Sex Ed Reformation in the US

As quoted by the Guttmacher Institute in an article containing statistics of teenage sexual activities, “86% of the decline in the teen pregnancy rate between 1995 and 2002 was the result of dramatic improvements in contraceptive use…” while “just 14% of the decline is attributable to decreased sexual activity” (“Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex”). From this statistic, pregnancy rates are not dropping due to teenagers having less sex, but from using contraceptives, yet “Fifteen percent of Americans believe that schools should teach only about abstinence from sexual intercourse and should not provide information on how to obtain and use condoms and other contraceptives” (“Sex Education in America”). The majority of parents want their children to stay safe and innocent for as long as possible, which ideally means to keep them away from sex. But sex is an everyday subject in the 21st century, and knowledge is much safer than ignorance. The sexual education system in the United States needs to be reformed to result in lower unsafe teenage sexual activity statistics, as well as given structure to address the levels of uneducated and poorly educated teenagers.
    The current lack of definitive laws about sexual education in schools is one of the largest factors in correcting the high numbers of teenage pregnancies and diseases. An article composed by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCLS), “State Policies on Sex Education in Schools,” declares that only “18 states require sex education curricula to be medically accurate and/or age appropriate;” they also state that “State policies vary in their determination of ‘medically accurate’; some require that state health departments review curricula, while others require that the facts taught come from “published authorities” trusted by medical professionals. Only 21 states and the District of Columbia require that their high schools teach sexual education (NCLS). Sexual education should not be an option for schools to turn down. Learning about bodily functions, relationships, diseases, and preventative methods is something that needs to be happening in schools today. The number of teenagers having sex before their 19th birthday keeps rising, but schools are falling behind in their responsibility to prepare the next generation for real life. Sex is a large part of real life, especially because many parents teach their children that the subject is a taboo one, something they don’t need to know about. The fifteen percent of American parents who believe abstinence should be the only mention of sexual education are ignoring the very real problem of uneducated and unprotected teenage sex. As stated by a Planned Parenthood article, abstinence-only programs “… strictly exclude discussion of other important sex ed topics, especially those concerned with birth control, safer sex, and sexual orientation. In fact, abstinence-only programs often provide inaccurate and alarmist misinformation about the effectiveness of condoms, contraception, and safer sex.” (“Implementing Sex Education”). Laura Kann, one of the authors of a study conducted in the US about the progress of sexual education, believes school sex education classes can be a good tool to lower the rates of teen pregnancy and the spread of STIs (Beasley). Brigid McKeon’s article “Effective Sex Education” states, “No abstinence-only-until-marriage program has been shown to help teens delay the initiation of sex or to protect themselves when they do initiate sex” but “…the U.S. government has spent over one billion dollars supporting abstinence-only-until-marriage programs,” which in turn is resulting in more teenage pregnancies. “According to The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which estimates that teen childbearing costs taxpayers nearly $10.9 billion annually” (NCLS).The government needs to focus their efforts towards teaching accurate information about sexual activity, diseases, and contraception, instead of wasting money on an option that is obviously not working, and wasting another extreme amount of money dealing with the aftermath.
    The teenage sexual activity stats are quite alarming, especially combining them with the failing sexual education system. “Three in 10 girls will be pregnant at least once before their 20th birthday. Teenage mothers are less likely to finish high school and are more likely than their peers to live in poverty, depend on public assistance, and be in poor health. Their children are more likely to suffer health and cognitive disadvantages, come in contact with the child welfare and correctional systems, live in poverty, drop out of high school and become teen parents themselves” (NCLS). “Among teens aged 18-19, 41% report that they know little or nothing about condoms and 75% say they know little or nothing about the contraceptive pill,” and “More than half (55%) of 7th-12th graders say they have looked up health information online in order to learn more about an issue affecting themselves or someone they know”(“Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex”). These statistics are incredibly high and completely unacceptable. Many researchers agree that the numbers could be cut nearly in half with the correct instruction and information, but instead teens are turning to the internet to find information. “The Web sites teens turn to for sexual health information often have inaccurate information. For example, of 177 sexual health Web sites examined in a recent study, 46% of those addressing contraception and 35% of those addressing abortion contained inaccurate information” (“Facts on American Teens’ Sources of Information About Sex”). If the government were to step in and devise an accurate, efficient way of teaching sexual education in schools while keeping up to date with current information, teens would be much safer, teen pregnancy statistics would fall, and the number of new STI cases each year would also decrease.
    Education is the safest option to deal with teenagers and their developing sexual drives. Sex is an every day subject in the 21st century, and can be found in small to large amounts nearly everywhere. The sexual education system in the United States is failing and reformation is needed to protect and nurture the next generation. Diseases and unplanned pregnancy numbers could be lowered with accurate, trusted information.


PS- I've left the cited works out of the blog in case there are any losers out there who try to copy my work. Get a brain assholes. Do your own work.

Teach Contraception, Stress Abstinence

I haven't decided if I'll post it here or not, but I chose to write a paper instead of taking a final exam. Yes, that professor is pretty cool. I chose to write an argumentative/opinion paper on teaching safe sexual habits (like contraceptives and such) while stressing abstinence. After looking at statistics and articles written on the subject I've come to a conclusion:

The 15% of American parents who believe their children should only be learning abstinence in school are NUTS. Abso-freaking-lutely crazy.

I understand that parental need to keep your child as innocent as possible for as long as you can. I am the second oldest out of 18 grandchildren, and I feel quite maternal to every one of them. But I'm not an idiot. They are going to have sex, probably while they are still in school. And since most of them are in large-city schools, there are more than likely STDs somewhere in that school with the possibility of being passed around.

So instead of burying my head in the sand and ignoring reality for the pleasure of living in a fantasy world, I want to educate them. Well, not actually teach them myself, because I know the awkwardness of that situation and don't want to put them or myself through it. But I want them TO be educated. I want them and my own children to be smart enough to say "Well, I know what to do to be safe" if they are going to ignore the request of abstinence.

Abstinence is not something that happens often in the 21st century, and certainly not in my generation (I'm quite ashamed to admit). I do not believe preaching abstinence is going to keep teenagers from giving into their hormones and messing around with their significant other (even if teens don't consider anything but penetration "real" sex). I believe that abstinence is something that the teen needs to decide for him/herself, and their parents aren't always going to be able to push them towards abstinence. Celebrities, movies, TV shows, porn, peers, social lives... they all make a difference in teen lives. If you look around, all of these things are linked in one way or another to sex or sexual activities (obviously porn, duh). They all matter, and whether the teens admit to it or not, they are affected by their surroundings.

I hope that those 15% of American parents eventually pull their heads out of their asses and realize the reality of this country (and world) is much different than they may like, but they need to adapt. Instead of preaching abstinence and the whole "sex is bad" point of view, why not make your child or teen smart enough to be safe? Abstinence would be ideal, but if they're going to ignore abstinence, at least give them the means to be safe while doing so.

In my mind, even if 99% of teens in high school were having sex using 2 methods of protection (condoms and birth control, for example), there would be a helluva lot less teen pregnancies and futures changed.

A Few Things To Say

1. To those girls who think leggings are pants: THEY ARE NOT! They were designed to go UNDER a skirt or shorts, etc. Showing off your ass, be it a nice toned one or a flabby one, was not the creator's intention. It makes you look like a hooker to walk around campus/stores/cities wearing a skin tight shirt paired with skin tight leggings. Only hookers show off their body in suck a demeaning fashion. There are PLENTY of other ways to show off your assets (read: ASS) without walking around with a wedgie created by spandex.

2. Those who smoke (and some who smoke in NO SMOKING AREAS): KNOCK IT OFF! Seriously, some of us don't want to die as early as 40 from lung cancer or a heart attack. I have plans for my life, which is why I never picked up smoking or drugs. Not only are you taking days, months, years off your own life, BUT OTHERS' AS WELL! Your secondhand smoke slowly kills those around you, even if it's just on your hands or clothes. Please think about this, those of you who have children and precious family. I guarantee they don't appreciate you taking years away from them.

3. Teenage drinkers: I'm neither for it or against it, but if you think you're grown-up enough to drink and make a nuisance of yourself, STAY PUT! Don't leave the place you are drinking, ESPECIALLY IF YOU PLAN TO DRIVE! You are indescribably stupid to think you can drive after even one sip of a drink, let alone driving after multiple drinks. Educate yourself: find out how much time it takes for that alcohol to work it's way out of your blood stream. Not only do you put yourself in danger, but OTHERS as well. If you could care less about killing yourself by driving under the influence, THINK ABOUT OTHERS. Your family would miss you, whether you think so or not. You put everyone else on the road in danger when you get behind the wheel after drinking.

One last thought for those of you who don't think life is all that important: You could be a great influence on the world if you wanted to. If you don't, then go ahead and waste your life. If you actually care about the future, be it the lifestyle of a foster child, abused women, neglected animals, starving kids in third world countries, or the fate of the world: DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH YOUR LIFE! If anything about this world has you thinking or worried, then maybe that's a hint for you to give some of your time to figuring it out, helping the other thousands of people already working towards providing a better future for the next generations.

That is all for today.<3

A Battle Won Against Depression

Just a month ago, I was having a terrible time with college. I was completely ready to go home and take a break from it all. The homework and classes were more stressful than they were interesting, and despite my medication, I could barely find the drive to leave my dorm. My roommates were (and still are) disgustingly messy people who only started cleaning up after themselves because I royally bitched them out. On top of all that, my daily headaches had started making their way towards daily migraines.
I have wonderful online friends, but no matter how much laughter and happiness they brought me, I always lost it again when I was alone. Nothing I did seemed to work, so the more ideas failed, the farther down it felt like I was spiraling.
My social work group had a project to work on one day, and we had to travel to a local agency to conduct an interview. It was one of those mediocre days, so I was really close to telling them I had a headache and couldn’t go, but I sucked it up and forced myself out of the apartment anyways.
To say that the visit renewed my sense of purpose and reason for being is probably exaggerating tremendously for anyone on the outside. After all, how could interviewing the director of a social work related agency do much more than give a person some new perspective?
It didn’t give me a new perspective. It reminded me of the crazy dream I had somehow forgotten about in the struggle with all the negative. It reminded me that yes, my life may completely suck (on some days), but there was a point to it all and there was an end in sight. It wasn’t as cliché as a light bulb clicking on in my head, or a beam of warm light illuminating the scene before me. Hell, it didn’t even happen that very day. It took a few days of researching the agency and writing my report on it to realize what that visit had done for me.
St John’s Home is very close to what I want to do. They’ve been around for 125 years.
It has an emergency shelter for Child Protective Services to temporarily place children who have been taken from their parents. They might stay only a few hours until another family member can take them into custody, or they might have to stay up to a few months to find a foster home.
They also have a residential program, in which the students (the adults refrain from using the word “resident”, as it has an away-from-home feel to it) stay anywhere from 6 months to about 2 years; some stay longer if they have no suitable adoptive home waiting for them. The goal of the program is to treat their behavioral, mental, etc. problems and get them ready for life in a family setting, whether that means adoption or foster care.
I don’t want to get into too much detail and sound boring, but if you’re interested, you should check out their website or Google “St. John’s Home Grand Rapids Michigan”. The campus doesn’t have an unwelcoming feel to it. The main office is definitely for work, and it shows, but behind the office building is a bridge you cross to walk to the separate houses. And that’s what they are. The students live in houses, with their own bedrooms and personal space. The “parents” of the house are social workers who have a Bachelor’s degree, and there are 3 shifts of “parents” in each house. The students go to the public schools in Grand Rapids, so their lives are as normal as the agency can make them.
I cannot say that my life has made a complete turn around, or that the visit changed my life, or anything of the sort. What I can say is that battling depression is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life, and during one of my darkest times, I forced myself to do something that ended up putting me back on track and reminding me that this is all worth it. The migraines, the stress, the schooling, the disgusting roommates, and being away from home. It’ll all be worth it when I get finished and can make an impact in someone else’s life.