Posted on 02/25/2009 11:35:33 AM PST by AJKauf
When I, a parent of a 17-year-old daughter due to graduate from high school this May, originally read about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy during the presidential campaign, I shared the same sense of indignant outrage expressed by many upon hearing the news. Why on earth is a girl that age having sex, particularly when she was raised by a mother who staunchly supports abstinence-only education? Didn’t she listen?
Yes, I’ll admit my first reaction upon learning of a pregnant teenage girl is to think that it really should be that simple: telling one’s child “don’t have sex until you’re married” should be enough. Never mind the whole virginity pledge thing; explaining the risk of STDs, AIDs and teenage pregnancy should be sufficient rationale. And, just in case it isn’t, then the threat of an angry parent with “a 12-gauge double-aught buckshot” should be enough incentive for teens to “keep their britches on.” And yet, obviously, it isn’t. The Bristol Palins and Jamie Lynn Spears are proof enough that “just say no” doesn’t always sink in....
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
So true.
1 Corinthians 7:9
But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.
Your position is realistic and scriptural.
I'm preaching marital indulgence to my brood.
1. A statistical sample of one proves nothing.
2. Since when are the children of politicians indiscretions attributed to the parents? (New rule for Palin, when Gore's kid was high and driving 100MPH it was “unfair” to cover it.)
Unless Bristol had been pregnant 4-5 times since she was 10 and aborted them all, this wasn’t such a bad outcome compared to everything else that’s going on.
I mean genres that reach the public at large. Most literature is too academic and beholden to an outdated existentialism. In their muddled way, sci-fi writers are metaphysicians. One ends up with scientology and the like.
Only among the pea-brained and the smug self-righteous.
to us, yeah because we’re conservatives and very forgiving. But can she make a positive impression to those who aren’t freepers? It’s hard to know.
Ok, so according to many on here if I have a child that becomes pregnant I can never say anything about the importance of abstinence? Really?? That is such convoluted thinking. I have 5 children including a 21 year-old son and 3 teenage daughters and so far so good. None drink, smoke, do drugs or have sex. But if one did, I would not lessen my preaching of the importance of abstinence but increase it. I was once told that because I have never been drunk that I do not have a right to speak out against it. Now, some are sayig that if I ever have a child that is drunk that I can never speak out agianst it. I say to hell with them. I will stand for what is right regardless. Sex education needs to be honest and the honest part is that abstinence works every time it is executed.
The best argument against pre-marital sex is that if you aren’t any good at it, it will be too late for your SO to back out. :)
Very well said. Is there any teenager out there who honestly doesn’t know what a condom is? Really? Abstinence-based education must also work on helping students to avoid peer pressure and the situations that create danger. It is fallacy to say that all kids will automatically have sex. Yes, all will be curious but not all will.
No - I was saying that the “fault” it Bristol’s and the father’s. I simply noted that Bristol found a time to get around her parents’ wishes. Does that make her a bad parent? No. I’m simply trying to say that teaching them that they are accountable and that they will be checked up on helps tremendously.
What a co-inky-dink! That's EXACTLY how Sarah Palin looks at it, despite your contention to the contrary.
Which the Palin’s might very well have done. Who knows?
everyone knows of them but they may not necessarily know how to *use* them effectively.
not exactly because I had to change the words around...
Exactly right. Thank you, Theophilus.
Children need to be educated as much (if not more) in life (i.e. manliness, womanliness, marriage, parenthood, neighborliness) as they are in academics and “career prep”. Then they wouldn’t be so unprepared when the natural course of life comes upon them.
But no, we’d rather prescribe to them (A) 15 years of cold showers or (B) a hedonistic sex-fest life.
Again, this is nothing more than a manufactured problem.
LOL...how many different ways are there to use a condom? I have never seen the banana demonstration but figured it out all on my own in about 5 seconds. Maybe I am just that much smarter than everyone else....but it sounds like an excuse for a stronger nanny state to take care of us.
The problem is that these two were probably a “dating couple” for several years before the possibility of marriage was even foreseeable.
There are a lot of families that are doing the “courtship” model where the parents are directly involved (to provide wisdom and guidance) and the courtship is done with the understading of all the parties that marriage will be the imminent result if there are no problems.
So you don’t think much of Ronald Reagan or Dick Cheney either. They both had kids who had “issues.”
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