Parents often fail with sex education

Arthur J. L. Meether, Ph. D.

Published Thursday, May 8, 2008

John Holley wants the legislators to vote “no” on sex education and calls on us to contact them.

I agree sex education is the job of parents.The problem is parents too often fail to do it or do an inadequate job. That is why 1 in 4 girls and countless boys have STDs and there are so many teenage pregnancies.

Our silence will not solve the problem. Everyone gets educated about sex. If teenagers do not get sex education from their parents they will get it exclusively on the playground and in the locker room.

As an octogenarian, I have been around long enough to assure parents with authority that the locker room and playground professors never teach abstinence.

If we lived in an ideal world there would be no murder, theft, rape, lying and deceit, out-of-wedlock births and STDs. In the ideal world all young people would be abstinent until marriage. But our world is far from ideal. Condoms are not 100 percent effective, but regardless of how you feel about them, they are always the lesser evil when a couple of teens decide not to abstain as a great many do regardless of what they have been taught.

No harm will come to teens already fully and completely informed by their parents to their having a refresher course at school as I cannot believe anyone is ever harmed by having too much accurate knowledge on any subject.

Neglected youth will be protected from the misinformation of the playground and locker room.

This is why I favor the legislation and urge others to tell the legislators to vote “yes.”

Arthur J. L. Meether, Ph. D.

Fergus Falls