Parents Want Kids Better Informed in Sex Education Classes

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of parents attitudes on sex education reflects a less dramatic example of what I referred to the other day as the almost society-wide abandonment of parents moral/ethical obligations toward children. The Kaiser foundation surveyed 4,000 parents and found that, “Most parents want the nation’s junior and senior high schools to teach their children more about sex…” (Unfortunately the CNN story only gives vague claims like that rather than concrete numbers).

It is mind boggling to me that so many parents want to relegate such an important physical, social and moral issue to a third party. Personally I’d rather not have the state meddling in such affairs.

The irony with sex education is that for the most part opposition to sex education in the past came from conservative Christians and others concerned that schools’ sex education courses promoted promiscuity. Now, however, most sex education programs include a strong dose of abstinence education. I’d really prefer my daughter not be exposed to either.

The other annoying new fad is so-called “character education.” Two candidates fighting over a Michigan Senate seat, incumbent Republican Spence Abraham and Democrat Debby Stabenow, have been running ads on the local television stations attacking each other over the issue. The weird thing is the politics are the reverse of what you might expect — Stabenow is a big supporter of character education and has been mercilessly going after Abraham for voting against funding for such measures in the past.

Do parents really want the state giving their children moral instruction?

My daughter is almost 4 years old and at the moment she is pretty much a bundle of joy. She has her temper tantrums and other moments, but for the most part we spend our time singing and dancing, reading and playing, generally discovering fascinating new things about the world. But she’s going to grow up and at some point her mother and I are going to have to provide her with the tools to understand and think critically about the many important decisions she will have to make as an adult about things like sex and the sort of morally ambiguous issues most of us face every day.

I’d hate to think we’ll shirk that duty and tell her to talk to her school teachers when she starts asking serious questions and begins facing adult situations.

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