Pain meds are still making me slow-witted, so I will confine myself to reacting to other people's blog stuff today.
In my continuing quest for how-to tips on teaching kids about human sexuality, I often find myself back at Karen Rayne's website. I haven't added a permanent link to her, since I'm ambivalent about her laissez-faire approach to teenage sexual activity, but she keeps making sense. So it was with her recent series on Parents and Sex Education.
The Advocates For Youth people have lots of good resources for parents, but there's a big gap on their Abstinence page - they don't provide information about "What If I Have Sex And Don't Use Birth Control?" beyond a link to "emergency contraception." Uh, yeah, how about some data on the rates of conception and STIs among people who aren't using contraception? That would be more useful and way less distasteful than telling the little rats, "Don't worry, you can get rid of it if you're knocked up."
Hey, speaking of this last, that reminds me of an important issue in raising kids that I'm trying to broach now as mine get older. How old is grown-up? This question applies in sexuality education but has major broader implications - when do you as a parent expect your child to be responsible for his or her own economic support and/or housing, for example? What level of post-secondary education will you fund for your child and under what circumstances? As you help your kids develop their values, it's worth remembering that your ultimate goal is to produce a good adult human being who can fend for him- or herself in the wild. When childhood ends is one of the limits that children should be taught.
(Hurrah, I did come up with some original content. Now I can go to bed. Yay me.)
About Me
- Mrs. Y
- Helping parents embarrass themselves for the greater good. Making sure your kids don't learn about it in the gutter without dragging them through the gutter.
2 comments:
Hello Mrs. Y,
This is not so much a comment as a request, but I couldn't find your e-mail address on your blog.
Thank you for your continued reading and praise for my blog.
I really appreciate what you write, and I would love to get an increased understanding of your perspective. Would you be interested in and available for answering a few questions by phone or e-mail for me to post on my blog?
Please e-mail me if you are: karen.rayne@gmail.com
Thanks so much,
Karen Rayne
I am struggling with a similar issue. As a parent with a graduate degree, I obviously think there is some merit to delaying gratification. But you can take this gratification delay thing too far. I don't want my children to be teen parents, but nor do I want them to be quarter-life virgins. Or rather, I don't want them to look around one day in their high-powered jobs and realize they have missed out -- on sex, on young love, on getting in on the ground floor with someone. After all, what motivates young people to move out of their mom's house? Sex, of course. The need for privacy.
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