abstinence programs don't work

This was the big headline on my Yahoo! news this morning. Apparently, studies have shown that abstinence-only programs in our schools haven't reduced the incidences of teen pregnancy or premarital sex at all. Hmm....big surprise. I have to wonder who really believes such programs would have any impact at all in the school system we have today.

Here's the facts, as I see it. Your school officials aren't going to be able to tell your kids a damn thing about morality. And that's what abstinence programs are, aren't they? They are trying to teach our kids morality. The problem is, the schools teach our kids all kinds of immoral things by their actions, which speak much louder than their words. Teachers often look past bullying behaviors unless they cross a certain, preconceived violence line. In fact, when I was in school, I watched some of my teachers pick on those same kids that were being bullied outside the classroom. I was singled out by many a PE teacher, since I had less than zero interest in competitive sports.

I remember another teacher trying to play matchmaker for the junior prom. There was quite the long setup....months of chatter within the classroom about who was going to go with whom. I remember if he caught wind that one boy was interested in another girl, he would work on those two almost daily to try and set up more of an interest in the other party. I ended up going to junior prom with a guy I didn't care for, but was essentially pushed on me by my history teacher.

Kids are expected to wear certain clothes to fit in with certain peer groups. Kids are expected to speak and act a certain way to fit in. None of these clothes or speech patterns or actions are all that high on the morality scale. And of course, it's all an extreme, secularized form of morality that doesn't have much of a guidebook to go by because religious teachings must be kept out of the schools. So how can a schoolteacher approach abstinence? From a safety standpoint? Try to tell me not to drive too fast at 16 because it's unsafe. You'll have more success than a secularized abstinence program.

So where does this teaching belong? Well, in the home, of course. I know it's everyone's ideal that the subject matter will be covered at home, according to whatever the family's relevant guidebook is. Each religion or philosophy has its own tome and parents teaching according to those guildelines would, of course, have much greater impact.

The problem is, it's not enough. It's not enough because long ago, before that child entered high school, before that child became a teen, before that child even knew what sex was & still thought boys (or girls) were YUCK, that child was developing a peer-oriented life.

Here's how the child who is peer-oriented rather than parent-oriented thinks of the world. Friends are formed early through constant, daily contact and often unconditional acceptance. Even in the elementary years, they begin to have as much impact on the child's developing personality as the parents. This upsets the parents and distances them from the child as they sense that he is no longer depending on them as much for input, love & companionship. They see changes in the personality of the child or behavioral changes and this upsets them but, they say, "Kids will be kids. Nobody likes their kids all the time." And the distance grows.

As the years pass, parents become more concerned with their own lives, since their kids aren't offering them the fulfillment they once did as babies. And kids become more concerend with their social life at school and the lives of their friends. By the time a child reaches dating age, she is starved for the unconditional love she once received from her parents and is tired from having to earn it from her friends by dressing, acting, or speaking a certain way. When dating begins, these young dating partners are the closest the child has found to that unconditional love she's missing from mom and dad.

And sex becomes a way to feel this closeness or to keep some sort of connected love in the picture.

Again I ask, I have to wonder who really believes such programs would have any impact at all in the school system we have today.

Perhaps soon they'll just invent drugs to kill the sex drive in teens. It would have been a laughable idea 20 years ago, but today?