Teach my child that, and you’ll be sorry
by Dr. Miriam Grossman (Dr. Grossman will be the keynote speaker at the next It takes a Family Conference.) This article was originally published at Mercatornet.com on July 30, 2010.
It is not what you would want to read before breakfast, but it’s the sex menu they are serving up to children.
Sex education for tots is in the headlines. Last month it was a policy in Provincetown, Massachusetts making condoms available to first graders. Student requests were to be kept secret and parents’ objections ignored.
Now the news is from Montana. If the Helena school district has its way, kindergarteners will learn about “reproductive body parts”: the penis, vagina, breast, nipples, testicles, scrotum, and uterus. Ten year olds will be taught that “sexual intercourse includes but is not limited to vaginal, oral, or anal penetration”. Two years later they will discover this may involve “the penis, fingers, tongue or objects”.
Have these people lost their minds? To the contrary. All these maneuvers are entirely consistent with the sex education programs supported by President Obama. Moreover, the administration would like taxpayers to fund their export to the rest of the world.
Who came up with the notion that it’s necessary to teach the world’s children about high risk sex acts their parents never heard of? The usual suspects: Planned Parenthood and the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States (SEICUS, a private organization). These groups portray themselves as guardians of our children’s health; they claim to provide students with all the information and skills they need to make smart choices. Their curricula, they declare, are comprehensive, age appropriate, ideologically neutral, and medically accurate. They give children the same message as parents: you’re too young – wait until you’re older.
If only it was so. The priority of this industry is not sexual health, but sexual freedom. Their objective is not for students to delay sexual behavior and remain free of infection, but for them to be open, from a tender age, to just about any form of sexual activity.
Let’s get this straight. There is no evidence that knowing the anatomy of male and female genitalia is vital to the well-being of young children. And the “one size fits all” approach, mandating that children learn about intercourse or same sex attraction at a particular age, is contrary to the principles of child development.
Children are not miniature adults. Introducing them to new information that cannot be easily assimilated can be distressing. A young child has his own theories about where babies come from, based on what he already knows; he may think his sibling came from a store or the hospital, or that his mother consumed some particular food or drink.
There’s nothing wrong with that. “Parents should respond to the needs and curiosity level of their individual child”, says the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, “offering no more or less information than their child is asking for and is able to understand”. In other words, let him be.
The sex ed oligarchy ignores this wisdom. And while insisting that first graders be taught “human beings can love people of the same gender and people of another gender”, and expecting third graders to “define HIV/AIDS”, these “experts” omit critical biological facts from the one group that actually needs sex education: adolescents.
Among other things, middle and high school students are not taught that: -
* Intimate behavior causes the release of a brain chemical that promotes feelings of attachment and trust, even if you are with a stranger. -
* A girl’s immature cervix increases her vulnerability to genital infections. HIV aside, girls and women carry 80% of the burden of negative consequences from early sexual behavior and multiple partners. -
* Faeces are filled with dangerous pathogens. Oral-anal contact is associated with serious infectious diseases such as salmonella, shigella, and hepatitis A, B, and C. -
* The physiology and anatomy of the anus is vastly different from the vagina. Regarding HIV transmission, anal intercourse is at least twenty times more dangerous than vaginal intercourse. -
* As stated on condom wrappers, breakage is more likely to occur during anal intercourse
How do “comprehensive” sex educators justify the omission of these life-saving facts? How do they boldly claim that their curricula are medically accurate, and their sole priority the health of children? I don’t know about Montana, but where I come from, that’s called chutzpah.
The administration wants to see programs like Helena’s go global. This year, thirty-nine House democrats introduced H.R. 5121, the Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010. It calls for comprehensive sex education in developing countries using US taxpayer funds.
How do we fight this madness? Like hundreds of parents, grandparents, teachers, and clergy in Helena are – by standing up publicly and insisting that sex education, like all health matters, be based on biological truths, not social agendas. By reminding authorities that this is a war against disease, not social injustice. And by proclaiming loud and clear: “my child’s innocence is precious. You try and take that away, and you’ll be sorry.”
Miriam Grossman, MD is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist and the author of You’re Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child (Regnery). She is a scholar in residence at World Youth Alliance.
Loading ...
Do you prefer children learn by a boring, clinical explanation like the school gives or exciting, misinformation of pop culture? Because unless you keep your child in a bubble, they’re going to absorb all that information around the same time the school plans to include it in the curriculum.
Trust me, the stuff I learned from hearing my classmates talk was much more damaging then what was taught in sex ed.
My wife served on a school board, and my daughter taught health in a middle school. There are serious issues to be discussed including what material is age appropriate, what threats the popular culture produces, and what values are appropriate to teach in a public school.
In the U.S. school policy is largely set at the local level, with the school board being an exercise in local democracy. Board members, in smaller districts at least, generally serve without pay and get an earful from the community and from parents when things get out of hand. Not surprisingly, once the local electorate got wind of the proposed change, the board decided to postpone the changes. Proposed changes, however, don’t come out of thin air, and the board doesn’t usually draw up detailed classroom plans. Someone, in the state or local administration, perhaps the superintendent, perhaps someone on a state board, came up with the proposed policy. I have not been able to find out who it is in this case. Any help on that question?
So, nerdygirl, that plan meant governmental disregard for what parent’s “prefer children learn”. It does not appear to be an effective plan in terms of what it was supposed to be promoting, anyway, but looks more effectively aimed at promoting an anti-social political agenda.
The list of things that “middle and high school students are not taught” could be a list of things that counter-act, to some extent, the misinformation in pop culture. However, that’s not part of the plan which seems rather negligent on that score.
Right?
“Now the news is from Montana”
Link please.
Chairm, sex can be a very social activity.
Kidding.
Have you any examples where not teaching something lead to less misinformation on the topic?
“Saddlebacking” didn’t come about because of rampant knowledge of sex afterall.
The truth about PP,why they cover up for sexual predators that prey on young girls & fight for sexual rights 4 little kids:
The links below are definitely not for children to read or watch. Kinsey was a very sick individual & Planned Parenthood uses his perverted ‘sex science’. I learned about Alfred Kinsey while reading Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, by Michael Savage. In Mr Savage’s book he wrote about Kinsey’s sick experiments and how Hollywood is aggrandizing Alfred Kinsey. While reading about Kinsey I thought of Planned Parenthood & there is a connection.
Salvo History of Sex Ed Laws
Sex Abused Kinsey’s Lies Shaped American Law, So Now what?
Rotten Apple Award~ Sex Ed Based on Lies is Child Abuse
From Kinsey to SEICUS Pernicious Guidelines
Upsurge in STDs
Course Correction
http://bit.ly/bbBIwJ
The Man Who Mainstreamed Perversion
The Kinsey Corruption: An Expose on the Most Influential “Scientist” of Our Time
http://bit.ly/bv1spS
Alfred Kinsey’s THE CHILD EXPERIMENTS http://bit.ly/cmuMqM
Learn more about Alfred Kinsey http://bit.ly/9c4jc2
Dr. Reisman’s home page http://www.drjudithreisman.com/
Nerdygirl said: “Have you any examples where not teaching something lead to less misinformation on the topic?”
No, there can be no examples, because everything taught in a classroom is superdooper and the very opposite of misinformation. That goes for grade schools and high schools and colleges too!
Heh.
Anyway, asking such a naive question when trying to express a supposeldy very worldly view is amusing.
If you support this plan, and support the neglect of the items in Dr Grossman’s list, that’s fine, just sayso and reconcile the two.
I never said I supported leaving out information. As for the information:
Intimate behavior causes the release of a brain chemical that promotes feelings of attachment and trust, even if you are with a stranger. -
Provided it’s pointed out that oxytocin is released in both genders, I have no problem with this. One could argue knowledge that feelings of attachment can follow sex would help those who choose to have one night stands or casual hookups not get “surprised” by the feelings.
* A girl’s immature cervix increases her vulnerability to genital infections. HIV aside, girls and women carry 80% of the burden of negative consequences from early sexual behavior and multiple partners. –
Nothing wrong with teaching that a not fully developed body is more easily damaged.
* Faeces are filled with dangerous pathogens. Oral-anal contact is associated with serious infectious diseases such as salmonella, shigella, and hepatitis A, B, and C. -
This is why scat is frowned upon by most. If I’m correct, proper etiquette is to douche first.
* The physiology and anatomy of the anus is vastly different from the vagina. Regarding HIV transmission, anal intercourse is at least twenty times more dangerous than vaginal intercourse.
Yes it’s different. Is it riskier then vaginal because it’s being statistically compared with transmission rates of gay men or is it only being compared with heterosexual transmission? I’ve seen this quoted alot, but haven’t seen the actual research.
* As stated on condom wrappers, breakage is more likely to occur during anal intercourse
There’s no problem with this. Also, lube is your friend.
But there are no examples. (This isn’t saying public education is without fault. Our system is broken, and america needs to step up. However, parents are far more likely to attack sex ed programs then help their kids with math homework, and unions are far to keen to protect poor teachers. Education needs a reality check from all sides.) You don’t have much of a stance here.
nerdygirl, the point of the question was that you did not say that you objected to leaving out the information. So I followed up and asked you to say what you did and did not support.
You support not leaving out the information in the list from the original bogpost at the top. Yet you mocked the very idea that teaching some stuff could actual create misinformation.
If you approve the plans, sayso. You still haven’t done that.
Dude. I don’t care enough to read the whole freaking curriculum. What Betsey specifically pointed out in the blog post, I don’t have a problem with. And for the most part, I don’t have a problem with her amendments, other then what I noted already.
What bothers me is the OMG THEY’RE GOING TO TEACH KINDERGARTNERS THE WORD PENIS. HOWEVER WILL OUR CHILDREN COPE WITH SUCH KNOWLEDGE. The information Betsey presents seems to be approached at appropriate age levels. And based on what Betsey’s written of it, I find little fault. I don’t know why some of her “facts” are not included. Perhaps within the curriculum it’s covered indirectly. Perhaps some of Betsey’s information is outdated. i don’t know. But between this and no sex ed, I’d gladly choose this.
Nerdygirl,
Okay, you support the features of the plan that Betsy noted; and you support adding to the plan the list of topics that Betsy noted.
Who do you think gets to decide what is and is not appropriate? The plan was for governmental disregard for what parent’s “prefer children learn”. Key point, right?
You offered a false choice. You said the choice is either this plan or no sex education.
Do you count yourself among those who assume that unless the government is the solution there can be no solution? Or that unless parent’s preferences are disregarded there can be solution?
I’d hope you might be more skeptical of government, and of so-called “experts”, than a yes and yes set of answers might suggest.
Apologies for the typo:
“Or that unless parent’s preferences are disregarded there can be no solution?”
No, I don’t think the government is (always, sometimes it is) best option or solution, but this is a public school. Abstinence ed programs are proven failures. Why should the government, and tax payers, pay for failure. Just so some parents can feel better about their kids not learning about sex in school? If parents don’t want their kids to learn about sex education, perhaps they should find a different school (religious) for their kids. (I’m not sure what the stance is on having a child exempt from one class, and the reasoning would have to be religious) There’s nothing that says parents talk to their kids about sex (and if parents did talk to their kids, we probably wouldn’t have this issue. But too many parents are more interested in letting the church or the school teach their kids.)
Betsey doesn’t actually give a different plan. (oh, and her oxytocin information is not outdated as much as its misleading. The jury is still out over the role it plays. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oxytocin-hormone this study suggests it may merely intensify whatever feeling a person is experiencing. So I retract my tentative agreement to that “fact”. Until it’s more research is done it has no place in schools)
Given Betsey’s lack of a plan, or different option, how am I setting up a false choice? There was no choice. But what about parents who support the plan? Are parents who want their kids to learn about sex in school to be disregarded? Do they have a say? Is it the governments job to make everyone happy?
Neither Betsy nor I said that Betsy had a plan. She did point out a list of key items that this particular plan neglected. You hinted you agreed with that list but now you quibble that it is not itself a plan?
The false choice you offered was governmental intrusion or no sex education.
What parents prefer matters. You seem to have come around to that realization.
* * *
You are mistaken about abstinence education. But if you want to point at failures, point at the sex ed programs du jour.
Paying for such failure seems to have whetted the appetite of activists for the plan that Betsy posted about. Your own remarks indicate that when it comes to sex education you really do agree with this plan to disregard what parents prefer (contrary to your recent realization) and to support failure and an ideological bias to boot.
The plan was to disregard what parents want — even to disgregard those parents who might be supportive of much of the content of that plan. That is how these things go when they are imposed upon people this way.
Governmental intrusion is the solution, in your view, not the problem, right?
If not, then, you’d disagree not only with the plan to disregard the parents but also with the financing of failure and the neglect of the list of things Betsy made in her blogpost, right?
Nerdygirl:
You asked for a study shwoing where leaving out information led to less misinformation. How about the large, well-designed study done in D.C. middle schools with over 700 students, over several years. One third of the students were given comprehensive sex-ed (p.p. style), one third were given NO SEX ED, one third were taught abstinence only. Two years later, over 50% of the comprehensive sex ed group admitted to having had sex, the NO SEX ED group came in LOWER with numbers around 45%, and the abstinence only group was down in the high 30% range.
It is only common sense that what adults teach is perceived as acceptable by the innocent children. That is WHY these agenda-ridden sex-ed programs are being pushed in schools. It is a clear case of social engineering to make the adults who want to partake of all of these activities want society to justify and agree with their destructive behaviors. This justification starts with comments like yours. We’re not buying it any longer!
I seem to recall a study that showed that every time they lowered the grade level at which they started “comprehensive sex-ed,” the average age of first sexual intercourse would also lower shortly thereafter. Yet the response to the earlier start of sexual activity seems to always be calls to lower the age of sex-ed. Maybe, just MAYBE, they should look at the problem with fresh eyes and realize that they might not be helping control the problem, but instead they are contributing to it.
Alright, I understand introducing Sex-ed to children before they go through puberty, and reinforcing it as a student grows older and can understand more of the material makes sense. Honestly though, kindergarten?
Yes, it makes sense to introduce the information before it’s critical: before a person’s body starts changing for its adult life (about 10 or so), before the person is likely to start having sex (common age of virginity loss: 13-16), and then another bout to introduce the more heavy concepts that kids just can’t get their head around until they’re older(high school).
Come to think of it, that’s the way that it was done in Maine (granted, the pre-pubescent was only one day, and the pre-sex was shoved in with all of the other ‘health’ items in middle school, but with a system like that, I actually knew all of those ‘missing points. Although seriously, if your parents didn’t do a good enough job so that you’d know that sh*t is not something you want to handle, there’s little hope for the neglected idiot that sucks on something covered in sh*t.
Schools have to teach this sh*t, because most American parents are so incompetent that they almost deserve sterility. All that this particular point of idiocy shows is that our government doesn’t want to be any less incompetent than its people.
@nerdygirl
Look, if you want to ignore what is written here do so; go spar somewhere else……obviously you cannot/will not be open minded of the info this article presents.
There is PLENTY of SCIENTIFIC info the behavior you are CLEARLY advocating (then not so cleverly ask for “proof against”), has caused; 50% of ALL sexually active persons carry STDs.
There IS NO WAY to sterilize the anal canal or ANY part of the human body to “safely hook up with enough …..SOOOOOOO using sex as you probably refer to it casually is UNSAFE; teaching little kids about this stuff is nothing short of attempting to make yourselves feel better for the rotton behavior you do & advocate….
So if you want to land up in Hell after you die or a nursing home (because you’re too sick to care for yourself with all the STDs you picked up) KNOCK YOURSELF OUT….but don’t take little innocent ones with you.
T……RN ( by the way, took care of MANY people who kept on making the wrong decisions & ended up on my terminal care floor….was always amazed how noone EVER seemed to learn from other peoples mistakes)
bigotry is a lifestyle choice, and I’m here to tell you it’s not an equal or valid option:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/david-boies-on-how-the-prop-8-witnesses-fell-apart/59554/
“It is not discrimination to treat different things differently.” Haha, ok maggie.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/david-boies-on-how-the-prop-8-witnesses-fell-apart/59554/