Sex Education... for 7yr olds... and 'mini-condoms'

[imokyrok]

There is a direct relationship between sex education and pregnancy. The more sex ed, the more pregnancies. That's been the experience in the UK.

The opposite seems to be true in the US. Or at least abstenance programmes correlate with higher teen pregnancies than proper sex ed.

The significant word though is correlate. It can't be argued that one directly causes the other. Any number of factors could and probably do contribute to higher teen pregnancy.

[imokyrok]

Something I identified during my first full time job (which wasn't that long ago). People have allowed their lives to become incredibly polarized, society appears mostly to have encouraged it, and governments facilitate it. People work jobs they hate so that they don't have to do 101 other things they don't want to do. People have come to believe that if somebody is willing to do it for you, then you should work harder to get money to pay for that service. 1 example:

Teaching children basic maths. Buy your child a stupid computer for christmas that makes maths "fun". Spend 1 hour showing them how to use it and then forget about it. Sure that's what schools are for anyways.

I have seen this happen. People think that as long as they work hard in their careers, everything else should work out. Few parents take any responsibility for their childrens behaviour outside the home, often blaming popular media or the government. The headshop controversy are a perfect case of this. Should the government need to spend money to keep teenagers occupied to avoid anti-social behaviour? Of course not, but the reality is that they have to because parents aren't willing to discipline their children and keep them on the straight on narrow.

Regards internet, I wouldn't let a child of under 12 on the internet, full stop. No facebook or twitter, no games no endless trawls of webjunk. It is a complete waste of anybodies time. Up until the age of 16 internet use should be rigorously monitored as should phone us. I've already made plans for building a house that will have extremely small bedrooms because I don't think that children should have anything in their room, beyond books with which to occupy themselves. As much as possible while in the home all members of a family should be in communal rooms, even if it is just watching tv.

The "family" is protected in our constitution and it is now clear that such protection is pointless. Instead, consumerism should be treated as a threat to our society and its people and the government should be obliged to control its effects. Consumerism is what has destroyed the family unit, not government legislation. Material possessions have become all that many people seek to accumulate, but such possessions undermine communal ownership and thus responsibility. Why work together with your community to provide a sport centre for your children if you can just by a wii or gym membership instead? The feminist movement has also had a massively negative effect on the family unit in this country as well but it would be unfair to blame women for those effects. however in retrospect I feel that it was rushed too much and has now crippled the family unit and perhaps even society to some extent. It will be a long time before we can truly adjust to 2 income families, and in reality it may never happen. Certainly I oppose the concept of a two income family and hope to avoid it, but society the way it is, that may not be possible. That wasn't meant to be a rant against the feminist movement so much as an observation of its effects in the area of discussion.

Of course you did. It's your "thang"!

[cHeal]

Of course you did. It's your "thang"!

No I didn't. I do actually support the original movement which provided women with the opportunity to go to work and such, unfortunately it has had nasty side effects. Again, I don't think feminists can be blamed for those side effects, as it would be near impossible for anyone to predict them but it's a reality and thus deserved a mention and explanation. The real problem as far as I see it is that it all happened too quickly and the option for men to replace women in the home took too long to become acceptable, thus created the standard of the the 2 income household which quickly created the need for 2 incomes.

I have major issues with modern feminism which seems to have more to do with changing the status quo to suit women than anything about equality. Anyways, that is off-topic and represented a rather small portion of my post.

[west'sawake]

'Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.'


I think there is an element of Holden Caulfied in most of us and personally nothing makes me sadder or angrier than the destruction of childhood be it by the sex abusers or the vicarious paedophila that is sexualising and desensitising our children at an earlier and earlier age with the anything goes, mad, Sex Ed brigade. The irony here is that many who promote sex ed, usually the value free version, think they are protecting the young, there is enough evidence now to say they are doing the very opposite.

Sadly they cannot recognise the damage they are doing and blindly ignore the facts that value free, porn lite, sex ed, reinforced by the culture that surrounds us, has led to increased crisis pregnancy, increased S.T.Is, increased psychological problems, increased eating disorders, increased depression, and on and on. Virtue is now repression and vice is virtue.

What has happened to the West? We have taken the hands off our children so that they they can no longer feed themselves.

[Mercurial]

The surest way to place children in danger is to keep them in ignorance.

[Mouroux]

Actually, there is no reason why we cannot have more 'stay at home' dads. But, sub-consciously at least, there is this terrible suspicion directed at men --as if men, whether priests, social workers, teachers, police men, fathers or uncles have to be watched around children... just in case? So does this, and other subtle forms of discrimination, compel men to 'get away', to leave the home to work, or drink, or escape watching sports, etc.?

In relation to sex-ed, there is always this image in the mind of a female teacher, with a bubbly personality, and a natural affinity for dealing with children giving the classes and having the one-to-ones... but how would the average (UK or Irish) parent feel about a middle-aged man having a one-to-one with their daughter, or son for that matter?

As for internet porn, women are increasingly becoming a statistic, some studies point to a figure of 30% of women under the age of thirty being addicted to pornography. So much of this is simply not debated, and stays beneath the surface? It's a mess. And no one wants to face the facts. Societal and cultural change has begun to accelerate from c. mid-nineties. Imagine waking up one morning and all mobile phones, the internet, and TV has ceased to work. Radio broadcasts inform the public that the various services will be down for say a month. What on earth would happen in the average family home? Whatever happened to scrabble, or going outdoors to get some exercise or play (and by play I do not mean hanging around looking bored, or strolling aimlessly around a shopping centre zoned out listening to the iPod). After a few weeks even, would people begin to 'snap out of it' and focus on little things like, oh, the difference between right and wrong maybe?

[cHeal]

Actually, there is no reason why we cannot have more 'stay at home' dads. But, sub-consciously at least, there is this terrible suspicion directed at men --as if men, whether priests, social workers, teachers, police men, fathers or uncles have to be watched around children... just in case? So does this, and other subtle forms of discrimination, compel men to 'get away', to leave the home to work, or drink, or escape watching sports, etc.?

In relation to sex-ed, there is always this image in the mind of a female teacher, with a bubbly personality, and a natural affinity for dealing with children giving the classes and having the one-to-ones... but how would the average (UK or Irish) parent feel about a middle-aged man having a one-to-one with their daughter, or son for that matter?

As for internet porn, women are increasingly becoming a statistic, some studies point to a figure of 30% of women under the age of thirty being addicted to pornography. So much of this is simply not debated, and stays beneath the surface? It's a mess. And no one wants to face the facts. Societal and cultural change has begun to accelerate from c. mid-nineties. Imagine waking up one morning and all mobile phones, the internet, and TV has ceased to work. Radio broadcasts inform the public that the various services will be down for say a month. What on earth would happen in the average family home? Whatever happened to scrabble, or going outdoors to get some exercise or play (and by play I do not mean hanging around looking bored, or strolling aimlessly around a shopping centre zoned out listening to the iPod). After a few weeks even, would people begin to 'snap out of it' and focus on little things like, oh, the difference between right and wrong maybe?

I've seen a documentary which placed a family in a 70's home and there was a point where the inconvenience of not having freezers and such made a housewifes job almost intolerable, while on the other side there did appear to be a balance where the family had a TV a stereo and many of the appliances we have today, but they still enjoyed these things as a family. I believe the personal computer and mobile phones to have been the major turning point, isolating specific members of a family. I

I'm a huge PC gamer, I have been known to play for 6, 7 hours at a time but I have severely cut back now and now rarely play games too much and I have reduced my internet because for the most part it is a waste of time and keeps me from more productive activities. But yeah i believe these things are damaging, severely the family unit.

[Mouroux]

The surest way to place children in danger is to keep them in ignorance.

That's a good slogan, cheers for that!

But getting back to the actual debate... there is this misconception that you can tell children anything, expose them to anything, as long as you put it in context. Example one: 7 year old child is watching a love scene on TV. But hey! It's still okay, as long as an adult is there to give some context: "don't worry sweetie, sometimes when people love each other, and care for each other, they want to be closer..." Example two: child types 'farm play girl' into google... ends up watching something involving a 'girl' and a horse... put that in context. And that's just one instance. How about 500 searches a week, where 'odd things' keep popping up? How will you keep putting it all in context?

[Mercurial]

That's a good slogan, cheers for that!

But getting back to the actual debate... there is this misconception that you can tell children anything, expose them to anything, as long as you put it in context. Example one: 7 year old child is watching a love scene on TV. But hey! It's still okay, as long as an adult is there to give some context: "don't worry sweetie, sometimes when people love each other, and care for each other, they want to be closer..." Example two: child types 'farm play girl' into google... ends up watching something involving a 'girl' and a horse... put that in context. And that's just one instance. How about 500 searches a week, where 'odd things' keep popping up? How will you keep putting it all in context?

I don't know anybody who thinks it's responsible parenting to allow a 7-year-old child to use the internet or watch (post-watershed)TV unsupervised.

[Mouroux]

What planet are you living on? Watersheds?! The majority of people simply ignore watersheds, especially on video games. As for the fact that (i) the internet is saturated with porn and (ii) that the overwhelming number of children have access to the internet (children are clever, are more than capable of disabling 'net nanny', or using their pocket money to go to a net cafe -so really any child can potentially circumvent what few restrictions there actually are) --are you suggesting that even the basic facts are somehow being hyped? You're a classic case of selfish denial.