We Need to Do Better

Where were you in 1991? I'll show my age by saying that in 1991 I was, well, 12. Just shy of the highly coveted title of teenager.

Why the focus on 1991 ? Because that's when the birth rate in a teen age group, 15-19, mostly high-schoolers or freshmen in college, started dropping. It fell all through my years in high school, and college. My younger sister, who was 6 at the time of the first decline in the teen pregnancy rate, almost made it through college herself with a continual decline. Almost. However, as reported here in the Washington Post, for the first time in 14 years, the national teen birth rate went up between 2005 and 2006.

Think about it. 14 years. Which means that when the decline started, the teens in that age group were toddlers and pre-schoolers. And it means that when Bush was elected, they were in middle school, or just beginning high school. I don't know about all of you, but my sex education classes started in 6th grade. I got a refresher my first year of high school.

And where did the Bush administration put their money? Into abstinence-only programs. Coincidence? Well, it's a little too early to really say for sure. We need to wait until next year to find out if the teen birth rate increase was the start of a trend or just a one-year hiccup. However, we've already been told by many studies that abstinence-only sex education does nothing to change teens' behavior, so I'm forcasting that we'll see another increase next year.

Despite this, there are those who believe it's the other way around:

"This shows that the contraceptive message that kids are getting is failing,"
said Leslee Unruh of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "The contraceptive-only
message is treating the symptom, not the cause. You need to teach about
relationships. If you look at what kids have to digest on a daily basis, you
have adults teaching kids about the pleasures of sex but not about the
responsibilities that go with it."

I actually have to agree with most of the last part of her statement. We do need to teach about relationships. Kids do digest a lot of sex-themed stuff on a daily basis; if we look at the media and advertising industries, it's very obvious that we as a country are sex-obsessed. However, what's ironic to me is that she's talking about the responsibilities that go along with sex...while promoting abstinence. Abstinence is not responsible sex. Abstinence is not having sex at all.

Here's the thing: I'm not anti-abstinence. I absolutely think teens (and everyone else) should wait to have sex until they're ready. Most teens aren't really ready, or mature enough. But telling them just not to do it, and giving them no information about how to do it responsibly when they inevitably do it anyway is a disservice to them--and it puts them at mortal risk.

Teens (and younger, even) need to know what the risks are, and how to avoid them. They need to know that abstinence--not just of intercourse, but of all bodily-fluid interactions (ok, besides kissing)--is the only safe option, but there are ways of making sexual behavior safer. This is not just about avoiding pregnancy, but avoiding contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs, also known as STDs).

Recently I watched a DVD of a film produced in 1989, on some stories behind the panels of the AIDS quilt. It went through a timeline, of when the disease first appeared, the long delay before it first appeared in the media, and how many thousands of Americans had died before the president actually spoke the word. The Surgeon General at the time, C. Everett Coop, was shown speaking out about...abstinence only sex education in the schools. He said something like, "This should be about saving lives, not saving souls."

The rate of chlamydia has gone up. The teen birth rate has gone up. And guess what. According to the Center for Disease Control, the rate of HIV infection in that age group in the U.S. (and many above it) has increased as well. Remember, there is still no cure for AIDS.

So those teen girls who are having babies, and those (presumably) teen boys who are fathering them, are all at risk for HIV and a host of other infections.

This isn't about saving souls. This is about saving lives. And we need to do better.

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Fixing what's broke

This month, Congress has made two decisions regarding education, and both concern fixing ways of doing things that just aren't working

The first was an increase in funding for abstinence-only sex education. Despite the fact that multiple studies (including this one, just released) state that that this form of sexuality education does not work to prevent teen sexual activity/disease/pregnancy, and despite the fact that the Democrats said they'd fix it, instead they approved a $28 million increase in funding for it. This policy is broken--we need to fix it and give kids honest, accurate, and comprehensive sex ed.

The second decision was to delay the decision on reauthorizing 2001's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This law had good intentions and disastrous results. Again, there are plenty of studies which say basing achievement solely on standardized test scores doesn't work. It's turned our nations' schools into test prep centers. Kids do drills in math instead of art class or recess. Now certainly there is much in our public schools that needs improvement. Kids do need to know the basics of math and reading. They also need time to just run around and be social, and to explore art and music. They can't do any of those things as well if they're in classes of 30+, fed junk food, and their teachers are shelling out their own small paychecks to buy supplies like construction paper. NCLB doesn't fix any of those things, and perhaps the delay in reauthorization shows that Congress is paying attention to the widespread disappointment and disagreement with this law.

They way we teach our children--and what we teach them--affects them for so much longer than the 12-or-so years they're in school. Our government needs to stop ignoring the facts and fix what's broken. We need to make our voices heard on these issues. It does make a difference.

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Happy (sexy) Halloween

I think Tina Fey got it right in Mean Girls. Lindsay Lohan's character dresses up for Halloween in a scary zombie bride (or "ex-wife") costume, and laments that no one told her that Halloween is really a chance for girls to dress as scantily and sexy as possible.

And I have to admit, somehow my subconscious is buying into it. I went to a Halloween party this past weekend, where the theme was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Thinking I'd be creative, I went as a Toys R Us kid--you know, "I don't wanna grow up..." However, as I was contemplating how to create this costume, I kept thinking, "but if I do this, I won't look sexy." Hello? Since when is this necessary? Men certainly don't consider that when picking out a costume (and if this is incorrect, men, please let me know). They go for most creative, or simply fun.

I went with a denim skirt, knee socks, and a form-fitting tee (on which I placed the Toys R Us logo and KID in big letters). I looked cute, but I wouldn't say sexy. At the party though, there was a French maid in an itty bitty skirt, a sexy sailor, Tina Turner, Betty Boop, and a couple other amiguous sexy costumes. Yes, there were a few who went for fun--a woman in pj's with pigtails and freckles, an astronaut. But even Ike Turner (played by a woman) was wearing skin tight pants.

And apparently, this idea is quickly flowing from adult culture to girls. An article Tuesday in the Washington Post discusses the costumes being marketed to girls--most including showing much more skin than an 8-yr-old should ever show outside a pool. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/AR2007102902095.html

Is this a result of feminism? We feel we can't dress slutty for most of the year, so we do it on Halloween? We're repressed normally, so we take the chance to let it all out one night of the year? There is something about a costume that allows you to be more adventurous than we might normally be--the idea that "it's not me, it's the costume," but I think somehow we've crossed a line, especially if we're marketing this idea to girls.

Boys and men are having fun being ninjas, Spiderman, gladiators and Spanish cartoon characters (those last two were present at the party I attended). Why can't girls and women do the same, without feeling the need to make every costume "sexy?"

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