I was shocked to discover in my Sociology class the new trends in sexuality in teens. In one small town, there have been four cases of pregnancy in eleven year olds. What kind of parent gives their children unsupervised time at eleven years old. Girls at the ages of eight and nine are beginning to menstruate. High school students are tending to experience more same-sex relationships that hetero-sexual ones.

What is going on in America today. If you were to count how many times inappropriate subjects were discussed on your television and radio daily, you would be shocked. I tried this one day. After watching two hours of television and listening to two hours of radio, I heard and saw 83 inappropriate subjects. Imagine what your child sees. Not only do we see these things on television, but young people are beginning to internalize these behaviors and emulating them. Eight year olds now know what a yeast infection is, they can sing the songs from the latest condom commercials, and many of them can tell you what sex consists of. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. What eight year old needs to know this stuff. We are forcing our children to think as adults when they should be playing and enjoying their childhood. The time passes quickly enough as it is, why make them grow up any faster.

Today we were asked a simple question, but I wasn’t quite sure how to answer it. Would you provide your fourteen year old child birth control if they asked for it? My initial reaction was that if I knew they were sexually active, then yes. The last thing I would want is a pregnant fourteen year old. On the other hand, if your child was afraid of getting pregnant, would they think of abstaining from sex? We all want to teach our children to wait for marriage, but how many of you did. How can we expect our child to be open and honest with us if we can’t do the same with them. How can we tell them to win a battle that we ourselves failed at. During your teenage years, your hormones are going crazy. All you think about and want is sex. How do you help you children deny peer pressure and wait when you yourself could not. It makes no sense to me. Of course I want my daughter to wait, I don’t want any male to see any part of her body until she is married. I am a single, unwed mother. She can’t exactly not notice this, so how do I convince her to wait when it is evident that I did not. I am not exactly proud of my sexual past, but I will never deny it either. I want her to learn from my mistakes and have the will to win those battles that I lost. I refuse to get angry if she can’t. How can I judge her for the same errors in judgment that I made.  We need to encourage our children to live every day to its fullest and delay growing up as much as possible. Get away from the TV. and the radio and spend some time outdoors or playing board games. Get away from the violence, sex, and language and let your children enjoy their innocence while they can. It won’t last long.