The Sexualization of Children – Breaking Down Security in the American Family

Family Security Matters ^ | 9/18/08 | Tom McLaughlin

[wagglebee]

When parents tell me their oldest child is going to be in middle school, I sense they have mixed feelings. They’re proud but worried. They’re worried about their children’s loss of innocence. No parent can put that off forever, of course, but they shouldn’t have to worry about it when their kids are only 11 years old. When it’s parents against the culture, I hate to admit it but the culture is likely to win. Parents know this at some level and fear it.

 

Students are more sexual these days than I ever remember. I shouldn’t be surprised given the escalating sexualization of the entire culture in which we all live. Our children grow up permeated by sex on the television they watch, in the music they listen to, in the literature they read, and in the advertising they’re continually bombarded with from all angles every single day. So of course I’m going to see it more in class, and it can be awkward at times.

 

On the first day of school I passed out textbooks, just as I’ve done for decades. I have to record what number book each student gets, so I call their names one at time and they tell me what it is. In four out of five classes, at least one student said he or she had textbook number 69. Each time, there were knowing looks and snorts by other students, mostly boys but not exclusively. There should only be one book numbered 69 in the whole batch of course, but at least three students last year had changed the number in the book they were assigned.

 

I had to decide in an instant if I was going to confront the sniggling behavior or let it pass. The first time, I ignored it. I recorded the 69 in my computer and called the next student’s name. When it happened again in the second class, I realized that at least one of the books had been altered and I had to ask myself how I would deal with it. To do so in the moment would call more attention to it. Considering that there may still be many students who didn’t know what sexual connotations the number 69 has, I hesitated. My attention to the matter would cause them to ask questions and find out.

 

Maybe I’m naive to assume they’re unworldly, but I hope not. I wanted to believe most of them – maybe only some at this point – are still innocent enough at 13 or 14 to understand why the boys were snickering. So, I ignored it the second time, but I was disturbed. This was the first day of school. I’ve been teaching a long time and it wasn’t always this way. I ignored it in the third and fourth classes too and tried to put it out of my mind by filing it in the mental folder I call “another depressing sign of the times.”

 

Last fall, nearby Portland’s school board gave King Middle School permission to prescribe birth control to students as young as 11. Last spring, the Centers For Disease Control reported that 1 in 4 teenage girls in America ages 14-19 has a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD). I remember how sad I was reading that. I remember mentioning it to a group of teachers the same day and getting no response. It made me feel like a dinosaur. I’m not the oldest teacher in the district, but I’ve been here the longest. Sometimes I feel like yelling to students and teachers that it wasn’t always this way, but what good would it do? It’s the way things are now and I guess it has to continue trending like this until a critical mass in the wider culture out there says, “Enough!”

 

I hope I’m still around when it happens.

 

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Tom McLaughlin Tom is a history teacher and a regular weekly columnist for newspapers in Maine and New Hampshire. He writes about political and social issues, history, family, education and Radical Islam. E-mail him at tommclaughlin@fairpoint.net.

[wintertime]

As long as parents insist on dressing their preschool-aged girls like streetwalkers, and allowing their older girls to dress that way...

And especially when the mothers dress that way too...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And...Where were most of these young mom’s “socialized” and schooled? Yes! Of course! A government school!

[Gabz]

You are absolutely correct, it does start at home.

I look at the kids I see in church on Sunday, well some of them are actually young adults as they are out of HS, and we’re not too terribly worried about the public school our daughter attends, as all these kids did as well.

Her best friend’s parents (close friends of ours) are no more thrilled about the 2 girls being in the same class this year than we are, but we are resigned that it happened. We were hoping it wouldn’t happen before middle school next year, but we are hopeful they are both mature enough to know what is and what is not acceptable in the classroom.

Right now our biggest issue is the DARE program and whether or not to opt her out of it, as my husband and I do not agree with much of the propaganda of the program.

[Gabz]

And...Where were most of these young mom’s “socialized” and schooled? Yes! Of course! A government school!

And you know this for a fact? How? When my friends and I went to discos in the late 70s and early 80s that's exactly how we dressed --- and not a single one of us went to a "government" school. We all had graduated from Catholic schools.

[SoftballMominVA]

Good point....and let me take it one step further. There are millions of girls who DO NOT dress in a provocative way whose parents went to public schools. Seems to me the common thread is not the schooling of the parents, but the character of the parents.

[TruthConquers]

Yep. Homeschooling (which is really private school for the middle class, which is why the elites hate it) is the only honorable way to truly be a conservative and NOT place your children on the altar of secular socialism.

Don’t like the bank bailouts? Don’t participate in socialism!!

[Quix]

INDEED, INDEED.

Blessed be the Name of The Lord and all in your family who love Him.

[Amelia]

And if the kid is this . . . bonkers at this age—the single parent mother has a LOT of catching up to do.

I don't know if you can ask this, but I'd have to wonder what sort of example this single parent mother has been setting...

Most 12 year old boys I know are more interested in baseball than girls.

[Amelia]

And...Where were most of these young mom’s “socialized” and schooled? Yes! Of course! A government school!

I'm sure that with your education you have taken enough research classes to know the basic tenet, "correlation does not imply causation"...

Not to mention, there are plenty of modest and moral young mothers who also attended public schools.

[Campion]

And if the kid is this . . . bonkers at this age --- the single parent mother has a LOT of catching up to do.

Parenting is hard for a mom and a dad working together. For a single mom to raise a boy and do a good job of it is incredibly difficult. Not impossible, but very, very hard.

And that's part of the reason why divorce and fornication are such societal disasters.

[BBell]

I don't know about contraceptive commercials but viagra and “male enhancement” commercials are common when you watch Fox News on cable. Fox News is my main default channel and these commercials drive me nuts (no pun intended)!

I left out these commercials being on comedy central when I watch South Park. But I would expect them there.

[Gabz]

I agree with you on the character of the parents — but don’t fault the character of the parents of me or my friends, none of them would approve of the outfits we wore in the discos -— we all changed AFTER we left the house.

But when it comes to certain things, even libs can be conservative. My 74 year old aunt, who I have always considered to be to the left of me, sent some outfits to Jax for back to school. She’s just that kind of a person, never married, never had any kids of her own and so likes being “Auntie Mame.” I thought I was conservative about the clothes I buy Jax -— holey moley!!! These outfits are so cutting edge that any pre-teen would go ape over them, as mine did, and yet there is nothing, and I mean nothing, provocative about any of them.

[Quix]

Agreed.

The challenge is to offer the mother ANYTHING of substance that could be redemptive at all in any lasting way.

Personally, I think such problems have to be PREVENTED ages 1-8.

[Quix]

It’s a bit tricky in that setting but I could probably pull it off.

Sadly, around the room, student after student had a similar story to relate about such aged kids, brothers, sisters, nephews etc.

[Quix]

Mostly, it sounds like this is NOT the mother’s style to have modeled such acting out junk in front of the kid.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Where I live, the private school is where the troublemakers from the public schools wind up. None of the good kids want any part of that place, nor do their parents.

Certainly you must know that "where you live" is an anomaly?

I attended private schools in 3 large metropolitan areas, and none of them, nor any of the other private schools with which we interacted, were as you describe.

Frankly, I find your statement above to be pretty absurd.

[Clemenza]

Not true in either New York (where I lived until I was 15, returning at 18) or South Florida (where I finished high school). Private schools were dominated by the affluent who didn’t want to associate with the proles and worse in the public schools. You had districts like Roslyn and Great Neck on Lawn Guyland that were de facto private (limited to their affluent residents, with no bussing to speak of), despite being “public schools.” Anyone parent with half a brain (to say nothing of their spawn) who had to send their kids to Publik Skools pushed them into the honors track.

[Amelia]

FWIW, there is a private school in the metropolitan area nearest me that fits Gabz’s description, according to the teachers who work (and have worked) there.

The school is advertised as a Christian school but according to the teachers I know, the behavior of the students is anything but, and the school will accept anyone for the tuition dollars (it is moderately priced compared to other private schools in the area) - and thus ends up getting the students no one else will accept, or that other schools have expelled.

There are other private and parochical schools in that area which are quite good, and there are others that aren’t so good, but the one particular school does take the children who have been expelled from other private and public schools.

[Amelia]

Could be the example set by the media...or maybe those hormones *are* setting in earlier & earlier...

[Quix]

D) ALL OF THE ABOVE . . . including

the spirit of lawlessness loosed on the world in these end times.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Which school is that?

If you're talking the Atlanta metro area, I probably know it.

The notion that private schools have, in toto, more problem-behavior students than private schools, in any locale, is absurd, in my opinion.