(no subject)
OK, I now feel compelled to participate in this whole Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy discussion as it is depressing me.
This whole conversation reminds me once again how necessary it is for our society to have comprehensive sexuality education that is age appropriate and medically accurate. But we are not going to see that soon.
Fact: Jaime Lynn Spears got pregnant when she was sixteen by her nineteen year old boyfriend.
Fact: Her mother was surprised because she was "such a good girl" and "always came home before curfew".
Jamie Lynn, her boyfriend and her mother were shocked to find out that even good girls can get pregnant when having unprotected, or poorly protected, sex before curfew.
There is discussion, not about how to teach kids about sex, but how to better keep them in the dark. Making this a legal issue. An issue about responsibility. A debate on whom we should blame.
And while the Spears family did not invent teen pregnancy, it has definitely brought it to the forefront.
Instead of creating a learning experience for this, showing the need to teach children about sex and sexuality, we have become a city of puritanically prudes, painting a big red A across the chest of Jamie Lynn.
Parents of kids who look up to our little Zooey 101 star were happy to let their 8,9, and 10 year olds walk haplessly into Jr. High and High school without the slightest knowledge about how and why their bodies work, why their bodies are changing, or where babies come from for that matter! 8,9, and 10 year olds should at least know where babies come from and how they are made!
Toni Morrison, a few years back, wrote about teen pregnancy-- saying there is nothing wrong with it. For most of human existance, teenagers and young adults were getting pregnant. That is how our bodies work. What is wrong is the process of infantasizing young adults. What is wrong is a society that shames young couples into not getting pregnant and shaming them even more if they do get pregnant.
We are a society that equates sex with shame. We are a society that equates life with shame. And we are a society that equates the creation of life with shame--particularly when it comes to young people.
We need to stop thinking that ignoring sex will make our children safer. Ignoring sex is dangerous.
This whole conversation reminds me once again how necessary it is for our society to have comprehensive sexuality education that is age appropriate and medically accurate. But we are not going to see that soon.
Fact: Jaime Lynn Spears got pregnant when she was sixteen by her nineteen year old boyfriend.
Fact: Her mother was surprised because she was "such a good girl" and "always came home before curfew".
Jamie Lynn, her boyfriend and her mother were shocked to find out that even good girls can get pregnant when having unprotected, or poorly protected, sex before curfew.
There is discussion, not about how to teach kids about sex, but how to better keep them in the dark. Making this a legal issue. An issue about responsibility. A debate on whom we should blame.
And while the Spears family did not invent teen pregnancy, it has definitely brought it to the forefront.
Instead of creating a learning experience for this, showing the need to teach children about sex and sexuality, we have become a city of puritanically prudes, painting a big red A across the chest of Jamie Lynn.
Parents of kids who look up to our little Zooey 101 star were happy to let their 8,9, and 10 year olds walk haplessly into Jr. High and High school without the slightest knowledge about how and why their bodies work, why their bodies are changing, or where babies come from for that matter! 8,9, and 10 year olds should at least know where babies come from and how they are made!
Toni Morrison, a few years back, wrote about teen pregnancy-- saying there is nothing wrong with it. For most of human existance, teenagers and young adults were getting pregnant. That is how our bodies work. What is wrong is the process of infantasizing young adults. What is wrong is a society that shames young couples into not getting pregnant and shaming them even more if they do get pregnant.
We are a society that equates sex with shame. We are a society that equates life with shame. And we are a society that equates the creation of life with shame--particularly when it comes to young people.
We need to stop thinking that ignoring sex will make our children safer. Ignoring sex is dangerous.