stuff that I really must write down one day, and seems to be emerging psychologically intact, with some but not so very much help from her parents, who she has been a pawn, and more, between. At twelve, she knew more via friends than I did at eighteen.
I live a thousand miles away now, and when she visits it is a royal talkathon. I think I have had some valuable input for her into what ehBeth first posted.......
that a child learn not only the science, physiology, medical impact of sexual matters, but emotional. A baby is not a toy, or the best way away from home.
Whether the school should teach that? To some degree, yes. Certainly I think the school should teach the basic medical sexual information. But isn't there some class in life skills? (As an aside, I wish someone had given me one or two lectures on basic business and finance, long long ago.)
A guy or girl or both drinking or drugging too much and getting into consensual or semi consensual sex sans condom, perhaps rape, can be a killer, with aids. So never mind YOUR child, how about the other person's child? Maybe that child meant rape but not to be a killer. Sorry to put it so baldly.
At the same time, I can understand wanting parents' permission for the class. But then I come down on no, that is just a courtesy, if at all. As long as the class does not tell the child
- that sex is fine with condom (somehow I tend to doubt that it is taught that way, but maybe it happens, I am not in the classes.)
- that to be moral they have to be abstinent
- that they don't push nonabstinence with apparent joking acceptance of it, which might signal acceptance for what an individual teen is not ready for.
So, what, I summarize by wanting the schools to handle some fair aspect of the teaching but not shade the choice.
And, I thought teens do have some kind of rights in the US. I think they can ask what parent to live with at 13...
Parental rights and children's rights and state rights are ALL fraught with concern. I suppose I think each have some, with various considerations, no time to work that out here right now.
A child will grow up though, and make his or her own decisions, very very fast. I think that child needs information.
edited to add parenthesis
<nodding in understanding and agreement with what ossoB has offered>
The American age of deciding which parent to live with is 16. I learned a lot of sexual health from 17 magazine too! Also, to buy too much makeup and shampoo.
My experience with (Texas) sex ed has been too little information, and too religiously biased. I also dislike how far back funds have been cut to planned parenthood, I think because they are not against abortion and are for birth control (which some religions are against).
My cousin, who is a professional in this matter, has told me it is thirteen, back when my niece was thirteen. I believe her, but that may just be in California, or possibly only in certain situations, and besides, I personally am no expert.
I get the distinct impression most "Experts" in the field of SexEd are not practicing adherents of the artform ... sorta like Politics, or Pro Sports ... there are those that do it, and there are those that talk about it.
