Schools Tell Kids..."Why Wait?"

As a parent and professional, I’ve been involved in the policy debate on sex education for years. I believe it was Falmouth, MA that was the first high school to distribute condoms back in 1989—causing horror among many parents. Now that’s the norm across the state. The topic of sexuality in schools now comes as early as kindergarten, with teachers “coming out” to their classrooms and creative curriculum to normalize homosexuality and sexual behavior in general to very young children.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether and how to discuss delicate topics such as sexuality with young children and adolescents, but all voices deserve a place at the table—and respect. But in the bluest of blue states…Massachusetts, those who take a more conservative view are sidelined and maligned. The most jarring example is Deval Patrick’s refusal to accept federal money to augment sex ed curriculum for 11-13 year olds with a compelling message of abstinence (in addition to their comprehensive sex ed courses which promotes contraception). Who would argue that a sixth grader shouldn’t delay sex? I just told you.

Abstinence education has been maligned and misunderstood since its prime-time introduction in 1996 under Bill Clinton’s Welfare Reform Act—recognizing the connection with out-of-wedlock childbirth and poverty. But it was George W. Bush that made abstinence education in schools a priority as part of his “compassionate conservative” outreach primarily serving the urban poor. Federally, spending on comprehensive sex ed programs outweigh abstinence ed programs fourfold. Follow the money, in 2002 abstinence programs received only $102 million in federal funding compared to at least $427 million allocated to comprehensive sex education and contraception programs.

Virtually every high school and most middle schools in Massachusetts teach children how to obtain and use contraceptives to prevent pregnancy and disease with no real discussion about the psychological and social cost of casual sex. It’s just not part of the program, literally and figuratively.

To distinguish, comprehensive sex ed is impersonal, assumes students will have sex and teaches them how to obtain contraceptives and abortions. Abstinence education looks at the whole child, recognizes the social and emotional consequences of casual sex in addition to the health risks, and gives them the resiliency skills to choose abstinence based on facts and the student’s own personal goals. Students are bright. They are receptive to health messages, having been raised on them—reading food labels, practicing yoga and meditation to relax before tests, eating organic and saving the planet. If you tell teens the truth about condom failure rates, the high cost of that failure and the long term impact of [multiple] abortions (many teens are using abortion as birth control—a dirty little secret that can render them infertile when they want to have a family) many more would choose abstinence for their own health and wellness.

Unfortunately, in spite of massive funding for contraceptive programs, the country and Commonwealth faces an epidemic of teen STDs and rising rates of teen pregnancy. And this doesn’t begin to address the long term social costs of making casual sex the norm for sexual behavior.

Veteran Boston Globe business writer Steve Bailey’s recent column ties the faltering economy to the breakdown of the family. This is stunning coming from a self-proclaimed liberal and one of the county’s most liberal newspapers. This outcome can be tied directly to what we’re raising children to believe about sex. If school children are taught how to safely have casual sex as the norm, what’s the point of marriage? Once we’ve devalued marriage as the exclusive place (or at least ideal place) for sexual expression, then we see more out-of-wedlock births leading to more single-parent households living in economic and social bankruptcy.

Our sex ed policy now tells kids as young as middle-school that cultivating strong, faithful, lifelong relationships is irrelevant and not worth waiting for. With more than 50% of births out of wedlock, a CDC-declared epidemic of STDs, and a faltering economy based largely on the crisis of family decline, how can we expect any other outcome than what we now have?