January 29, 2004
ABSTINENCE NATION:
What Do Parents Want Taught in Sex Education Programs? (Robert E. Rector, Melissa G. Pardue, and Shannan Martin, January 28, 2004, Heritage.org)
This paper presents the results of a recent poll on basic issues concerning sex education. The poll questions seek to measure parental support for the themes and values contained in abstinence curricula as well as support for the values embodied in comprehensive sex education.The data presented are drawn from a survey of parents conducted by Zogby International in December 2003. Zogby conducted telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,004 parents with children under age 18. Parents were asked 14 questions concerning messages and priorities in sex education; the questions used were designed by Focus on the Family. The margin of error on each question is plus or minus 3.2 percent points. The responses to the questions showed only modest variation based on region, gender of the parent, or race.1 The poll questions were designed to reflect the major themes of abstinence education. The descriptions of the messages contained in abstinence and comprehensive sex-ed curricula in the following text are based on a forthcoming content analysis of major sex-ed curricula conducted by The Heritage Foundation.
The exact wording of and responses to each of the 14 poll questions are presented in Charts 1 through 14. Overall, the poll shows that parents are extremely supportive of the values and messages contained in abstinence programs. By contrast, very few parents support the basic themes of comprehensive sex-ed courses. Responses to the individual questions are discussed below. [...]
Some 47 percent of parents want teens to be taught that "young people should not engage in sexual activity until they are married." Another 32 percent of parents want teens to be taught that "young people should not engage in sexual intercourse until they have, at least, finished high school and are in a relationship with someone they feel they would like to marry."
When these two categories are combined, we see that 79 percent of parents want young people taught that sex should be reserved for marriage or for an adult relationship leading to marriage. Another 12 percent of parents believe that teens should be taught to delay sexual activity until "they have, at least, finished high school." Only 7 percent of parents want teens to be taught that sexual activity in high school is okay as long as teens use contraception.
These parental values are strongly reinforced by abstinence education programs, which teach that sex should be linked to marriage and that it is best to delay sexual activity until marriage. By contrast, comprehensive sex-ed programs send the message that teen sex is okay as long as contraception is used; the underlying permissive values of these programs have virtually no support among parents.
Parents want teens to be taught that sex should be linked to love, intimacy, and commitment and that these qualities are most likely to occur in marriage.
Boy, real-life America is just nothing like libertarians and the Left want it to be, huh? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 29, 2004 06:50 PM
...and a very small number of thoughtful, clear-thinking dinosaurs just want the teachers to mind their own bloody business.
Posted by: Peter B at January 29, 2004 08:25 PMMr. Judd;
I don't see anything here that contradicts how Libertarians wnat real-life in America to be. I believed both since I was in high school.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at January 30, 2004 06:24 AMThere was an interesting piece on NPR this morning by some teenager from Oakland. The main point seemed to be that no-one agrees on what abstinence is. The girl narrating the piece, for instance, thought that you could do anything short of putting tab A into slot B and call yourself abstinent (do we call this the Clinton school of abstinence thought?). Her mother, of course, had other ideas. No mention of a father (sigh).
I am enthusiastic about abstinence education in the schools, while my wife is not. A reflection of our different experiences, I guess. She attended High School in a poor rural Utah town where sex education in the schools consisted mainly of "don't do it". Teen pregnancy rates were very high (she was one of the last girls in her class to get married, though she was still not old enough to drink). I, on the other hand, grew up in the suburbs of Burlington, VT and got more sex-ed than I wanted with no mention of abstinence. Lower teen pregnancy rates in my community (which was mainly upper middle class profesional), though I suspect abortion rates were higher in my town.
Of course, no parent with half a brain would cede responsibility for sexual education to the schools.
I was impressed with the NPR report. That girl was more mature than any of the staffers on the program.
I went to Catholic school, so we got not mere abstinence education but sex-is-bad education. Can't say I think it affected our bahavior in the way intended.
Children get their sex education from other children. Nothing is ever going to change that.
My father understood that. When it got to point when it seemed prudent to ask me if "there was anything I wanted to know," I said I thought I had grasped the essentials already.
"Ok," he said. "If you do have any questions, you can probably get them answered at the pool hall."
Posted by: Harry Eagar at January 30, 2004 01:17 PMHarry:
Good story. My father made Cotton Mather look like a wild and crazy guy, but for some unfathomable reason he decided, when I was nine(!),that he had a duty to fulfill when I started hearing rough language on the street. He closed the door and gave me the full story in solemn, didactic tones. This was the late fifties. He scared the living heck out of me and never mentioned the subject again.
And just look how well you and I turned out.
Posted by: Peter B at January 30, 2004 02:52 PMMy parents divorced when I was seven. When my mom decided the "day" had come, she adbicated the whole thing to our church's priest. I don't remember much about it. Around that time, my mom, as something of an aside, let on that girls really don't like sex very much.
In the years since, I have been led to believe that is not entirely true. But thinking it was kept me out of trouble. Well, that, and, so far as girls were concerned, light passed right through me without the slightest refraction.
My kids are 10 & 9. They ask questions. The latest, spawned by Pirates of the Caribbean, was "What is a eunuch?" They must have an innate sense for what subject some words must entail, because they just wouldn't let it go. Anyway, my wife and I hope that enough small discussions over enough time will accumulate to the right guidance.
Yours truly,
Pollyanna