UGA study: Higher pregnancy and birth rates in states with abstinence-only sex ed programs in schools
Most of the research on abstinence-only sex education programs in schools has found the programs don’t work and can backfire.
Now, a new study out of UGA reaffirms that finding.
From UGA:
States that prescribe abstinence-only sex education programs in public schools have significantly higher teenage pregnancy and birth rates than states with more comprehensive sex education programs, researchers from the University of Georgia have determined.
The researchers looked at teen pregnancy and birth data from 48 U.S. states to evaluate the effectiveness of those states’ approaches to sex education, as prescribed by local laws and policies.
“Our analysis adds to the overwhelming evidence indicating that abstinence-only education does not reduce teen pregnancy rates,” said Kathrin Stanger-Hall, assistant professor of plant biology and biological sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
Hall is first author on the resulting paper, which has been published online in the journal PLoS ONE.
The study is the first large-scale evidence that the type of sex education provided in public schools has a significant effect on teen pregnancy rates, Hall said.
“This clearly shows that prescribed abstinence-only education in public schools does not lead to abstinent behavior,” said David Hall, second author and assistant professor of genetics in the Franklin College. “It may even contribute to the high teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries.”
Along with teen pregnancy rates and sex education methods, Hall and Stanger-Hall looked at the influence of socioeconomic status, education level, access to Medicaid waivers and ethnicity of each state’s teen population.
Even when accounting for these factors, which could potentially impact teen pregnancy rates, the significant relationship between sex education methods and teen pregnancy remained: the more strongly abstinence education is emphasized in state laws and policies, the higher the average teenage pregnancy and birth rates.
“Because correlation does not imply causation, our analysis cannot demonstrate that emphasizing abstinence causes increased teen pregnancy. However, if abstinence education reduced teen pregnancy as proponents claim, the correlation would be in the opposite direction,” said Stanger-Hall.
The paper indicates that states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates were those that prescribed comprehensive sex and/or HIV education, covering abstinence alongside proper contraception and condom use. States whose laws stressed the teaching of abstinence until marriage were significantly less successful in preventing teen pregnancies.
These results come at an important time for legislators. A new evidence-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative was signed into federal law in December 2009 and awarded $114 million for implementation. However, federal abstinence-only funding was renewed for 2010 and beyond by including $250 million of mandatory abstinence-only funding as part of an amendment to the Senate Finance Committee’s health-reform legislation.
With two types of federal funding programs available, legislators of individual states now have the opportunity to decide which type of sex education—and which funding option—to choose for their state and possibly reconsider their state’s sex education policies for public schools, while pursuing the ultimate goal of reducing teen pregnancy rates.
Stanger-Hall and Hall conducted this large-scale analysis to provide scientific evidence to inform this decision. “Advocates for continued abstinence-only education need to ask themselves: If teens don’t learn about human reproduction, including safe sexual health practices to prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as how to plan their reproductive adult life in school, then when should they learn it and from whom?” said Stanger-Hall.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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113 comments Add your comment
Bert
November 30th, 2011
10:25 am
What is the role of gov’t?
Joe Joe
November 30th, 2011
10:27 am
Parents… If you have time to read and resend to this blog you have time to learn everything you need to know about sex,STD’s and Pregnancy.
jd
November 30th, 2011
10:27 am
Using Zero-based budgeting logic – the abstinence program will be halted by the Ga Legislature — they are serious about data-driven decisions, no?
catlady
November 30th, 2011
10:36 am
We have kids who are not taught basic manners and ways of behaving (answering a telephone, introducing people, for example) by their parents and we want to believe these same parents are teaching about pregnancy prevention??? You are kidding, right? I mean, you have seen these kids, at an earlier stage, in restaurants and Walmart, right? If their parents do not teach them how to stay seated, look but don’t touch, do you really think the parents will try or that they have the moral authority inculcated to dissuade their kids from having sex when they are 11+?
And, if your child is one of the ones who is supervised, who is taught proper behavior, all it takes is an infatuation and those moral precepts are out the window, baby, when they meet up with a “partner” not so well taught.
I’ve got a 4th grader right now who is trolling for a baby. She isn’t thinking about it that way–she just likes the attention the older boys give her when they can see her bra (heavily padded) and her yaya hanging out the short-shorts. And her parents buy her these clothes, and let her wear them! (Yes, we have a dress code. I have made a nuisance of myself asking that it be enforced). I believe she will have a baby by the time she is 14. Sex ed at school? It’s her only chance, and a slim one it is. After all, her cousins have babies early and often.
Bert
November 30th, 2011
10:37 am
The gov’t should not be teaching my kids about sex, that is the role of the invisible hand of the free market.
Shar
November 30th, 2011
11:17 am
Children WILL learn about sex, and they WILL learn about it before most parents are comfortable with them having the knowledge.
The question is where responsible parents want them to learn about it, and how to handle children of irresponsible parents.
There are four options for learning, two of which (’the street’, or popular culture, and friends) will happen regardless of what parents want. The other two choices are parent-controlled (and this includes outside organizations chosen by the parent) and school. Those are really the only choices parents have, and they must understand that whatever children are told in ‘approved’ venues, the influence of culture and peers is likely to be stronger.
Children who have babies cannot support them effectively through age 18, and most fall back on public assistance, impoverishing both their own futures and that of their children. It is clearly in the public interest to discourage teen pregnancy. If the UGA study can be confirmed, national school policy should change to broaden sex education with information on contraception and disease transmission, with an opt-out for parents who do not want their children to participate. However, the opt-out should come with consequences – if the non-participating child becomes pregnant, the parents of both the father and the mother should be required to bear the cost of the pregnancy and the resultant child. The consequences of wilfull ignorance should not fall on the taxpayer.
And yes, birth control should be widely and freely available. It is absurd policy to refuse to provide adequate, actionable information on birth control, refuse to provide contraceptives, refuse to allow abortions on demand and then pillory the pregnant girls and women as “baby machines” and cut social services so that both mother and child (because daddy is long gone) live in hopeless poverty. There is nothing good that comes of such a ridiculous approach.
AMD
November 30th, 2011
11:37 am
“For this analysis we focused on the three largest ethnic groups for which data are available: white, black, and Hispanic [12]. Teen pregnancy rates differ across these three ethnic groups. Across this reduced sample of states, 2005 teen pregnancy rates averaged 48.1 (±1.95) pregnancies per 1000 white teens, 103.7 (±5.38) pregnancies per 1000 black teens, and 141.6 (±8.55) pregnancies per 1000 Hispanic teens.”
Pregnancy rates are too high for every group. However, if you look at the rates by racial makeup, it looks like the urgent task is to help the Hispanic and black teens. My personal opinion is that we should educate the Hispanic and black teenage boys about the value of respecting their girlfriends. I have been told (thankfully we don’t live in these school districts) that teenage girls in certain school districts in metro Atlanta have to deal with very “pushy” teenage boys. Most of these boys are black or Hispanic.
Let’s be honest. Ethnic culture and familiar value make a difference in teen pregancy. It’s not just how much sex ed one has to have to avoid pregancy.
Dr NO / Mr Sunshine
November 30th, 2011
11:39 am
“With a very serious look he stated, “They come out your butt.”
LMAO!! Hilarious!! She must have class with Beavis and Butthead.
Anonmom
November 30th, 2011
11:46 am
Y’all would have loved my 10 minutes with 17 and 18 year old boys (10 of them and one 14 year old — 2 of them mine — inlcuidg the 14 year old) — discussing the 2 dozen pregnant girls at the local publich DCSS “top” high school — mostly, but not all, seniors. One was back at school, I think with the baby (this is a few years ago) — I asked the boys if the dad was paying child support — they looked at me like I had lost my mind. I figured we needed to have this chat — if you have a baby — you pay child support — their response — dad wasn’t even speaking to mom — me: doesn’t matter — if you have a baby — you pay support — this went on for about 10 minutes — they then grabbed my sons and fled to the basement. I followed up with one of the boy’s moms to see if he had “reported in” (he had not) — she said he knew she would have continued the conversation….. no one, ever, discusses this angle. I thought it could be an effective way to drag out condoms……
dc
November 30th, 2011
11:49 am
Simple solution – birth control in the water supply!! Then who cares what’s taught.
V for Vendetta
November 30th, 2011
11:53 am
This study is amazing!
In other news, water is wet and fire is hot.
Give me a break. Of course abstinence only sex education is a massive failure. Teens are going to have sex. I repeat, TEENS ARE GOING TO HAVE SEX. If you think your teen hasn’t done something sexual yet, you’re a fool. But why am I suprised when I see quotes such as this:
“Giving your teenager birth control is condoning the behavior. If she really, really wants to play Russian Roulette, will you give her a helmet?”
What idiocy! What unbridled stupidity! Let’s be frank for once. There are only two reasons in existence that form the basis for all parents’ beliefs in regards to this topic: 1. My [insert stupid faith here] says no, and 2. I don’t want my child to be seen as a whore. I can’t help with the first one because your entire world view is hopelessly tainted, but the second one is mind-bogglingly simple to understand. For those of you who don’t get enough or have forgotten what it feels like, SEX FEELS GOOD. Like, really good. Better than a footrub. Better than a massage. Better than, well, just about anything. But it’s also a deeply intimate act, one that requires two people (because it doesn’t matter if they’re gay or straight) to be as close as people can possible get. By reserving such intimacy for those with whom one is also emotionally intimate, the experience will be more emotionally fulfilling. But, if one is to give it away freely, the physical experience will mean less, and, depending on each partners’ past, it could become a problem in the relationship. Of course, we’ve all had our trysts, and it’s biological nature to desire more. It’s called being human.
Sex doesn’t feel any different to a fourteen-year-old or a twenty-year-old or a thirty-year-old, but the older one gets the more one thinks about the long term ramifications of one’s actions. THAT’S the difference. Maybe if we teach kids about responsibility the problem will take care of itself, eh?
Beverly Fraud
November 30th, 2011
11:54 am
I think some of the uber Christians who push this type of education would be none too happy with some of the evidence of this approach, and its effect on anal intercourse rates. (Can this get by the blog filter?)
Hint: The rates for anal intercourse among those who get “abstinence only” education do NOT decrease, according to the evidence, they INCREASE.
Seems there are some who are looking for “loopholes” (no pun intended) in the whole “abstinence” thing.
Talk about your unintended consequences for the uber Christian set!
MiltonMan
November 30th, 2011
11:59 am
Wow how shocking. Yet another program being taught in our crappy schools that does not work.
Did this study “analize” the pregnancy rates in those states prior to abstinence sex ed??? I doubt it.
catlady
November 30th, 2011
12:09 pm
Miltonman: yep, it’s the schools’ fault, especially those teachers! If they were doing their jobs, we would not have any out of wedlock teenaged births! Let’s put that in their evaluations for RTTT!
LOL on the “anal ize”.
Reality
November 30th, 2011
12:26 pm
Still waiting on the “conservative” response to my question….
If conservatives demand the ‘right to life’ and they also don’t want to teach sex ed in schools, then are they willing for the government to pay and support these children????
If not, then are they willing to adopt them?????
mountain man
November 30th, 2011
12:26 pm
As a parent of four, I took my responsibility of sex education seriously, since we knew that scools could not be counted on. I gave lessons to our kids (two and two) on how to apply a condom – using a banana. We also talked abstinence. But my main point was if you end up having sex, I sincerely hope you are using TWO forms of birth control, one being a condom. Our kids know that you can get pregnant even if there is no “penetration” since all that is needed is for a sperm and an egg to get together and implant in a uterus. As far as I know it has worked well since I don’t know of any pregnancies or STD’s from our kids (the oldest is 25 and the youngest is 21). BTW, giving protection is NOT giving permission. If they are asking for protection, the sex is going on whether you give permission or not.
DJ Sniper
November 30th, 2011
12:30 pm
Oh yea, how could I forget the kids who engage in anal all for the sake of “still being a virgin.” Or the ones who look at oral sex the same as kissing.
mountain man
November 30th, 2011
12:32 pm
I also like the idea that some schools had – make eery student take care of a “baby” for a week. You know, thos fake babies that cry and you hae to feed, and sometimes cry even if you DO feed them. A real eye-opener for some. Too bad we can’t also simulate having to pay child support for the males. That was something I included in sex education for the boys in our family: if you get a girl pregnant, you will have zero say in whether she has the child and you will be responsible for child support until he/she turns 18.
Trolls Bane
November 30th, 2011
12:40 pm
I have a solution … remove the temptation and the problem resolves itself.
1. Boys and girls should attend separate schools starting a puberty (middle school age).
2. Absolutely no un-supervised interaction between boys and girls. Bring back chaparoned dating.
V for Vendetta
November 30th, 2011
12:42 pm
DJ and Bev,
You are correct. Many, many, MANY teens engage in oral because they think it “doesn’t count.” They rack up an unbelievable number of “partners” in that respect–but still claim their virginity intact to all who will listen. Ridiculous!
sandy springs parent
November 30th, 2011
12:56 pm
What you all are missing here is that the middle class, upper middle class and rich white kids at the good Fulton, Cobb and Private Schools are into oral sex.
My junior daughter just came home yesterday and told me that she had dumped her boyfriend of 2.5 months because all he had been bugging her about was when he was going to get a BJ. This had been since a month into the relationship. She told me a month ago she even had a girl come up to her and say I can show you how to do them. You are never going to keep a boyfriend at this school if you don’t give them. My daughter then looked at her and said you don’t have a boyfriend and everyone knows you are a big whore.
student
November 30th, 2011
12:58 pm
Tolls Bane, you have to be kidding. Please.
sandy springs parent
November 30th, 2011
12:58 pm
V for Vendetta is absolutely correct this is what happens at all the higher SES White Schools and the Private Schools
MILF Chaser
November 30th, 2011
1:04 pm
“Along with a treasure trove of other colorful inquiries which I’m not at liberty to discuss. ”
Nonsense. You most certainly are at liberty to discuss. You have chosen not to.
I hardly think a crack SWAT team is going to drive up, jump out of a black van, and kick in front doors because some anonymous person posted on an internet blog.
mem
November 30th, 2011
1:13 pm
When my child was in 6th grade our PTA notified us of the pending sex ed classes which we could opt out of (we opted in) and also gave info on sessions at Planned Parenthood that we might find useful. PP offered peer-to-peer sessions for students, and one for parents. We attended the parent session just to see what it was all about. It was a very eye-opening experience and I would recommend it to mothers and fathers, especially if you’re a little uncomfortable about discussing this topic with your kids. It presented an opportunity to interact with parents from all over the area who discussed what was going on with kids in their systems.
My child chose not to attend the peer sessions having already gone through the sex ed class at school, plus we’d always had many “teachable moments” to give and get information. It’s amazing what you learn just shooting the breeze in the car with your kid that you can use to teach them self respect, biology, and a little social science at the same time!
DJ Sniper
November 30th, 2011
1:34 pm
Sandyspringsparent, you are so correct. I bet some people think that just inner city kids and what not are engaging in these acts. Some parent are completely in denial.
Mem, I like what you said about the lessons your kid got at PP. Let some people tell it, PP is nothing but a 24/7 abortion factory.
It’s a trip how when I was growing up, oral sex was something that you did NOT admit to doing. These days, it seems to be the next step after kissing.
mem
November 30th, 2011
1:47 pm
@DJ Sniper, parents have a very short memory and far too many are in denial. It wasn’t so long ago that Katie Couric did that program about the Rockdale County kids from those “good” homes and what they were doing in their spare time. We now have an increase in oral HPV infections. Middle school isn’t the place it once. Parents, mothers in particular, need to just show up at school and roam some of the areas that aren’t routinely monitored, they’d be shocked.
Warrior Woman
November 30th, 2011
1:47 pm
Isn’t anyone actually interested in the quality of the research? For example, it appears that the researchers assume correlation is causation and the prescribed level of abstinence education is all the sex education delivered (abstinence-only or otherwise). The abstinence-only states are diverse enough in their approaches to render them too heterogenous for a single group, statistically. It is not clear that the chosen measure of educational attainment is appropriate. It does not appear the study controlled jointly for socioeconomic and demographic factors, or controlled for interactions between those factors. In short, the study is flawed, and of limited use.
.
Shar
November 30th, 2011
1:55 pm
Warrior, you’re grasping at straws.
V for Vendetta
November 30th, 2011
2:19 pm
Warrior Woman,
A more likely cause: abstinence only states are full of religious fools who think that by condemning the act of sexual intercourse their children–who are often far more liberal whether they know it or not–will magically conform to their provincial beliefs and avoid touching anyone of the opposite sex. Oh, and all that anti abortion stuff, too.
Read the study about crime and its link to abortion in the very excellent book Freakonomics. (Hint: legal abortion equals LESS crime. Duh.)
oneofeach4me
November 30th, 2011
2:25 pm
Why are some people SO against public schools teaching young adolescents about sex?? I had sex ed growing up, my mom had a sex ed class growing up, and I expect my kids to also have an opportunity to attend. My mother also talked to me about it, so she didn’t leave it just up to the schools. I as the parent am responsible for teaching the moral, financial, and responsible side of sex. It’s up to the school to teach the stuff I am not an expert in, being STD’s, reproductive organs and how they operate, ect.
Abstinence doesn’t really work. My mom refused to believe me when I told her my 15 yr old sister was sexually active. I told her to put her on BC. She said there was “no way”. Oh, well, how do you explain her being pregnant at 16 then? As someone else said, protection and BC are not permission to have sex, it’s prevention. Plus, whether or not you give permission, it’s going to happen.
dform
November 30th, 2011
3:09 pm
I believe that we should be teaching our children responsibility for their actions. Yes sex feels very good, but there are consequences that come with having sex-babies, stds-some treatable others not. Babies cost money. Tax payers shouldn’t have to pay for a teens baby. Both the mother and father made the baby and should anti-up and take care of it. As I was told growing up, if you think you’re old enough to have sex, you better be old enough to take care of baby.
Our children are bombarded by sex. Turn on the tv and it’s everywhere. Much of the programing geared towards children is not appropriate for them to watch. We don’t allow our children to be children. Many of the girls clothing found in stores is way to mature for these young girls. Just a week or so ago, I saw an ad of a kids clothing store selling crotchless panties for 10 and 11 year olds. Really!!!! This makes no sense.
Until our children are responsible for their actions and realize that all actions have consequences, our children and our society are on a slippery slope. Parents have given our government schools more and more power over their children-feeding the kids breakfast and lunch, teaching them about sex, etc. When will parents wake up and realize that raising the children they have is their responsibility? It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to provide food, clothing, shelter, and teach them right from wrong, but the parent.
To Mike C from Good Mother
November 30th, 2011
3:31 pm
You say we are missing the point…maybe you’ve missed some other finer points.
Many times, Mike, those parents who say, as you do, that schools should not teach sex education, are the same people who do not educate their children at home. Sex is often a tabu subject at home.
This fact might seem like it is a private matter between parent and child with some important exceptions…when parents choose NOT to adequately educate their children at home and their children become pregnant as teens, those babies are often supported financially by we taxpayers.
In other words, it is only a private family matter if the family privately pays for every aspect of that unintended pregnancy and that never happens.
As an active duty armed services member I dealt with those families who advocated sex education only at home. When those teenagers became “parents” they were woefully ill equipped to provide financially and emotionally for themselves. Often the active duty military member was the strict father and disciplinarian and “no daughter of mine is ever going to…..” oops. Here comes a grandbaby….supported by all of we taxpayers and here is an innocent child being born to a mother and father too immature to care for themselves, much less a child.
Everyone and our society as a whole suffers when immature parents give birth to children, especially the innocent child.
So if you are a parent who advocates sex education at home, then please, really really educate your child at home. Books, pictures and frank discussions should be consistent, frequent and ongoing. The “sex talk” should never be a “talk.” It should a frequent topic of conversation.
Good Mother
Curious
November 30th, 2011
3:45 pm
@ Good Mother, 3:31 pm. “As an active duty armed services member I dealt with those families who advocated sex education only at home.” In earlier posts, you claimed to be on active combat duty in the Gulf War. How could you “deal with those families” when you were a soldier during wartime in the Mideast??
Larry Major
November 30th, 2011
8:12 pm
The current sex education material is clearly lacking.
My daughter is a bright kid, but she always gets an “F” in Gender.
Anonmom
November 30th, 2011
8:45 pm
I’ve heard from a number of people from all different schools and people who work with children (social workers and psychologists) that middle schoolers (6th and 7th graders) have been collecting bracelets for oral sex — for the number of partners they have had — in the bathrooms and in the woods at various schools around the city. The boys line up and the girls dole out. I do not believe that my boys have participated and I have questioned those telling me the stories because I have been personally dumbstruck by it all. But they swear, left right and center, that they have the evidence from both the boys and the girls that this is happening and when I do try to discuss it with my own kids I get bits and pieces of the stories. By the time my eldest was a senior, we had long introduced him to condoms and that eariler conversation about child support — we’ve had conversations about the “order of things”: college, job, marriage and then the babies and I want to make damn sure my boys know how to prevent the babies. So much so that when a music teacher for one of the boys departed for a national tour with a well known band, I gave him the “turkey baster” lecture (he’s almost 30) but a pregnacy with a guy’s sperrm can be a ‘ticket” to a gal for child support and there are gals out there using turkey basters to fish sperm out of condoms and using said basters to try and get pregnant so they can get to the “lucky” pregnancy for the “rich and famous”. He gave me a hug. As the mom of boys — I have a certain outlook.
sandy spings parent
November 30th, 2011
10:54 pm
Today my daughter tells me the boyfriend she broke up with yesterday that had been presuring for BJ’s and she would not comply. Since football season had ended he had wanted her to give him a ride home after school and come in and do that and more. She said she had gotten to the point where she had told him that she had Physical Therapy everyday for her sprained Cheerleading ankle everyday. Or she started volunteering to take a pack of other boys home and made sure he was first off.
Then she told me she really liked his parents and missed them. She was sure he would tell them he broke up with her. I said what do you think he is going to tell his mother the nurse, that he was trying to make you give him a BJ or have sex with him.
Since, he is one of the “stars” of the football team one of the other “stars” came up to her today and said you are nothing without P. This is the type of pressure our daughters face from these boys. I am proud of my daughter. As she is something, she does have morals and should not have to lower herself to suck a 16 year old boys di_k. I told her several weeks ago that no woman should ever give a man oral sex unless he is willing and does give it to you first. I told her that rule works real well at weeding them out, as to who wants to pleasure a women and isn’t just selfish.
sandy springs parent
November 30th, 2011
11:18 pm
A few years ago while in the car pool line at my daughters then private buckhead K-8 school another parent told me that an OB-GYN dad whose daughter attended either Lovett or Westminster found a spreadsheet on a home computer that his child was keeping that listed by name every child in the one of the 6-8th grade class levels, and who had given and received bjs or hand jobs or other types of sexual stimulation. It was a tally sheet. The father being an OB-GYN knew the seriousness of what was the risk of these children doing these acts. So he called a meeting of the other parents.
He thought the parents would listen, but no they sat there in denial. They tried to flip it and say his daughter just made up the spread sheet. He said why would I implicate my own daughter, she is right here on the list. The whole list was like their bragging rights. He was trying to get accross to the parents, that he as an OB-GYN sees every day what the health consequenses are the pregnancies, the STD’s,and it is just not the low SES Hispanic and Black kids. It is the white kids. It is just the parents quitely take care of it, if they can. This was his one opportunity to talk about it out of confidentiality and they still wouldn’t listen.
Anonmom
December 1st, 2011
7:56 am
when we began our middle son at one of the other fancy buckhead private schools not named by sandy springs mom, the parents of our son’s fellow 9th graders (now 11th graders) were actually discussing these things with the dad who is the pediatrician in the group — it’s a smaller class than at westminster and lovett — one of the differences I personally see where we are now that I didn’t see at our our DCSS HS is that parents are discussing things…. There was a huge, really bad sex-texting case at one of the other schools 2 years ago and we had a huge pow wow over the importance of the kids knowing how important it is not to do this and how it is bullying and bad. They also had at least one (if not more) assemblies on this. Again, I don’t think this happens at the DCSS schools. Contrast — when the kid jumped off the bridge in NY because his roommate videoed him having gay sex in NJ, I thought that my college-aged RA would hold a meeting to discuss this with all of the kids, particularly the freshmen (mine was a freshmen, the kid who jumped was a freshmen….). But, nope, mine hadn’t heard about the instance and he was about an hour up the river from where it happened. So, then I started asking his friends to see if the other RAs at other colleges were discussing it…. no one had a “yes” — what a missed opportunity…. So, we discussed, how you don’t address frustrations with a roommate by taking covert video tapes and posting on you tube… but really, shouldn’t the RAs be discussing this? Similar idea as the BJ topics that should really be addressed in middle school because parents aren’t discussing them at home…. we don’t really know what is happening to our kids when we aren’t around….
Anonmom
December 1st, 2011
8:31 am
If you need a reminder about how sexual middle school aged kids can be … track down Bill Nigut’s Frontline report from 1993 or so… it was about 14 year olds (I think I’m remembering this right, I had a small one at the time or was pregnant) in Rockdale County — very high end SES white kids with sexual patterns of prostitutes. They would come home after school, unsupervised, with (in my opinion) too much un-programmed and un-supervised time on their hands, together, boys and girls, and would watch porn movies and mimic what they saw. I’m sure that their parents would probably fall into the “abstinence wanted” curriculum and that they probably were sure that they “had it under control” and had absolutely no idea that their kids were the playboys and bunnies of their schools (there were about 20 of them (again from memory)) in this story…. I was stunned as a relatively newly wed and freshly pregnant…..
AnotherAnonMom in East Cobb
December 1st, 2011
9:18 am
After working through some of this with a high-school senior daughter, I see how things can easily go awry. Daughter acquired a boyfriend in what was really her first serious relationship. Yes, there had been “boyfriends” going back to middle school, but these seemed to me as quite superficial relationships. They didn’t involve any home-alone time after school or at any other time. There wasn’t really intimacy (in an adult’s eyes), just the social prestige of “going out” with someone.
However, this senior year relationship was clearly different, and the protagonists could drive themselves places by car and were certainly too old to be watched over by parents whenever not in school. Her father and I started asking ourselves if we needed to be stepping up in some way. We’ve always had a pretty strong and open relationship with this child. So I initiated some conversation, and learned that the topic of sex had come up between them, and she’d said she wasn’t ready, and he’d said that was fine, he didn’t want her to do anything she wasn’t ready for. So that sounded like good communication, and respectful, but still, the possibility was in the air. I asked what if she did feel ready at some point, at which she said cheerfully she’d probably drop by the drugstore and pick up some pills ‘n stuff. This was when I learned that although she’d had all the sex ed at school, and we’d had lots of talk at home (I thought), she assumed that birth control pills were OTC medication. She was absolutely shocked to hear that to get the pill, you need a doctor visit and a prescription, and then you have to wait until the right time in your cycle to start on the medication, and then it’s not instantly reliable.
When you think about it, getting started on BC pills requires not just hours or even days, but weeks of premeditation, and the embarrassment of phoning for an appointment, speaking to the doctor, etc. No wonder teenage girls get pregnant. I thought about extended family members and other people we knew of who’d had unintended teen pregnancies, and asked myself when exactly a girl was supposed to go on the pill. After they’d had sex a few times? We all know how well that works. After more discussion between us parents, I brought up the subject again and said that maybe going on the pill would be like having car insurance. We don’t have car insurance because we condone accidents, but because we want to limit the consequences of accidents, just in case one happens despite our best efforts to avoid it. In the same way, her parents didn’t want her having sex while still in high school, but we wondered if it might be time to take precautions to limit the consequences in case of any accident. So she went on the pill. I’m sharing this in case it’s food for thought, for other parents.
Anonmom
December 1st, 2011
11:14 am
At the risk of having things thrown at me — when my son asked to sleep at his girlfriends home senior year – I didn’t rule it out — I said I needed to speak with her parents… he said that wasn’t going to happen — I said okay – - then you can’t sleep there. then I got her mother’s cell number as a text message. I phoned. We spoke (the mom and I) for about 45 minutes (girl was older than boy and already 18) and we decided to try and guide kids and get them the right advice and BC so that it was safe… with all that, I still learned he had spent a night or 2 in the car… you can bring her to our house….no sleeping in the car. That’s dangerous. So you navigate and you try to keep them safe. They are off to college at the end of the senior year and you really lose control at that point. It’s good to accept that sooner rather than later and give them guidance while you can. A friend learned that her daughter was “active” when she was at ER trying to get the morning after pill at 16…. she went to Harvard. This happens to the best of them.
AnotherAnonMom in East Cobb
December 1st, 2011
12:42 pm
No throwing of things from this quarter, Anonmom.
I think when most people have a sweet baby girl (or boy, for that matter) we aren’t picturing their child’s future love life, but if asked to do so, might vaguely imagine them going on a few dates to movies and dances with a nice boy or two during high school, and then heading off to college and sometime later, when they’re maybe around 25 or older, coming home to say, “Mom and Dad, I’d like you to meet my fiancé, Chad.”
We really don’t want to picture them having sex while they’re still in high school, let alone ourselves having some involvement – whether it’s like sandy springs parent’s daughter sharing her dismay over being pressured for BJs, or you fielding son’s request to sleep at the girlfriend’s house, or me feeling maybe I should propose birth control to a child who’s so far only said “not ready yet” to the boyfriend. But parents of younger children should understand, in my opinion, that these experiences are much closer to the reality of teenagers’ lives. Parents who think they’re living in my first paragraph scenario may be at higher risk of their child turning up with an STD or pregnancy.
This isn’t really anything new, either. People who think that today’s teenagers invented teen sex just don’t have a serious genealogy researcher in their family.
Warrior Woman
December 1st, 2011
2:04 pm
@Shar – No, I’m pointing out statistical issues with the study. It is poorly designed and conducted from an econometric standpoint. I’m not commenting on their conclusions or saying what side of the issue I’m on, only pointing out that the conclusions are not supported by the study. It’s a lousy research design.
Warrior Woman
December 1st, 2011
2:12 pm
@V – I’ve read and enjoyed both Freakonomics and Super Freakonomics, as well as oppositely oriented books like Tipping Point. The research design in the UGA study is flawed. It could easily be improved to better make their point by incorporating tests of causality and more comprehensive analysis, for example. I’d really love to see some good, solid research in this area, because I think it would better inform public policy decisions. For example, it would be nice to know whether, after controlling for income, education, (child and parental), race, and interactions between those factors, whether the findings hold up. If so, that is a strong support for comprehensive sex education. If not, the debate will continue, ad nauseum.
NTLB
December 1st, 2011
7:11 pm
This is the result you get when you mix religion with science= NO COMMON SENSE.
Anonmom
December 1st, 2011
9:51 pm
Thanks!
Ole Guy
December 2nd, 2011
2:03 pm
Between the religous maniacs out there and those insistent on maintaining a politlcally correct posture on everything these kids have to know, it’s no wonder they don’t open up a maternity ward in middle/high schools. Sex ed is treated like some obscure (snicker snicker!) topic which must be approached with extreme delicacy.
At the earliest ages, in European countries, kids are introduced to wine/water mixtures of roughly 1/99 proportions. Consequently, boozing is viewed as a no-big-deal activity. The very same concept applies toward sex ed. SOMEDAY, when the religous zealots out there stop with the guilt trips, we just might start seeing generations with the MATURITY to conduct themselves with a modicum of KNOWLEDGE and DISCIPLINE.
Anonmom
December 2nd, 2011
7:45 pm
Silly me — I also think we have the driving/drinking thing backwards…. I think that driving oght to be the “big deal” — you get the license at an older age 17? 19? 21? at a very high cost — ala Europe — requiring lots of driver’s ed and proof that you’re really good and treat drinking as “no big deal” and then maybe we’d have responsible drinkers and responsible drivers and not have kids mistreating the alcohol becuase it’s such a big deal… When I was growing up, my parents and grandaprents would let me drink, whenever I wanted to. I never got drunk. I never had any interest in getting drunk. But my friends… it was taboo and they got wasted every chance they could. But I’m not in charge.
HS Math Teacher
December 3rd, 2011
11:09 am
The States with the highest teen pregnancy rates are probably the ones with the highest concentration of black folks. Surprise!!!