A Peculiar Blog

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I have to say that normally I think that Dr. Phil has a pretty good idea of what’s going on. When he asks somebody “How’s that working for you?”, it’s a wake up call for the person he’s talking to because they need to see that what they’ve been doing just isn’t working. The problem is that I think it’s time for somebody to ask him that question.

In the show I saw (Monday 3/4/08), he had a guest that teaches an abstinence only sex education program. There were other guests that disagreed with him and Bishop TD Jakes, who may well have been one of the few sources of reason on that show.

We’re talking about children having sex, teen pregnancy, STD’s, the whole nine yards. The abstinence teacher was strongly opposed to the idea of schools handing out condoms. In one heated moment Dr. Phil responds to something the guy says by saying that if he knows kids are going to have sex anyway he’d hand out condoms by the boxful.

All I can say here is that this whole condoms in school thing is wrong. It’s sending the wrong message. Educating kids about sex and the responsibilities and STD hazards involved is one thing. Handing out condoms is another entirely.

Yes, children desperately need to be educated about sex and ideally this education needs to begin at home. But it also needs to be more than a biology lesson of the what and how. There needs to be teaching about responsibility. Responsibility that means adults realizing that children, regardless of how together they act or how determined they are, are not ready to get involved in sexual situations.

They may be physically capable, but there is no way that they’re prepared in any other way. Handing out condoms in schools only sends the message “we know you’re going to have sex, just try not to get pregnant.”.

That is the wrong message. It should be. “Wait until you are older and ready to commit to a lifelong marriage to someone special.” Education is fine, even necessary, however so also are limits and one of those limits needs to include not telling them in any way that it’s ok to be having sex.

One girl on the show talked about how she got pregnant at 13 and if condoms had been available where she went to school then she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. HELLO?!!? IS anybody home here?!? If she’d not had sex she wouldn’t have needed the condoms and would not have gotten pregnant.

So, what we have today is sexually transmitted diseases that aren’t really being controlled at all, a society that’s getting more permissive all the time, parents that don’t care enough to teach kids any kind of morals, condoms being handed out in more and more schools and a teen pregnancy rate that’s out of this world.

Dr. Phil, How’s that working for you?

Personally, I don’t think it’s working at all.

Technorati Tags: abstinence, dr+phil, morals, sex, sex+education, sexually+transmitted+disease, std, td+jakes, teen+pregnancy, teen+sex

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