More Kids Being Sexualized at School
The Helena Independent Record posted a letter to the editor June 27th that cites some examples of the kind of sexual indoctrination that often goes on in our public schools. (“In first grade the concepts of homosexuality will be introduced; in third grade, same-sex marriage. By fifth grade, our children will be taught the difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships, the various ways individuals can engage in sexual activity, and the body parts that can be used.”) The letter also makes some excellent arguments as to why we don’t need to be (and indeed should not be) sexualizing our young, especially at a public school.
The final reason offered (“…the loss of innocence that many children will experience as a result…”) made me think of how when I was a child all of society dearly cherished the innocence of children and was committed to protecting that innocence. The outstanding article, Life Without Children, that Betsy linked to in her thread of the same title concludes by talking about how as society becomes more and more childless (and less and less child centered/oriented) more and more so-called ‘adults’ are actually becoming hostile to the notion that they should even consider inconveniencing themselves in the slightest to help shield the eyes of children (of any age) from their ‘adult oriented’ videos, magazines, billboards, behavior, or whatever.
It seems that as our culture becomes more and more childless we as a culture are becoming more and more childish.
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If you’re worried about a teacher explaining homosexuality, you’ll have a breakdown when your kid comes home wanting to know what a “fag” is and why Billy called him that one the playground. The problem with freaking out about sex ed programs is that parents assume their kids have no concept of sex, or what being gay is. In reality they have skewed perceptions of what it is. I.E Billy calls someone a “Fag” because he doesn’t like him or his clothes, some (far too many) teens believe anal intercourse doesn’t count like vaginal intercourse does, bogus “facts” like vagina’s stretching from frequency of intercourse, etc. It isn’t to say that sex ed isn’t above critique, but realistically, unless you lock your kid in a box, they’re going to learn about this stuff regardless, from culture, from neighbors, from tv, etc. It comes down to whether society or the individual is more comfortable with children learning in a classroom or on the playground.
nerdy,
I’m not sure what your point is, exactly.
Of course parents have always had to figure out how they should explain things when their kids come home asking about what the other kids told them about sex, race, religion, Santa Claus, etc… And it shall ever be so.
But even children can understand when certain people (like teachers) have authority over them exactly because their own parents have placed them under that person’s authority. The impact of what a child hears “on the playground” doesn’t even begin to compare to when a person speaking with their own parent’s authority proceeds to indoctrinate that child into the prevailing ‘politically correct’ viewpoints of various forms of sexual conduct (especially when they use explicit audio/visual aids and anatomically correct models to illustrate).
I always ask people who think it’s OK to use the public schools to sexualize our children if they would be as comfortable if we taught our kids in school that certain sexual behaviors are “irresponsible, immature, self-centered, self-destructive, narcissistic, pathological, etc.” Because that actually is what many (if not most) parents would want their kids to understand about a lot of the sexual behaviors being promoted in so-called ‘sex-ed’ classes. So it would be alright if we used the public school system to indoctrinate your kids according to our viewpoint, wouldn’t it?
Telling kids where babies come from is not sexualizing kids. Telling kids what a homosexual is, is not sexualizing kids. Telling kids what sex is, and it’s basic mechanics, is also not sexualizing kids. If you don’t want your kids or anyone else’s kids to learn basic, sexual concepts in a public school setting, fine. But sex education is not sexualizing kids. If you want examples of sexualizing kids, look at child beauty pageants, look at the clothes marketed towards children (remember gaps thong for kids?), etc.
You also seem to discount the little notion of peer pressure. Realistically, if parents, actually bothered to talk to their kids about sex, there probably wouldn’t be such a huge debate over what role sex education should play in schools.
I don’t think it’s right to indoctrinate anyone, and schools should take the most neutral stance possible. I don’t pass value judgements over what consenting adults do behind closed doors and neither should the school. (I would assume any sex ed program worth it’s salt would also go over consent, age of consent, statutory rape laws for the state in which the school resides)