Screw This

The Washington Post reported a week ago that a federal survey revealed that kids that were in abstinence-only sex education programs were just as likely to have pre-marital sex as those who do not promise to abstain. Further, those kids in the abstinence-only programs were less likely to use birth control when engaging in sex than the non-promisors.

To me the question is not so much that abstinence-only education doesn't work. Nothing works even so-called "good" kids are going to play with fire when it comes to sex and alcohol. Twas ever thus. And the question is not so much whether the folks behind such education planning are a bunch of sanctimonious -forgive me- boobs, although they most certainly are. The question that comes to my mind is who really expected young people to stick to a vow of celibacy when history is replete with instances of vows being more widely honored in the breach?

Marriage vows have had no appreciable impact on the divorce rate. People swear an oath to tell the truth in court and then get up there and lie until they are blue in the face. The Methodists used to make folks pledge to forswear spirituous refreshment. Methodists haven't "taken the pledge" in 75 years, so successful was the earlier program. Vows of celibacy haven't held up too well recently either. The recent sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof of that.

Wishing and hoping is not a program. Speaking frankly about consequences is a start. For example, before I went to college my daddy sat me down to talk to me about drinking.

"Son," he said. "I would rather you not drink. But if you are going to drink at a party, eat some food before you get there and stick to only one type of beverage. When you get home drink plenty of water. Otherwise, you will be sick the next morning."

Know what? That's as good a piece of advice today as it was thirty some odd years ago.

I would rather kids not have sex. And they should be encouraged not to. But they will. And I would rather them know about their options and the consequences before the hormones take over.

Basing a teen pregnancy program on the vows of children to abstain is foolish. Vows have never worked very well with adults.

Why should they work with kids?