Why You Should Give Your Kids a Daily Dose of the Truth About Sex

Even school sex-ed doesn't make up for not being open and understanding with your kids about sex. Gives statistics about school sexual education programs and a personal account.

How old is too old to believe in Santa Claus? Never, if by Santa Claus you mean the spirit of generosity within all people. How old is too old to be inundated by abstinence-only sexual education? Thirty, if you ask the Bush administration. In 2005, Congress appropriated 50 million dollars to give grants to states willing to revise their sex ed programs to target people between the ages of 12 and 29. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the numbers for this age range to be around 68 million. That 50 million dollars is enough to buy everyone in the U.S. between the ages of 12 and 29 two condoms each.

And to think I hadn't even noticed? Five years ago in a high school gym class, the boys and girls were split to watch videos made in the 80's on plasma screen TVs. How's that for good use of 50 million dollars? After watching the videos, the actresses conducted a pop-quiz for us students. "Yes or no, jumping up and down after intercourse will keep you from getting pregnant?" The excited response, "Oh yeah, yeah, that totally works!" Granted I was a year older than the other girls in my class, I was still absolutely horrified. Even though the schools I attended were in a small southern town, we didn't have abstinence-only education. We learned every detail about sexual organs, reproduction, and contraception- everything except what I know now to be female ejaculation. The curriculum required that's where the line should be drawn for fifth-graders when many curriculums now are sheltering young people from that knowledge and kicking them out to learn for themselves! The idea of children not being exposed in some level about sex and STDs in the public school system where children are prepared to enter the world as learned adults appalls me.

In a time where the words "Under God" are controversial in schools, I cannot believe that this has been allowed. How can we be so concerned about the separation of church and state and saving questions of morality for the home when children are learning only half of the truth of sex! The reason these issues are brought to the curriculum is because they are rarely brought to the kitchen table.

Even though I had a solid knowledge of sex and STDs, my home experience seemed to reverse its effects. Although my parents presented with the same ideas I later learned in school, they were not as understanding as they thought themselves to be. Upon beginning menstruation she asked my mother panicked, "Are you sure that's not coming from somewhere else?" She once called me a whore when she asked, "Who was your first kiss?" and I honestly told her I couldn't remember. She would periodically sit me down in the parlor and ask, "You're still a virgin, right?" She felt it necessary to proceed in describing her past experiences with me and would react wildly if I had a personal question to ask. And out of all of my friends, except one girl whose mother was a nurse, it was obvious that my parents had the most to say about sex. This tension regarding sexual matters in the home was so strong that I continued to be molested by the same person for ten years because I was too scared to face the chaos that would ensue in the home if I told my parents. Of course she wept but she still could not see why I waited until after the fact to tell her.

It is clear that schools do a less than adequate job in doing what parents should do. Hopefully, this will change in the future, but it is still not an excuse to educate your children about the truth regarding sex: its beauty, its pleasures, and its many dangers. This world is not in a state where parents can send their children off without protection. Hoping for the situation to not arise is not enough, but giving your children an understanding of it and a safe and peaceful place to come if it does is.

Sources:

U.S. Census Bureau, "Annual Estimates of the Population by Five-Year Age Groups and Sex for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2006."

Stephanie Coontz, "No Sex For You," TomPaine.Com.

Sharon Jayson, "Abstinence message goes far beyond teens," USA Today.

James Wagoner, "Now the Democrats Are Funding Abstinence?" TomPaine.com.