Adults Need To Grow Up (Comment)

by LotusFlower | June 24, 2008 at 01:55 am | 282 views | 5 comments

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A thoughtful comment piece on adult attitudes to teenage sex from Rowenna Davis of The Guardian. While the teenage pregnancy and abortion figures are worrying we should perhaps welcome better clinics and education for our teenagers rather than show idignation at schools offereing such services.

Over the past week, the media spotlight has focused unrelentingly on the darker corners of the teenage bedroom. First came news of a 10% rise in abortions among under-16s. Then there was the "pregnancy pact" apparently made by up to 18 high school pupils in Massachusetts in the US, who are believed to have planned to conceive at the same time. And, at the weekend, headlines screamed about condoms and morning-after pills being handed out to children as young as 11 by school nurses.

But reacting with equal outrage to all of these stories just doesn't make sense. Underage pregnancies and teenage abortions do raise serious concerns, but schools intervening to promote access to contraception should not.

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generaldecay

at 02:57 on June 24th, 2008

good stuff:

LotusFlower, great post.

zichi

at 03:10 on June 24th, 2008

I think there is a marked difference with parental attitudes in America with those found in Britain and probably with other EU countries. American parents believe its their responsibility to deal with sex education, contraception, abortion, which might be fine if they actually did it, but I suspect its more about 'no you can't!" rather than meaningful discussions with their children.

Sex education should begin from day 1 at a level appropriate for each age, so its a natural understanding rather than something discussed in the teens, which by then is often too late.

itslefty

at 04:02 on June 24th, 2008

good stuff:

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

I think the media should take a lot of the responsibility when it comes to child sexual activity, Our children seem to be treated like fodder at the hands of the advertisers, TV programmers and girlie magazine publications.

It is the Media representative that should grow up, they should stop mentally abusing our children and let them grow up in their own good time.