The Pub Discussion Board

I'll agree with the idea that we tell people when they first get on welfare that if they have another child, they WILL NOT get more money. I'm not sure if they do this now or not. If not, they should and I beleive they do, at least here in my state.

The other two ideas would be shot down by some court, somewhere.

Taking a kid away without cause, just because the woman is poor, is a really bad idea... We are a litigous(sp?) nation full of extremists. If something can be taken to an extreme, someone will want to take it there.

We start taking kids away from poor women on welfare, next thing you know, someone will try and pass a law stating that anyone not making X amount of money a year should not be allowed to have children and if they do, the child will be "seized" by the government and placed for adoption. Next thing you know, the government will be trying to decide how many children people can have simply based on money. I DO NOT want the government telling me, my wife or my sister that we are or are not allowed to have children. Or telling us how many children we can have. This is a really bad idea!

The second idea, forced sterilization, has been tried and shot down in a number of courts around the country. Getting that past Congress and the people would be nearly impossible at this point.

I do NOT want to start a discussion, arguement, debate or whatever on abortion. The topic is simply way too inflammatory. Too many people have very deep rooted feelings on the issue and it can easily become very, very personal. It's a good way to end up not being friends. I will simply stand by my statement that "we need to make it less necessary." I think everyone, pro-choice or pro-life, can agree with that one.

I've heard Kevin Smith's story. I'm a huge fan. "Dance Fatboy, Dance!"

As for my idea, even if the schools won't show a 'Real' sex ed video. There could still be a market for it. Sell it to parents who want their child to know the truth but are too embarrassed or too shy or whatever to come out and explain it all. I WANT my kids to know they can come to me and say "Dad, Janey and I are considering having sex. I was wondering if I could get a condom." or "Daddy, prom's coming up and Mark and I have been going out for two years. He told me he's going to get us a room for prom night." This would be ideal.

Unfortunately, as Net Wolf said, we still have these damn Puritanical ideals that the society foists onto us whether we want them or not. They get pushed onto our kids no matter how hard we try to convince the kids otherwise.  Considering we are probably the most progressive nation in the world, it's amazing how conservative we can be especially with something like our own bodies and sex, a perfectly natural function. An absolutely necessary function for the continuation of mankind.

Back to my point (sorry, I ramble horribly) with this DVD in hand. I can, if I so wish, sit the kids down, put it in and let them learn what they REALLY need to know and then ask if they have questions. If I don't want to sit with them, could be a little awkward, all I have to do is leave the DVD lay somewhere and tell them "Don't watch that! It's not meant for you. It's for adults only." And then leave the house. Kids and candy and all that. The real live naked bodies and the real life sex would keep almost any teen enthralled for the hour or two of the video.

Parents SHOULD be the one's responsible for the sexual education of their children. But ask your friends and associates how many of them ever got a really good sex talk from their parents, I bet you won't find many. Believe it or not, there are still some "old wives tales" out there and people still believe them. "You can't get pregnant your first time." "You can only get pregnant three or four days a month. The days halfway between periods." and others.

I'm not saying we would STOP teen pregnancies, I don't think anything can, but I think, with a good sexual education, we could cut back on the number and on the number being infected with STD's. That's just my opinion though.

I think someone would have a really hard time convincing me that we should allow the government to decide who can and can not have babies or when a person can have a baby.

Warning: Quick family history coming up. Sorry.

I was the youngest of three children. My parents weren't rich. My father was an NCO and then a Warrant officer in the US Army, a lifer. He did 20 years. My mother never worked outside the house until I was a teenager. My parents were, at best, upper lower class or lower middle class making maybe $30,000 to $40,000 a year, this was late sixties and early seventies. If the government, or anyone else had gotten to decide who was allowed to have babies based on finances, my parents would have had one child... Maybe!

I had a good childhood. Change that, I had a great childhood! I'm a second generation military brat and proud of it! Except when he served in Vietnam, where my father went, we followed. I've been all over the country and through most of western Europe. My parents NEVER owned a house until I was 20 years old and serving in the Army myself. We lived in apartments or rented houses. My parents gave up a lot in order to keep us kids in clothes and toys. My parents, to my knowledge anyway, never took welfare of any kind and never took charity from family or friends. They took care of themselves and us. My mother was a 'natural-born mother.' It's what she liked, it was her dream. This was a rare thing then and should be considered an endangered species today from what I've seen.

Yet you would have her denied simply because they didn't have enough money?

By those standards, almost NO ONE serving in the US military would meet the criteria to have a baby, much less, more than one baby. Before 9/11, the military was having a hard time getting enough recruits. They're suffering the same problem now because of Iraq. If people weren't allowed to have kids because they didn't make enough money while serving in the military, we would HAVE to re-start the draft because NO ONE would volunteer, male or female.

Personally, I think it's a crying shame that five of the most important and most noble profession's a person can have are all underpaid; soldier, teacher, nurse, police officer and firefighter. But that's a different topic completely.

I don't WANT the government that involved in my life or my family. The government is way too big, there is way too much bureaucracy, way too much corruption and way too much nepotism.

"Have Money? Having trouble with child birth? Call the US Government. We'll steal some babies from some poor families. That's what we're here for!" *wink, wink*

No thank you!

I want the government out of the bedrooms and the board rooms of the American people not standing beside me making decisions for me as I screw my wife.

I apologize if this post comes across as somewhat abrasive. I get loud when I get passionate. Don't take it personally.

On the face of it, yeah, I do agree.

Social Services should be able to tell people who are already ON welfare, or going on welfare, not to have more kids until they are able to support them. They should even be able to punish (for lack of a better word) them for having more kids.

Then it gets complicated. How do you punish someone if they don't follow the rules? I won't support the idea of just yanking a kid out of it's parent's arms and placing it in foster care or placing it for adoption because the parents don't have the money. Granted, they obviously can't support themselves and the child/children they already have, they sure can't support another one. But when we get down to it, the only way to punish them is to refuse to give them more money. Money they SHOULD be spending on the kid. Money that they probably NEED in order to keep that child healthy and well-nutritioned. Refuse them the money, isn't that pretty close to condoning child abuse? That's a problem for me!

Now, I would LOVE to see a law put up stating that Social Services can FORCE welfare mothers/couples into using birth control; the pill, the new DEPO(sp?) shot or some other form of birth control. Maybe make being on birth control one of the requirements for getting welfare checks and other services that the welfare system can provide.

Birth Control can be stopped or removed or be allowed to run out. Sterilization, which you mentioned earlier, as in having the tubes tied or a vasectomy,  is hard to undo. What happens if/when this young woman/couple get their lives together, get jobs, get a house and decide they want to have another kid? They've got the money now! This is why Forced sterilization  goes down badly for me.

When I think 'sterilization,' I think of something more permanent than contraception. I believe forced sterilization, as I define it, would also leave the government open to litigation from women who do get their lives together and come to realize they can't have another child. More money out of the taxpayers pocket.

Even with my idea,you run into the problem of what happens if the woman/couple don't do as they are required? What if the woman does get pregnant? Abortion? Foster Care? Adoption? Stop the welfare checks? Put the family out on the street?

So I guess I agree but I have reservations.

"Of course, this is extremely far from the original discussion concerning Sex Ed class... "

That's half the fun!

Start in on one topic and you end up discussing a handful of other topics that are directly or indirectly related to the issue. Sex leads to babies, babies lead to teen mothers, teen mothers lead to abortion and welfare, welfare leads to a discussion of the welfare state which leads to a discussion of how much say the federal and state governments should have in the running of our lives.

It's a wonderful thing especially for sweet, innocent little trouble maker like me. :p

Now I know how to get my post count up to "passed out drunk over the toilet." I'll play trouble maker in here. *Does his best mad scientist laugh.* I LOVE a good debate as long as no one's feelings get hurt.

If I can start a good debate here, even if it's only with every other post I make, there will be NOTHING artificial about my post count!

As for DV8N or Transvader or whoever it was that got their post count zapped, well, they did say it didn't matter to 'em. They were asking for it!

They should know better than to tease a wolf!

I know it's corny but I couldn't resist. It was just too good a line.

Methinks he doth protest too much.

As to your comment about "Why don't you just tell them yourself..." -- Do you expect parents to also teach their children Calculus?  Currently, sexual education is a trial-and-error process for most of the populace, which means some knowledge is inevitably not found by each person who is doing the trying-and-erroring.  I cannot teach what I do not already know.

Plus, a clear and useful education concerning sexual practices requires a visual depiction of positions, postures, and procedures... are you suggesting that Mommy and Daddy screw in front of their 15-year-old?  Hmm... and interesting idea for a story........  Ahem, anyway...

And just for the record, no, I didn't "figure it out", as such.  I spent time educating myself about sex long before I ever had the opportunity to actually HAVE sex.  And that education didn't take place until I was an adult.

As to your comment about Mom with a gun... Jefferson suggested that the PARENTS be the one to show the DVD, thus "Mom" would have already agreed to it.  In a school setting, such a video, if it were ever to be shown, would have to require parental notification and consent, due to the religious objections of some.  My suggestion for a class concerning sex and relationships, being an elective, would also solve this issue.  I do find it odd that, at least in my school days, it was mandatory that we learned the ins-and-outs of government procedure (Civics), but we never bothered to learn the ins-and-outs of human interaction.  I think the school system is missing something there.

Net Wolf

Sex education as prevention of unintended consequences (pregnancy and STDs) happens, albeit inconsistently, and in that weird arm's-length manner required of social taboos. We should ask the kids what it's like today to see if it's better than it was. Anyone here under 25 care to enlighten us?

Sex education as useful instruction on HOW to have sex -- it doesn't take much instruction to make a baby. Should we go further than that? Should we be teaching high-school students how to recognize flirting or how to please a lover?

I say no.

Should such information be kept from teens? No, of course not. But this is way way way down the list of things that need attention, so far down that it'd be irresponsible to spend significant public school money on it in light of the many other egregious shortcomings of the educational system.

We should be teaching them all how to cook before we teach them how to fuck.

Imagineer:
*sigh*

So, let me get this straight.  You think it's more important for a student to know, for instance, what the inside of a frog looks like than it is for them to understand how to positively interact with other people?  You feel that it is far more important that they can conjugate the verb "to be" than it is that they can treat their partner with respect and caring, and, by the way, understand their partner's body as it relates to giving them pleasure and treating them well? 

I have to respectfully disagree with that opinion.  Sexual difficulties are one of the major causes of relationship dysfunction in the United States.  You want to look for places to cut waste out of the system, try looking at the guarddamned football team.  This program is a complete waste of resources for every school that sponsors one, yet they do it anyway.  Any potential benefit from this program could be achieved through the regular physical education program.  It's done because people see some kind of benefit from watching teens ram into each other in padded uniforms.  I'm suggesting a class that would teach them to understand, respect and care for each other, and maybe gain a little empathy... and you don't think it's worthwhile.

I agree that the public school system has major problems.  I do not agree that a class in positive human interaction is "way way way down the list of things that need attention".  Given the rise in anti-social behavior among teens and young adults, I think that this class needs to be right at the top of the list.  You are focusing solely on whether we should be teaching them how to flirt and the like.  I'm saying it needs to be part of a larger class on human relationships.

I fully admit the problem with such a class is in avoiding propaganda and indoctrination from both directions, right-wing and left.  However, just because something is difficult to get right, doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

Net Wolf

I have to agree with Net Wolf. We NEED a class in school that not only teaches teens how to interact as human beings as well as how to protect themselves from unintended consequences. As for Black Rose's comment, I took Home Ec. in 9th grade. Figured it would be a good way to meet some girls. I was wrong but that isn't the point.

Home Ec. is a PERFECT little place to teach exactly what Net and I are talking about. Home Ec. is short for Home Economics. It's SUPPOSED To teach kids how to cook, do the laundry, balance the check book etc. etc. All I learned in it, was how to burn a Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I think everyone burned theirs. It should be for teaching kids to be thrifty, to cook, to clean, to do laundry, to make small repairs on clothes, sewing a button, a hem, change a flat tire, etc. It's not though! I don't know what it USED to be forty or fifty years ago and I don't know what it is NOW in the public schools, but Black Rose and I seemed to have had pretty much the same experience.

As far as I'm concerned, first, we should change the name of the class to... something like "Life Lessons" or something to that effect. They would teach the kids to cook, sew, change a flat, maybe check the oil, jump a dead car battery, do laundry, basic sewing, balance a check book, maybe even basic first aid and CPR.  Stuff people need to know in life.

PLUS there would be a period of the class where the students would learn about sex, reproduction, STD's, contraception, maybe even how to do self-exams for breast and testicular cancer. These are things that KIDS SHOULD KNOW!

As I mentioned in a post early this morning, right here on this forum, I do plan to start posting debate topics. I believe a good debate is a good way to learn if you go into it with an open mind and some good ideas of your own. It's how a LOT of my political beliefs were formed, I would say what I thought, someone would rip it apart and I would have to come up with something new. It's a learning process.

I think we're leading right into the next topic. Changing the public school system so it'll work and work right.

The schools are a problem. Our Puritanical origins and how they seem to continue to pass from one generation to the next is a problem, our inability to talk about our own bodies and about sex without being embarrassed and running out of the room, even when it's our own spouse or child, is a REAL PROBLEM and one that MUST be looked into and dealt with.

Last edited by Jefferson (2007-01-06 02:19:30)

You just lost half the country. A whole lot of people simply do not agree that these attitudes are a problem. Go to Church, read the Bible, save yourself for marriage, and keep the sex in the bedroom where it belongs -- there's an army of American voters who believe this, and they see others using the schools to get between them and their children as subversion of the worst kind.

My point is made. I am convinced that a lot of the problems in this country are caused because a vocal minority, and yes, they are a minority, hold so tightly to the past. They believe that if that's the way they were raised and their parents were raised and their parents were raised, it must be a good thing.

The problem is, is that less than a hundred years ago it was okay to hate people simply because of the color of their skin or their choice of religions. Just a little more than a hundred years ago, It was okay to abuse your wife or children because they were your "property." Kids were pulled out of school to go work in sweat shop factories to earn a few more dollars for the family. A century ago, the only way to have full rights and privledges in this country, was to be white, male and Christian. Are those virtues you want held onto? 

Just because it would have been sinful or whatever to wear a thong to a beach fifty years ago, people fight to get them outlawed today. What is so bad about the human body? Why is it such a crime to show it in all of it's natural glory? Why is it, that even with the "sexual revolution" and "women's rights" why is it, we still get embarrassed trying to teach our kids about their bodies and sex?

THOSE are the puritanical ideas we are holding onto and are NOT doing us much good! Tradition is good, I admit that. But even a good thing wears out. Even a good thing falls by the way at some point. In this day of killer STD's, I think it's about time some of these "Puritanical Ideas" fall by the way.

Parents, schools and churches have been teaching abstinence for a hundred years. Has it worked? We pour millions of dollars into PSA's to tell kids to wait. To just say no. Has it worked? I don't have the figures but I'd bet there were millions of accidental teen pregnancies in this country last year.

NO! Doing as Net wants, or as I want, would NOT stop them completely. It never will. It's a war, like the drug war, that we can not hope to win. It's just a matter of numbers. Can we make it less? Yes! Should we? Yes! Without doubt! That's what I want. I want to put the number so low that it becomes a non-issue. Same with abortion and probably a dozen other issues.

We're not going to stop it. There's always going to be stupid teenagers out there. Are all of these kids who are getting pregnant, or getting AIDS, are they all stupid? Are they all TRYING to get pregnant or a fatal disease? Do you beleive that? I don't! There are still kids out there who buy into the stories, the lies, that their friends are telling them. There are still guys out there who are going out with freshmen high school girls and telling them "You can't get pregnant on your first time." And there are girls, who because they have no GOOD sex education and parents who are unwilling to discuss it or, as Net Wolf pointed out, are ignorant of the facts themselves, the girls are still falling for it.

In this day and age, where we know so much about how the body works, it's a pretty sad thing that we can't teach our kids about sex.

I like your idea about a Life Skill class

Thanks. I've HEARD they are starting to do this someplaces. I'm not sure how good they're doing at it though. IMO, it should be a required course for all students, right up there with English, math, history and science. And before someone comes along and says there are OTHER, BETTER things we should be teaching our kids, why can't we teach them those things PLUS this! Hell, it's just one more teacher, one more hour of a day.

ust to point out the Bible doesn't actually say sex is evil anywhere I've seen yet

The Bible also says nothing about Hell in it but A LOT of people still believe that the place exists. It says nothing about Heaven. The closest it comes is "heavens" as in the stars, the sun, the moon and the sky. But again, a lot people believe it's there and live their life based on that belief.

There are a lot of things that parents and churches are teaching children that they CLAIM are in the Bible but aren't. Things that were put into place hundreds or thousands of years ago for what were probably very good reasons at the time but have been lost to the ages and we just can't seem to get rid of them. These are things that came out the Dark Ages, or the Victorian era or from the Puritans. And they are now doing more harm to our society, our world than good.

It makes you wonder how dedicated some religions are to abolishing teen pregnancy and HIV/Aids when they are telling their parishoners to not use contraception, that it's against God's will. You gotta wonder how serious they're taking overpopulation and the use of limited natural resources when they are encouraging their parishoners to have large families.

changing the school system is admirable BUT to do that you would have to change society as a whole...and as far as american voters ( like imagineer said)some of those people are still voting like their grandpappy did not because of any current issues or intelligence

Oh, don't I know it. I've had people yelling at me for years now for my thinking that we need to stop throwing money at the school system and instead rip it apart and try something new.

The only thing I can think of is to start small. Start by teaching the kids what needs to be done and hope that when they grow up and become voters, they still remember what they learned.

The only other way I see things changing, is with a 9/11 level event, not a terrorist incident necessarily but something that would shock the nation into action, and the government and the NEA would be forced to do something and probably something drastic, ill thought out and poorly planned. Our government seems good at that nowadays.