Where Do Babies Come From? I Know, Do You?

As I look around, everywhere I go, I have begun to truly wonder if people know where babies come from. I also wonder if having a child, in today's society, is getting closer to having puppies to many. What I mean by that is, on every corner you see people, single women who cannot support a household without government assistance, dragging 3 or 4 kids around.Many start as teen parents and it continues into adulthood. No way to do anything but sit around and hope for something better, but they are still having more children.

It has become painfully apparent that no matter how technologically advanced we have become, we are still not getting any more responsible about having children. Mike Huckabee slammed Natalie Portman for having a child out of wedlock. How sad that he chose her when she is engaged and has full intentions of raising her child with her partner. If the people in Government are going to talk about children being born out of wedlock, they should start with families. Families prepare children to be adults. It seems that we continue to fail at that job. Maybe more focus on helping parents understand the importance of teaching sexuality and making sure THEIR children are educated on where babies come from, we would start to enlighten our future women and men about parenthood.

So many schools either teach sex education or have implemented non descriptive courses that include the facts, but parents have failed to do their part to help drive the points home. We have become accustomed in America to letting the schools raise our children. When they get older and get in trouble, we wonder what happened and who we should blame. We have yet to look in the mirror to find the people responsible for not getting the job done.

I heard an interview on "The Talk" today about a place that John Stamos promotes. It is a wonderful place that takes newborn babies and places them in loving homes. Since starting, they have placed over 600 babies.These babies are turned over from women who don't want them for whatever reason. Truly an act that appears to make those women seem more responsible for recognizing that they cannot care for the child. I agree that they made good decisions at that juncture of the process. Those babies hopefully are going to families that will give them the best opportunities possible and be loved like they should. My question would be, "Why did they not use that responsible decision making process to NOT get pregnant. Though they gave those children a better chance by giving them away, they still "GAVE THEM AWAY".

Children who are not given away are many times subjected to abuse because the parents really did not want them. But every time you see that person, they have another one in the oven. WHY?????. As a mother and grandmother, who is raising her granddaughter, I failed. I obviously did not tell mine where babies came from. I didn't prepare them for being women so they could make better choices.

I don't think a mother or father gets up everyday and says "I don't care if you get pregnant when you turn 16" or "I don't care if you become a father at 16". I think we lose focus on what exactly our jobs are. We are so busy with this and that, and everything seems important at the time. Children are like sponges. If we recognize that, we have the advantage. Your start much earlier than you would,normally thinking, and program them with the right information for future use. If you saw the little girl on the Internet( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rbMHLDY1pA) a few weeks ago, you saw an example of programming. Her mother has started programming her to NOT have a boyfriend until she has a job. Smart. She has got the gist of the job. So many mothers and fathers are scared to bring up sex to their children. So many leave it to others. Many don't have a clue about how to be a parent, much less talk about sex to their children. Others just don't care enough to mess with it.

There are not any books on how to be a parent to your particular child. There are many factors at work. However, basically children are born smart, loving, curious,mischievous and blank. Unless there are known mental health issues, kids soak up everything, those around them do or say. Telling them what will happen and getting them in the state of mind to value themselves and the value of having a child, will make them conscious of what can happen.

According to guttmacher.org "13% of teens have ever had vaginal sex by age 15, sexual activity is common by the late teen years. By their 19th birthday, seven in 10 teens of both sexes have had intercourse".

According to an article on the NYTimes.com "It's very disturbing," said Sarah Brown, of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "We had over a decade of progress on a very serious problem, and I worry that we've ground to a halt. I think there are a lot of different factors at play, from less use of contraception, maybe because of less fear of AIDS, to our anything-goes culture, where it's O.K. to get pregnant and have a baby in your teens."

It isn't the act of sex that is a problem. The problem is kids having babies. NO teenager is equipped emotionally or financially to have a child. Who is going to raise that child. Either grandparents or the state or an adoption situation. Either way, it is a child being put out to be the responsibility of someone other than the person that had sex to produce it. We can't control the sex 100%. We can control the mindset of those we are responsible for. Start early. Talk to your children. Girls and Boys. Boys should learn to have more respect for women and for themselves.

For a young man or woman, to send a child out for someone else to raise should be sorrowful and it is later for many. I know several men that have to bite their lip when they talk about doing that exact thing. They didn't want the responsibility at the time or circumstances got in the way and they just never could recover the position as father or mother. The burden of that time weighs heavy later in life. Had they been better educated in the area of the opposite sex and responsibilities of fatherhood or motherhood, they wouldn't have gone through that. I know many more that just chalk it up to the way it is and walk away.

It is OUR responsibility as parents to make sure OUR children are prepared to be adults. Not just letting them grow and figure it out on their own. Participate in your child's upbringing. I realize it sounds old fashioned but well prepared adults are not. In this era of free sex, the Charlie Sheen factor and so many other "BAD" influences, we should clothe our children in armor everyday, but good training is just as good.

Are you participating in teaching your kids where babies come from?