by Joe Scarborough
Posted on 05/21/2003 9:54:00 AM PDT by cgk
| ‘The Real Deal’ on teen sex | ||
| Media also has to be responsible | |
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| "The Real Cancun" featured body shots aplenty. |
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| COMMENTARY by Joe Scarborough |
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| May 20— A new study on teen sex should serve as a wakeup call for Americans. Almost 50 percent of high school students across America engage in teen sex, a large segment of those teenagers reporting as many as four sex partners per year. |
| AS YOU KNOW, all that means more unwed teenage moms, more cases of kids getting AIDS, and more reasons why the federal government is taking more of your tax dollars every year. The United States now has the highest rates of teen pregnancies, births, and abortions in the world. If you wonder why, just look at what our culture feeds into the minds and souls of teenagers. 13-year old girls have spent the past 5 years idolizing pop acts like Britney Spears. She went from Disney girl to slithering MTV teen faster than you can say “sex sells.” Teenage pop star Christina Aguilera also played teenage sexpot last year by doing a soft porn spread in a popular magazine, while other videos and reality-based shows on MTV did nothing short of promoting the concept that teen sex is hot. The winner of the shameless sexploitation of teens has to go to Euro-teen trash act t.A.t.U., which is made up of two young girls making out in wet t-shirts on stage and on TV. |
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
It is always a dilemma: do you better equip your children to deal with a hostile world by sheltering them from it and its effects, or by carefully exposing them to it, with explanation and caring, so that they learn to navigate within its currents without losing their course?
In our childrearing (kids now 18 and 15) we've steered a middle course, picking and choosing what to shelter them from and what not to with some care. If we have erred, it is on the side of exposure, but so far the results have been good. I know kids whose parents have been extremely strict, though not as strict as you describe, who ran away or otherwise threw over the traces as soon as they could. I've also known kids who got in trouble because their parents were indifferent. So, I think the key is vigilance, but not turning your self into a prison warder for your kids.
I have also made it a point to study those I know who were raised in a fundamental or otherwise strict disciplinarian household, and have become more liberal. I have always been very curious to know why these people chose to live differently from the way they were raised.
I have heard 2 things over and over again. One, they will say that their parents just want them to be happy, which is why they are now living with their lover instead of married, or raising a child out of wedlock, etc. Another thing I hear is that their parents had a bunch of rules, but no reason why they imposed these rules.
One benefit of living in today's world is that there is no shortage of bad examples. Trying to explain why promiscuity is bad, or why behaving politely in public is a good thing, is quite easy with so many counter-examples walking the planet.
I think that the important thing is that parents should be clear about what they expect from their children. If you would be disappointed if your child got pregnant out of wedlock, then tell them that. However, you have to look at root causes. As Ann Coulter has written, no one walks down the street and is struck pregnant. So simply saying, "Don't get pregnant" doesn't cut it.
I appreciate your kind post, and perhaps you are correct. You do have much more experience than my husband or I. In 18 years we will look you up and let you know how the grand experiment went! :)
I see nothing extreme about loving your children, as you undoubtedly do.
So easy to scoff at "others", eh?
For I will tell you that amoung the others are not only parents, but the children, and while you and calumnity are fond to strike axes against the virtual heads of Lizzie's lax ma and pa for allowing her and her brothers access to the MTV cesspool, you do ignore that by not also flaying MTV and the cesspool purveyors -- and flaying them more surely because for them the reasons and whyfores are more clear -- by not standing up against such filth in common areas you certainly hurt those children and risk us all to varying extent. You stand by while the children of "others" are thrown to the sharks as longsas yours are safe. You do that and call yourself wise? Call yourself kind? Call yourself moral?
The stench you claim to avoid has not .escaped you!
Let us not echo the Leftists in their naive stereotyping of Christians, CR. "Fundamentalists" (those who believe in the fundamentals of the faith) are not necessarily the hayseeds that you suggest they are. In fact, very often young Christians seem to be more advanced in every way than young, secular "sophisticates." Since many have been homeschooled, they are certainly far more advanced academically and socially than their "peers" in the government and/or private schools. And at university level, there are Christians ("fundamentalists") who continue to graduate from Harvard, Yale and Princeton (and maybe even Cato) every year -- some of whom are actually from Manhattan.
Several young Christians I know have also traveled extensively through some of the most remote places in the world (at the very least, on missionary trips) and many speak at least one other language, play one or more instruments, and study classical biblical languages, usually Hebrew and Greek, as part of their cirriculum.
And rather than believing that fundamentalists are "insulated from popular culture" you should understand that many (and hopefully, most) of these kids have most certainly been exposed to popular culture, but have simply made a decision to shun it in pursuit of loftier standards.
It might be your view that "knowing their way around NYC better than most people" constitutes "sophistication," but simply discovering which subway train to transfer from the Port Authority bus station, or how to get from 43rd St. to 47th St. takes neither discipline, brains, nor sophistication.
After arriving in the City with their friends, many of these young "upper class" Upstate, Connecticut and NJ "suburban sophisticates" simply head directly to the Upper East side bars to meet members of the opposite sex and drink 'til beyond nausea (although I am not suggesting that this is the direction of your daughter and her friends).
For the sake of our country's future, we should not be disparaging, but encouraging the "fundamentalist" model over the pseudo-sophisticate model.
Yeah, their comments are on the threads for all to view.
"So easy to scoff at "others", eh?"
First off, you're happily scoffing right back. Secondly...are you from Canada?
"You stand by while the children of "others" are thrown to the sharks as longsas yours are safe."
Personal responsibility. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
"You do that and call yourself wise? Call yourself kind? Call yourself moral?"
Putting words into my mouth. Yes I'm kind. Wise, I don't know. Moral like Bill Bennet... I have a few vices that harm none.
"The stench you claim to avoid has not .escaped you!"
He who smelt it....
;-)
I supposed I should use the term "fundamentalist" in quotes, as I certainly don't feel qualified to determine who really believes in the fundamentals of the faith -- and perhaps theres a rub. I am frankly uncomfortable with those who make strong claims for the unique correctness of their own interpretation of Christianity, and judge harshly those whose views differ from their own. After all, it is He who shall judge, not any earthly power, temporal or spiritual.
I'm not sure what your animus towards sophistication is. When I say my kids know their way around NYC, I'm not simply talking about public transportation and taxis: they attend music school in the city, they go to concerts, plays, museums, libraries, and, occasionally, clubs. They know how to use the city as a resource. And, incidentally, they do have friends in NYC who are "Christians" (self-styled fundamentalists). Those friends are surely sophisticated as well, but they describe themselves as very much exceptions in their religious environments. And their kids go to clubs with my kids, being fashionable without being provocative or inappropriate, and enjoying the city without being corrupted by it.
To each his own, perhaps. Based on my experiences in different parts of the country (West, South, Southwest and Northeast) over the past 40 years or so, I can't say I would encourage a "fundamentalist" model, because it seems to me it leads too often to closed, judgemental minds that are hostile to the greater high culture of the West. Rather, I would encourage independent thought and reasoning within a context of a sound grounding in Christian scripture and thought, moral virtue and self-reliance. Children should be widely exposed to the high culture of the West in religion, art, music and ideas, and encouraged to appreciate it and participate in its creation and preservation.
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