Prom night decisions: easier than parents think [teens have sex all year long now]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 04/12/2008 | AISHA SULTAN

[manapua]

Yeah, “ABC Family” is way out there these days. I remember when it first appeared and I knew it as the station that would actually still show the old Rankin-Bass Christmas specials. Now it’s the home of bilge like “Greek” and the station’s tagline is “ABC Family: A New Kind of Family.”

[stuartcr]

Even when it isn’t. You don’t really expect things to not change over the years, do you?

[stuartcr]

??? teenagers having sex means they have turned their souls over to satan?

[xsmommy]

morality has not always been in steady decline over the ages, there are ups and downs. i do not think it is inevitable that morals decline.

[fightinJAG]

You still tell them. Parents have a responsibility to teach their children to make good choices.

[stuartcr]

Perhaps, as you say, this is just one of the down periods.

[fightinJAG]

And the kids knowing the parents know they are watching the show is like an “okay” from the parents. That’s how kids think.

[Poetgal26]

Oh I know and there’s some good kids out there that will listen....

[xsmommy]

and that is why there is presently a culture war underway. because not everyone, especially those of us with children, is prepared to just lay down and acquiesce to it, as the moral relativists would have us do.

[fightinJAG]

This promiscuity at such an early age actually stunts their brain development, not to mention their emotional development.

They become unable to have a truly physically and emotionally intimate relationship in the future.

I once read that Paris Hilton said that all her boyfriends complained that, when they had sex, she “wasn’t there.” She said that was because it was in fact a meaningless act to her; she could talk on the phone while it was occurring and not miss anything.

Even Paris Hilton was smart enough to chalk it up to becoming emotionally numb due to longtime promiscuity. She then said she was going celibate for a year, which she prompted reneged on, just out of habit.

This is what these children are signing up for: eventually a lifetime of relative emotional numbness, where they can never truly connect with another human in an emotionally intimate way.

[fightinJAG]

All parents should realize how dangerous “spring break adventures” are, on many different levels.

[xsmommy]

you are right, no good can come from it. my 19 yo college freshman daughter rolls her eyes at the sluttiness of the majority of her peers.

[stuartcr]

As is done throughout history, we all just do what we think is right at the time.

[ccmay]

Actually, our morals are pretty much the same as they ever were. A third of the brides in Colonial times were pregnant at the altar. It's only the consequences of our moral decisions that have been made less stringent.

-ccm

[count-your-change]

If children are not given moral instruction when very young what makes anyone think they will be moral teenagers?
Notice I said ‘moral instruction’ not the swill of so-called “sex ed”.
Of course when parents themselves have little moral sense there isn’t much to pass on to their children. It’s this kind of parent that posits that there is nothing anyone can do but pass out condoms.

[stuartcr]

Sounds relative to me.

[fr_freak]

And when she went to the movies with him a few weeks ago, she took the “Federalist Papers” in her pocket, “just in case I get bored.”

Ha ha! When I went to the movies, I did the exact same thing. Except instead of having the "Federalist Papers" in my pocket, I had "beer".

Your daughter sounds like a heck of a girl.

[fr_freak]

Actually, our morals are pretty much the same as they ever were. A third of the brides in Colonial times were pregnant at the altar. It's only the consequences of our moral decisions that have been made less stringent.

Wrong. There is a difference between morals and behavior. For instance, one can believe that sex before marriage is wrong, yet still have sex before marriage (thanks to our friend, the hormone). On the other hand one can simply not believe that sex before marriage is wrong. In the earlier days of our country, and by that I mean anything before the 1960s, we, as a whole, believed that sex before marriage was wrong. There were far more severe consequences to such behavior because we believed it was wrong.

These days, there are a great number of people who simply don't believe that sex before marriage is wrong, or, if they do, they don't bother conveying that message to their kids. Without that moral anchor, the willingness to engage in ever-increasing levels of debauchery is inevitable.

[stuartcr]

Sounds like you are saying that morals are just determined by what one believes.

[Tax-chick]

She’s a fan of P.J. O’Rourke, Thomas Sowell, and William Shakespeare, as well as the Founding Fathers. And tough as a boot - she plans to join the Air Force next year, and hopes to go to Iraq!