Maine middle school to offer birth control

[WVUPharm2007]

Why not just use a pepperoni roll?

...touché.

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[Tuck]

Lucky girl you got there, just wanted to know is she ok with your daughter having sex at 11 years old?

I would hope not. I certainly would not advocate it myself, but I would much rather that if for some reason she did end up having sex at 11 that she had access to birth control. I don't have any issue with sex from a moral standpoint, but 11 is a very early age to start. The point is, no matter what the age you should have access to medications to prevent conception as well as education regarding condom use for prevention of STDs.

 

[Old Timer]

I would hope not. I certainly would not advocate it myself, but I would much rather that if for some reason she did end up having sex at 11 that she had access to birth control. I don't have any issue with sex from a moral standpoint, but 11 is a very early age to start. The point is, no matter what the age you should have access to medications to prevent conception as well as education regarding condom use for prevention of STDs.

I hope you understand, there is no reason for any 11 year old to be having sex. Period. One of the greatest problems in American Society is the fact that children have lost their innocence. We make them grow up too fast. As a parent your roll is to protect your child from these influences. You control where they go and what they do. You control what they watch on TV, what movies they go to, what books they read and what friends they play with. At 11 years old you do not have to be their friend, you have to be their parent.

Your child will have enough time to learn about sex and be emotionally prepared for it when the time comes. Age 11 is not the time. Your job is to prepare them for life. Don't fail at this job. It's the most important one you will have.

 

[mrsturtle]

I hope you understand, there is no reason for any 11 year old to be having sex. Period. One of the greatest problems in American Society is the fact that children have lost their innocence. We make them grow up too fast. As a parent your roll is to protect your child from these influences. You control where they go and what they do. You control what they watch on TV, what movies they go to, what books they read and what friends they play with. At 11 years old you do not have to be their friend, you have to be their parent.

Your child will have enough time to learn about sex and be emotionally prepared for it when the time comes. Age 11 is not the time. Your job is to prepare them for life. Don't fail at this job. It's the most important one you will have.

Very well said, I agree completely.

 

[Tuck]

I feel sad for your kids if you feel that way. That kind of control by parents is one of the number one things that causes dysfunctional kids. Almost any parenting class will stress the importance of teaching kids to start making choices at a young age and thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for their actions. My daughter is 5 and makes lots of decisions. I take her to the library once a week and let her pick her own books, choose a movie or two she would like to see and sit down with her before signing her up for activities to see what she would like to do. She chose on her own to do gymnastics 3 days a week, swimming 2, and doubles up with spanish, ballet, and hebrew as well, and in the winter we all ski on the weekend. The only rule I really have is that if she wants to watch TV for more than half an hour in the evenings she has to run on the treadmill. (I figured she would stop watching TV, but she runs on average 30 mins 3 times a week). She helps make her lunches the night before and gets to help with dinner 1 night a week, picks out all her own clothes, and sorts all of her laundry at night. Personally I think it is a cop out and a cheat to kids to make all their decisions for them, especially by the age of 11.

 

[Old Timer]

I feel sad for your kids if you feel that way. That kind of control by parents is one of the number one things that causes dysfunctional kids. Almost any parenting class will stress the importance of teaching kids to start making choices at a young age and thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for their actions. My daughter is 5 and makes lots of decisions. I take her to the library once a week and let her pick her own books, choose a movie or two she would like to see and sit down with her before signing her up for activities to see what she would like to do. She chose on her own to do gymnastics 3 days a week, swimming 2, and doubles up with spanish, ballet, and hebrew as well, and in the winter we all ski on the weekend. The only rule I really have is that if she wants to watch TV for more than half an hour in the evenings she has to run on the treadmill. (I figured she would stop watching TV, but she runs on average 30 mins 3 times a week). She helps make her lunches the night before and gets to help with dinner 1 night a week, picks out all her own clothes, and sorts all of her laundry at night. Personally I think it is a cop out and a cheat to kids to make all their decisions for them, especially by the age of 11.

With all respect sir, you are a *****. You are twisting my words into a French Braid. I didn't say you make all of the decisions I said you have control of the decisions. Do you let her pick out R rated movies, I don't think so. She can pick the movies from a list you control. She watches the TV shows you control. She goes to the places you control. I didn't say you should be a helicopter parent and hover over your child. I said the activities should be age appropriate. There is not one child rearing expert in the entire world you can point to that says sex at 11 years old is age appropriate.

We can disagree, I prefer clarity to agreement. What I will not tolerate is twisting what I said into a pretzel so it means the opposite of what I said. Unless you let your child select any movie from the video store, any book from the library and watch any TV show she wants you are doing exactly what I said which is controlling the environment your child lives and grows in so she will be able to live a healthy and happy life.

Just so you know, my kids are 18 and 21, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, get pretty good grades and are respected in the community they live as "Good" people. Talk to me in 10-15 years and we'll compare notes.

Just one question. What do you most want your daughter to be?

• Happy
• Smart
• Successful
• Good

 

[Tuck]

Actually I am a genius but that is beside the point, and while I don't necessarily agree with your points I don't need feel the need to insult your intelligence. I do let her pick any movie or book at the library that she chooses as well as let her watch any TV she wants. The only shows that she likes on TV are americas funniest home videos, mythbusters, and animal planet, and the only books she are interested in are in the kids section. At this point it true she does not have much choice in where she goes most of the time, but I don't really know any 5 year olds that do. As far as choosing one of those options, I do not think any are mutually exclusive and it is hard to choose. If I had to do so then happy is what I would choose, but I think that is a simplistic answer.

 

[PharmDstudent]

Just so you know, my kids are 18 and 21, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, get pretty good grades and are respected in the community they live as "Good" people. Talk to me in 10-15 years and we'll compare notes.

Old Timer, don't call the guy a *****. It makes you sound so hateful.

Your "kids" were raised in the 90's. I'm not much older than your oldest, so I remember what it was like. I played outside with my neighbors, rode my bike around, played in a field at the end of my dead-end street, jumped on the neighbor's trampoline, etc. I knew my entire neighborhood. Once we moved, I had a new neighborhood to explore. To this day, I still have very vivid memories of both of those neighborhoods.

These days, children can't play outside on their own. Maybe they could if they lived somewhere that's safe enough. So instead of interacting with other children outside, they watch tv, play on the internet, or hang out at a friend's house if they can't be supervised by their parents. Those activities could potentially expose children to sex in the form of commercials, insinuation, pornographic pop-ups, and conversations between adults at their friend's house. I could list more, but I'm afraid of overkill.

When I was in eighth grade, I remember my friend telling me that it was her first time to have sex and how she had cried afterwards. She didn't encourage it or anything, but it was still shocking. I think she was 13 years old. My other friend had talked about his first time with the babysitter. I think he might have been 12. Old Timer, these weren't bad children or bad people's children.

I had other friends who were very sheltered. These two girls had "good" parents and nice homes. One of their fathers was an engineer and the other was a physician. While they might not have had sex until college, they didn't do very well in college, because they had little motivation since their parents couldn't be as involved. Instead of becoming successful in college like their parents, they became obsessed with parties and dating. I'm not sure if either of them ever graduated.

 

[Old Timer]

The reason I chose the word, was because he accused me of being a bad parent and then twisted everything I said so it was the opposite of what I meant.

As for it being easer to raise kids in the 90's vs now. The same issues. I grew up in the 60's when parenting was easy.


You wanted your five year old to watch less TV. So you went for the treadmill. You got outsmarted by a five year old. If you want her to watch less TV. Then the rule of the house is after X minutes the TV is off. My kids never had a TV in their bedroom. I could care less what their friends had, what my mother said. I didn't care. I knew if they had a TV in their bedroom, books had no shot. They are both avid readers because that is how they were raised. They could watch TV in the family room.

And tuck, the question was what do you want your child MOST to be. It's not simplistic and they are not mutually exclusive. It's a very interesting questions for parents to ask themselves. I did not go into child rearing with this question in mind. I'll tell you my answer and why after you answer. There really is one right answer. Not that the others are NOT important, they are. There is one answer that American parents seem to favor one answer over all others to the detriment of their children.
Think about the question.

 

[Tuck]

I already answered "Happy" above. The reason I say it is simplistic is because being happy can and does encompass the other points to some extent. A person who is a successful (I am taking this exclusively in terms of job/work) is not always necessarily a happy one, but a happy person is often successful. Good is mostly a matter of opinion and depends on society views so I will leave that out for now except to say that people who are happier tend to be decent to others. Being smart is related more to genetics, and while being smart helps a great deal, motivation is often a more important factor in life. One of my favorite books when I was younger was "Flowers for algernon," and the message is one that I tend to agree with.

 

[Old Timer]

I already answered "Happy" above. The reason I say it is simplistic is because being happy can and does encompass the other points to some extent. A person who is a successful (I am taking this exclusively in terms of job/work) is not always necessarily a happy one, but a happy person is often successful. Good is mostly a matter of opinion and depends on society views so I will leave that out for now except to say that people who are happier tend to be decent to others. Being smart is related more to genetics, and while being smart helps a great deal, motivation is often a more important factor in life. One of my favorite books when I was younger was "Flowers for algernon," and the message is one that I tend to agree with.

The answer most parents shoot for is smart or successful. The best answer is Good. It really is what is lacking in society, the lack of moral values. It's all relative. I maintain it's not. What Hitler did was wrong, what Stalin did was wrong. There is a right and a wrong. If not, it's only personal preference. I want to rape, murder, take drugs, have sex at 12, it's cool. It turned out we raised our kids to be good. If you ask therapists what the greatest problem they faced in 60's it would have been guilt. If you ask today, the answer is narcissism. We are a very narcissistic society. It's all about meeeeee.

I really have no idea where or when values went out of society, maybe it was the 60's. It is clearly a problem. Everything resolves around the self. It's not healthy....

 

[Tuck]

I don't think that "Good" is well enough defined to be an answer for me. Several people who I would define as good people live somewhat miserable lives because they tend to get walked all over. Then again if you define good as a function of morality, then you have to define that morality. Would you consider someone who is willing to die for their faith a good person? If so, then those individuals who commit suicide bombings could be considered "good" because they adhere to their morals and religion. If you have a different set of morals or upbringing then this would be a horrible and unforgivable act. Right and wrong are subject to cultural upbringing, I could give you numerous examples of things I came across while working in Kenya to illustrate this point. In a country like America where there is a mesh of so many cultural and religious communities defining what is good and what is not is a real challenge and you will probably get a different answer from every person.

 

[Old Timer]

There is culture and then there is morality.

France prosecuted a woman from Gambia for performing clitoridectomy on her daughters. Because while that might be the culture she was raised in, it is wrong.

When England was in charge in India they stopped the culturally accepted practice of Sati, where a widow was burned (sometimes and usually involuntarily) on her late husband's funeral pyre. Why, because while it was culturally accepted in Hindu and Indian culture, it is wrong.

Being willing to die for your beliefs is one thing, murdering innocent people while you die for religious beliefs is wrong. So now I will blaspheme the God's of Political Correctness that presently rule America and are polluting the society with poison. If it is the belief of certain segments of the Islamic world that it is appropriate and right to hijack an airplane and fly it along with the passengers into a building and killing 3000+ innocent civilians is not morally equal to the values of the American society they attacked.
During the inquisition, Tomás de Torquemada who was responsible for burning Jews at the stake in order to save them was wrong and the Jews who were willing to be burned rather than denounce their faith were not wrong.

In any situation, you can twist things out of all proportion. While it is generally accepted it is wrong to steal, morally I would have no trouble with a starving person stealing a loaf of bread.

As for America being a melting pot, somebody better turn up the heat, because we are no longer melting. People don't want to be Americans. They want to be Mexicans who live in America or Russians who live in America or Haitians who live in America. The secret of American success has always been on every coin. Pick up any coin and on the back it says "In God we trust." and on the front it says E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. When the Italians came here they assimilated their culture into American Culture, the same for the Jews and the same for the Germans and for all of the immigrants of the late 18th and early 19th century. You brought your values and customs and integrated them into American culture until they became American customs. That's why McDonalds has breakfast bagels and there is probably not a city in the country where you can't get spaghetti and meatballs.

Being good does not mean being a door mat. It means doing the right thing. So when you are at the diner and the waitress/waiter fails to charge for an item, your bring it to their attention. If the bank teller gives you an extra $50.00 when you cash your paycheck, you return it. When someone does something for you, you say thank you. It means you don't screw one friend for another. You don't gossip. There are many more examples, none of which has anything to do with being taken advantage of.

Right and wrong are NOT cultural, they are transcendent. They transcend culture.

 

[HaleyRX]

Tuck,

I don't understand how you compare letting your daughter pick a library book to being okay with 11 year olds having sex.
Flash forward 6 years when your precious little girl is still making her own choices and makes some that lead her down a path that does make her unhappy. What about if she becomes pregnant at 11? or gets an STD? or cries every night after her 12 year old boyfriend tells all of his friends about the stuff he got her to do? But wait, she made her own choices..she was "happy" just as you want her to be...until things fell apart.
There are LOTS of parents out there who let their kids make their own choices..to just assume that your child will always make the best choices is naive. You have to be a parent and keep some control. Things will spiral down before you realize it.
She won't always be entertained with Green Eggs and Ham or Hannah Montanna or whatever kids do these days...at some point it will be more important choices. I understand that you want to give her some freedom so that she learns to handle it..being a dictator is no good, but being a best friend isn't either..

 

[mustang sally]

You shouldn't micromanage your kids or make every single decision for them. But until they are of legal age (and possibly even beyond) it is your responsibility to do everything possible to instill in them good judgement and the morals that you believe they should have. I can't really liken my child's choice of library book to whether or not he should have sex at the age of 11.

 

[gaba101]

I feel sad for your kids if you feel that way. That kind of control by parents is one of the number one things that causes dysfunctional kids. Almost any parenting class will stress the importance of teaching kids to start making choices at a young age and thinking for themselves and taking responsibility for their actions. My daughter is 5 and makes lots of decisions. I take her to the library once a week and let her pick her own books, choose a movie or two she would like to see and sit down with her before signing her up for activities to see what she would like to do. She chose on her own to do gymnastics 3 days a week, swimming 2, and doubles up with spanish, ballet, and hebrew as well, and in the winter we all ski on the weekend. The only rule I really have is that if she wants to watch TV for more than half an hour in the evenings she has to run on the treadmill. (I figured she would stop watching TV, but she runs on average 30 mins 3 times a week). She helps make her lunches the night before and gets to help with dinner 1 night a week, picks out all her own clothes, and sorts all of her laundry at night. Personally I think it is a cop out and a cheat to kids to make all their decisions for them, especially by the age of 11.

the apple does not fall far from the tree--parents that let their young kids make their own decisions (not from a "controlled" list) are often bad parents/individuals. those examples you picked about your daughter are obviously highly idealized--i'm sure it's not always a happy-go-lucky environment

these are the same 12 yr olds that pick out the $110 Nike Shox (or however much they cost) for their parents to buy at the Fall Back to School shopping store when their (stupid) parents ask them "so what shoes do you want to buy/wear to the start of the new school year next week?"--I highlight a true example as this did happen to my pharmacy tech (a SINGLE MOM) who makes $12/hr at Wal-Mart. Kids that make their own decisions when young are often (not always) more spoiled/bratty--why do 5 year olds need to wear name-brand clothing (unless you come from a very afluent family & can *easily* afford it)...or why is it so cute that 7 year olds carry purses when they go out shopping w/ their high-maintenance mothers who wear mini skirts and excessive pink eyeshadow and 5" heels and a fur coat

another example of a family who allowed their kids to make their own decision...was at a Denny's Sun morning eating breakfast with a friend...if you've ever been to Denny's Sun morning, you'll know it is SUPER CROWDED w/ lots of food/trash on the floor (busy morning). here was a family of 4--mom/dad looked like they are from the lower-end of the middle class...5 year old boy ROLLS AROUND in the trash/food IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WALK WAY during the ENTIRE meal and the parents continue to eat and occassionally lean to the side of the table where the boy was rolling around on the floor in the aisle to check up on him. only STUPID PARENTS would allow that kind of behavior to continue (Tuck, what would you have done?)--this boy's behavior was clearly condoned by his parents (since htey did nothing to stop it), was a hazard to everyone (esp. waitresses carrying hot coffee) and to the boy, and just a nuissance to all customers eating there.

bottom line--kids need control. i think allowing them to make decisions at a young age is good in that they can become independent but they need to be able to make decisions within a controlled environment (like OldTimer said--choosing anybook from a list you or another "good" adult gives them). if they aren't controlled and instead can make ANY decision freely, they will get used to getting everything they want and will be let down tremendously when they enter the real world and see that everybody else doesn't cave in to their wishes...

 

[Tuck]

I believe I have stated several times that I do not condone kids having sex at 11. However, I think it is naive to believe that it does not happen and that providing birth control and preventative education to prevent them from getting pregnant and getting STDs is imperative.

As far as the comment about kids being more bratty I highly disagree. My parents let me make my own decisions at a young age. Both myself and my brother were making our school lunches, doing our own laundry, and working to make money doing chores or working out on my grandma's farm by the age of 7. The choices she can make are things that are related to her. She is well aware of what kind of behavior is tolerated when eating out and she knows that if she misbehaves then she will not be able to go out to eat anymore.

 

[njac]

The fact is, if you raise your child with the values that won't require birth control at 11 then it won't be your kid getting it at school. Then again, it's always "someone else's kid" who does X, Y, or Z.

My mother was extremely strict with me and I can't say it was all good. There are aspects of my personality now that I don't care much for that I am sure relate to how I was raised.

However, if you looked at the families of all pregnant teenagers I doubt you would find many trends. Rich girls, poor girls, black girls, white girls, girls who drive BMWs, girls who take the city bus, girls with no curfew, girls with 6pm curfew...

But if it's becoming a problem why is it so terrible to offer something to reduce lifelong consequences? Obviously there should be counseling involved (I mean like guidance counselor stuff) as well, but if the girl is already knocked up at 12, then something in the system already failed. And of course the parents never blame themselves... it's the tv, the clothes, the music...

 

[njac]

oh, and on the bratty kids note.

I would much rather hang out with a kid raised by 2 20 year olds than on raised by 2 45 year olds. For the most part, the children I encounter who have older, first-time parents are god awful.

 

[Old Timer]

Please all read Exhibit One on why this country is so screwed up. If you can make it all the way through the article without screaming or reaching for a Haldol I'd be amazed.

Then keep in mind the Words of Dennis Prager: (who I disagree with politically but not morally)

There are only so many things you can drive your kids crazy about before you really drive them crazy. Choose wisely.

So I urge all of you parents out there and those that are going to be parents one day, raise your children to be of good character. It's more important than grades or status or what school they get into or how much money they make. Not only do they depend on this, but so does our society. Please help reverse the trend in the article above. This is not an isolated event this is going on all over the country.