<p>Actually, sexual maturity IS in fact linked to other developmental proclivities. If it wasn’t for schools (the leading preventable cause of mental retardation - and I’ve got studies from King’s College-London indicating that is the case), they might be able to handle it just fine. In fact, the studies I’ve read indicate that it was LATE sexual maturity among adolescent women coupled with early marriages a hundred years ago that was the cause of real problems.)</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong: I’m not crusading for kids to have sex. It seems they manage it just fine without me. And neither mother, church, school or state are likely to stop 'em - they’ve never stopped sexually mature human beings before, and I think it is highly unlikely they’ll start now. Not their fault either - they’re fighting our divine natures.</p>
<p>" And how many parents would be comfortable showing their 8-year-old child a condom and being like “here, you’ll need one of these in the next 10 years.”</p>
<p>I know I wasn’t ready to have sex when I was 11 and started my period. And how many parents would be comfortable showing their 8-year-old child a condom and being like “here, you’ll need one of these in the next 10 years.”</p>
<p>Also, like I said, I think it’s wrong to place the whole blame on schools…do you really think getting hit with sex everywhere you turn makes things any better?</p>
<p>Are you seriously saying that you think 11-year-olds are ready to have sex? Are they ready for the emotional implications? Are they ready to be a parent? I highly doubt it. I can’t even imagine what having sex and then “breaking up” would do to them.</p>
<p>People kill each other. Deal with it.
People steal from each other. Deal with it.
People abuse their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband. Deal with it.</p>
<p>My guess is that a relatively miniscule number of 11-year-olds have sex. And that is why I, personally, have issues with throwing the whole pot of middle schoolers into the birth control clinic crusade.</p>
<p>Though I don’t agree with Mini entirely on his points about American kids being emotionally ready for sexual relationships, your logic is seriously flawed, HGFM. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with sex–excluding religious objections to sex before marriage–as there is with violence or other types of abuses. Comparing the two doesn’t really make sense.</p>
<p>I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with sex. I’m saying that you can’t adopt a “they’re going to do it anyway so why not let them?” attitude. Because then you might as well not have any laws at all.</p>
<p>You know what? “Laws” are kind of a last resort. They don’t work especially well to stop adults from doing bad things. They are horribly expensive to enforce, and enforcement is completely hamfisted and produces all sorts of unpleasant side effects. (Do you really want to send a 13-year-old to prison for 40 years for having sex with another 13-year-old? Do you want to send a 13-year-old to prison at all? Do you want to send him – I think you mean “him” – to a juvenile facility a/k/a Crime School?)</p>
<p>And as poorly as laws work to ensure good behavior for adults, they work even less well to ensure good behavior by young teenagers. Just as they aren’t emotionally ready for sex, they often aren’t emotionally ready to understand why they should obey laws that seem wrong to them. They don’t even have a frame of reference to understand what being a felon could mean for their lives. Young teenagers can be extremely dangerous for just that reason, but more laws is hardly the best way to address that problem.</p>
<p>The way that laws work best is when they accord with widely-shared fundamental morality. Most people refrain from killing others not because it’s legally prohibited, but because they think it’s wrong, and because they don’t want to live in a world where people kill each other as a matter of course.</p>
<p>I’m not saying to illegalize underaged sex. That would, indeed, be pointless. I’m just saying I think it’s wrong to accept something just because people are going to do it anyway.</p>
<p>Having laws on the books has helped with my parenting, whether I agree with them or not. When all reasoning fails, I have used the “you have to go to school BECAUSE ITS THE LAW,” line many times and it has been very effective.</p>
<p>So I have no problem with a law on the books that criminalizes sex with a 12-year old, if only to give more ammo to those in authority, i.e., “No, you can’t have sex with Susie because ITS A CRIME AND YOU COULD GO TO JUVENILE HALL.”</p>
<p>My unscientific take: there’s nothing else positive going on in the life of an 11-year-old girl who decides to have sex. She’s not getting affection, encouragement, and reinforcement from the people who sould be giving it to her. She has no idea that she has value aside from sexual value. She doesn’t have the dreams for her future that we would want our daughters to have. She’s trying very hard to be a grown-up because she hasn’t had an opportunity to be someone’s child.</p>
<p>I’m singularly unconcerned about the rights of the parents of such a girl. They’ve already failed. Schools should step in to do what they can, which may not be much, but sex at 11 is preferable to sex at 11 plus parenthood at 12, so if those are the two options, so be it.</p>
<p>Bay, I take your point, but if there were a benevolent authority in these kids’ lives in the first place, sex at 11 wouldn’t be an issue. I knew plenty of girls who had their periods at 9 and 10. The ones with halfway decent parents were not even kissing boys, much less having sex.</p>
<p>I hate the idea of middle school kids having sex. The kind that can get you pregnant. Or the kind that can’t (oral sex has become “in” at the middle school level in the last several years).</p>
<p>But they DO.</p>
<p>The middle school nurses are not standing in the halls, or in the front of the classroom, handing out birth control pills to all the pre-teen and young teen girls within their eyesight.</p>
<p>They are now able to provide birth control pills to those few girls whom they see in their practice who are sexually active and AT RISK FOR PREGNANCY. I, for one, think this is the better course of action than not allowing it.</p>
<p>And, it does not preclude all of the other valid approaches to attempt to turn this tide suggested by others, above.</p>
<p>Thanks Corranged for coming to my defense!! All I was doing is echoing the subtext of what seems to be at the crux of so many of these challenges with kids. Too much time alone, unsupervised, parents away on weekends… there are many temptations in this world…and our job as parents is to stay engaged with our kids. Recently there has been a big national study that said one of the most significant behaviors is to have a family dinner/meal every night. Sometimes the assumption is that everyone loves their kids as much as we love ours…that is not always the case… or the financial situation causes the single parent to work late at nite etc etc… </p>
<p>We don’t know if the 17 pregnancies are due to kids having sex with other kids of their own age or older kids/adults taking advantage of or abusing younger girls. </p>
<p>And, when I said that no one wants to provide birth control to middle school kids, I meant to say that no one “wants” to provide that…they would rather be dealing with much more age appropriate activities and interests. Soccer or learning how to make a friendship bracelet… middle school pregnancy and motherhood will just perpetuate the problems…and deny these kids the opportunity to continue to learn so they can have a more fulfilling life as an adult. A high school education is really the minimum level needed in today’s global marketplace.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry, maineparent, I obviously misunderstood. I wasn’t trying to insinuate that you force yourself on your kids…it was just an honest misunderstanding. I’m so sorry if I offended you.</p>
As much as I agree with this, I still can’t totally get behind the idea of offering hormonal birth control to middle schoolers. I mean, there are cardiovascular risks, obviously, and emotional side effects – those are risks I’m comfortable with a college freshman being able to understand, but I’m not comfortable with a 12-year-old being able to make that choice.</p>
<p>Also, in practical terms, what are the noncompliance rates of 12-year-olds on hormonal birth control?</p>
<p>I don’t think anything you wrote was objectionable. I admit I have to force myself out of my sheltered comfort zone in order to picture how it is possible for an 11 year-old to engage in regular consensual sex (requiring bc) without an adult intervening. At that young age, I would hope that the school would make an effort to help stop the behavior from continuing (a great time to talk about sexual self-control), as well as adress the bc issue. I think the attitude that “it is happening so it accept it” is sad when it comes to a child this young (and yes, I would feel differently if the child was say, 16).</p>
<p>HGFM: You bring up the “why have laws if we should just deal with the fact that they are doing it anyways” point in every debate that somebody uses the pragmatic “well, it’s happening, so we either make it as safe as possible or keep it illegal, which doesn’t work and is more dangerous”, and you’re making a straw man argument every time.</p>
<p>The difference between having no laws and this is huge. The way the “they do it anyways, so let’s make it as safe as possible” argument works is this: we have laws against it. They don’t work. If we get rid of the laws, will the aggregate effect be a positive or negative one? In this case, it will be positive - there maybe a small increase in preteens having sex, but it will be countered by all the children not having babies. So we do it. It’s just that simple.</p>
<p>Getting rid of all laws is a total straw-man argument because if you legalized murder obviously the aggregate outcome would be worse. I’m surprised I’m having to even explain this to you - I would’ve thought that the thinking behind mini’s point was pretty clear, but apparently not.</p>
<p>Bay: Yes, it’s sad. But when the choice is between being ideological, going for the best solution (no sex at that age), failing and having preteens pregnant as a result, or conceding to reality, providing the pill, and not having pregnancies, I’ll take the latter every time. It’s not a great option, but it’s better than the other.</p>
<p>Because I think that’s no reason to accept something. In fact, it’s part of my Senior Class’s project. We’re trying to abolish homelessness in my hometown. </p>
<p>“Well, people are just going to live on the street anyway, so leave them alone.”</p>