Not realistic on Faribault Daily News

By: Chris on 6/30/10
The issue that the writer brings up seems less to do with sex, and more to do with responsible parenting. He hangs his hat on the a dubious statistic regarding the percentage of out of wedlock births among African Americans in general, not on actual birthrates or pregnancy rates for teens. In general, teen birthrates have been going down (by nearly a third in the past two decades) in correlation with an increase in sex education that includes compete and accurate information on birth control. The writer then mucks his own arguments up with an unfounded diatribe against those darn liberals. Interestingly, teen birthrates in more conservative religious states in the southern Bible belt actually have higher teen birthrates than those darn secular liberal states in the northeast. Researchers believe this is primarily due to the culture in those Bible belt states discouraging birth control.

Lets face it, teens have been having sex for as long as there have been teenagers, regardless of religion. In past centuries, teens would marry and be considered adults, and by and large, got by. This is no longer possible due to the need for education and a variety of other cultural factors. Over the centuries we have seen the age at which on is considered and adult slowly creep up from the fairly early teens to 18, and then 21, and even 25 if you follow the logic of car insurance companies and neuroscience.

As a rural Jew in the Jordan valley 100 BCE, if, at age 14, I got the neighbor girl pregnant the answer was simply to marry her and work hard in the field and the community/family would provide the support needed to raise the child. Unfortunately for modern man (and woman), we are still the same creatures as those days but we live in a time when that life course is no longer possible, and we are wise to forgo becoming parents until at least our early twenties, if not later. We no longer marry off girls by age 16 via arranged marriages where they become the property of man as was the case in the time of our founding fathers. In my book, this is a change for the better, but it leaves horny teens with only illicit options to do what comes naturally.
What is the modern teen to do? Well, I will have teenage kids one day, and I hope they will forgo sexual intimacy for as long as they can. I will be an irrational overprotective dad, as it the habit of most caring fathers. But, I also hope I recognize that finding birth control pills or condoms tucked away in the sock drawer is a sign of good parenting, as it shows that the child was raised with the same degree of responsibility that I took when I was a teen. The substantial majority of teens will not be a virgin at age 20, as has been the case for time out of mind, so raising a responsible teen means teaching birth control.