Drag March "Coming for your children"

[Dill]

(06-30-2023, 07:24 PM)pally Wrote: BECAUSE CHILDREN IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ARE HAVING SEX!!!   Ohio had a pregnant 10-year-old...that's 4th grade.

What an outrageously nauseating example--of why many adults may need sex education as well as children. 

I think you are referring to the case in which a 10-year-old was raped and Ohio law prevented her from getting an abortion in her own state.

But the parents who voted into power those who drafted that law are not likely to accept the following:

(06-30-2023, 07:24 PM)pally Wrote: Do I want an overload of sex ed in elementary school...no I do not.  But yeah, we have to start it earlier now than in our day if only because, especially in girls, puberty is arriving earlier.  Place the lessons in health classes.

Kindergartners are not too young to learn the names of their body parts, even private body parts. The breasts, vagina, penis, or testicles are body parts.  It's okay to use their proper names without cute little nicknames or giggling when you same them. Teaching them that some body parts are so dirty they can't even be properly named hurts kids when they can't communicate about those body parts. They should be taught not to be embarrassed about any parts of their body. . . . .

If 4th graders are having sex (consensual or non-consensual) they need to learn about it.  Sorry, some don't like that but again ignoring that reality doesn't change the facts.  They need to learn what it is.  They need to learn how to say no.   They need to learn the consequences.. . . .

And as much as I would love to leave the entire subject to parents far too many do a lousy job of teaching their kids.  Ignorance is how children end up pregnant or with STDs.   

I quite agree with this, but many parents do not. They think "if you teach them they will do it," never mind that's not what happens in other advanced industrial countries. So they think they are doing a "great job" by not teaching it.

And now people running for office in the increasingly rightward-lurching GOP have found a way of converting parental unease with social change and modern education into votes--"schools are taking away the parents right to instruct their children in such matters." 

The tactic is not restricted to sex ed. But the "parental rights" issue is restricted to the rights of some parents. Reminds me of the moment I learned that biology teachers in my son's middle school could not teach evolution. At the beginning of each course they had to read a one page statement affirming it was "only a theory," one among others. 

(06-30-2023, 07:24 PM)pally Wrote: Teaching children about different family structures, including same-sex parents,  is reflecting today's reality.  It is not teaching "sex" it is teaching relationships.  Kids today have a mother and father, some have them living together, and some have them living apart.  Some kids live with 2 dads or 2 moms.  Some kids have step-parents and step-siblings.  Some live with grandparents, other relatives, or foster parents.  Ignoring some children's realities because adults feel icky about it does the children a disservice by isolating those who don't live in the so-called nuclear family.

Kids discover they are gay about the same age you discovered you weren't..that was what...age 10-12?   So again, discussing same-sex attraction at those ages is not inappropriate. . . . 

It is 2023, and kids of every age have easy access to all sorts of information we didn't when we were kids.  They face pressures we didn't and that includes pressure to engage in sexual activity.  We can't protect them from the real world or teach them about a world that no longer exists.  Education, even sex ed, protect children.  Ignorance harms them.

Agree. Can't stop the questions, especially now that children can "see" that not all families are alike and all people aren't heterosexual.

If we don't provide answers consistent with health science, then children will fill the vacuum created by uncomfortable parents and lack of medical/health knowledge with their own stories--like STDs can be transmitted by toilet seats, but not oral sex.

Have you considered that this may be more about protecting uncomfortable adults who don't have adequate answers than protecting children?

(06-30-2023, 07:24 PM)pally Wrote: I used to work on a woman's health hotline and later ran a message board.  The number of young girls calling and asking basic questions was actually frightening.  The number of teenagers who don't understand that sex leads to pregnancy was alarming.  The number of callers who didn't understand that oral sex can transmit an STD was overwhelming.

So long story short...providing sexual education to children is a hill I will plant my flag on.

So if we shut down women's health hotlines, then these problems will just go away, right?

Same logic behind keeping medical/health knowledge about sex out of the schools to "protect" (selected) parents' rights.