This started out as a comment on another diary, Making Abortion Illegal will not Stop Your Daughter from Having Sex, and the author asked me to turn this into a diary, so here goes,
As atheists, my husband and I wanted to provide the type of community support for our children that churches provide without the religion. The Washington Ethical Society was our solution. It provided a safe place to discuss morality and treatment of others without making it part of a philosophy dependent on God. Parents taught the Sunday school classes with the guidance of the Sunday school head and a fully developed curriculum. As a solution for providing the type of sex education that was in keeping with our values, the Washington Ethical Society adopted a well-used and successful program developed for the Unitarian Universalist Association called Our Whole Lives (OWL),
OWL encourages peer discussion about social and sexual issues, When sex is a taboo discussion for our children, titillating sex talk replaces it. OWL includes discussions and exercises such as selecting different colored marbles from a bag that were put in at the same ratio as the risk of pregnancy with unprotected sex. It illustrated how easily they or their friends could either get pregnant or make someone pregnant simply by having unprotected sex. It brought this reality home to both my son and daughter.
Not only are we unable to stop our children from having sex, but I don’t believe that it is our right as parents to make those decisions for them, and when we try to, instead of controlling their behavior we drive them away from us. Both of my children came out of this class knowing more than I do about new types of birth control available and the risks of disease, including HIV and HPV.
As parents, we have the responsibility to raise our children with the knowledge and ability to make their own good and bad decisions. The more truth we give them and the more we help them develop decision-making skills the better they will be able to protect themselves and become the adults we want them to be, and the more they will trust our opinions and come to us when they do make mistakes.
There shouldn’t be the sound of crickets when we discuss our sons and what they need to know in terms of sexual health and responsibility. If we do not prepare them to understand what they owe the person with whom they have sex they are in more danger too. When a boy isn’t aware of what consent means he is in danger of purposely or accidentally having sex with a girl who isn’t prepared. She may feel forced without making it clear, OR she may change her mind later and say that she felt forced because she is afraid of the consequences. Children of both sexes need to understand consent, rape, and their responsibilities to protect both themselves and their partners from pregnancy, disease, and exposure to ridicule for having shared intimacy with another individual. Gossip, the exposure of sex videos or sexting images are harmful to both the victim and the perpetrator. Both children are changed forever by this experience, neither one for the better.
We know the damage done to victims of gossip, bullying, and feeling forced or being forced to have sex, but we don’t often think about how as an immature, undeveloped person who becomes a perpetrator is a victim of society’s attitudes that make that child believe that women are sex objects or only say no because they are supposed to, and not because they are unwilling to have sex.
The best thing we can do to protect our children, of any gender or gender preference, from harm is to tell them the truth and give them the tools they need to make good decisions. Then we have to stand back a bit, give them the best advice and support we can and love them, even when they make mistakes with severe consequences. WE are the adults and in most cases are directly responsible if we allow our children to grow up without awareness and empathy for other people’s rights and feelings.
Why did Sarah Palin’s daughter end up pregnant and my daughter didn’t? Maybe it was because her daughter only had the choice of abstinence and not the luxury of truth and decision-making tools.