Down in the comments on this post on Delaware Liberal was an argument that caught my attention.
The subject of the post was finding areas where pro-life and pro-abortion supporters can agree and work together. I don't really know how many areas regarding killing babies are up for discussion for pro-lifers, but the discussion got interesting when it came to who is at fault for those damn teenagers wanting to have sex. One of the points of the post was that if television did not depict unmarried sex as consequence free, fewer teenagers would be as interested. But the commenters determined that it isn't a matter of what's on TV; it's all about the parents.
Blame it on the teenager’s parents first and deal with that issue.
Parents need to more involved in their kids’ lives and this does not mean dropping off at early morning care and then picking them up at 6 pm. Parents need to know their kids’ friends, teachers and what their doing. In short, parents need to be parents and this will more than help stem teenage pregnancy.
I wouldn't argue with the sentiment that parents who are plugged into their children (figuratively speaking, of course) are more likely to steer the teenagers away from sex and unwanted pregnancy. It's easier to prevent a problem one is aware of than one one doesn't have a clue is on the horizon.
I usually see these "blame the parents" arguments from people who don't have kids. It's fine to argue that parents should be responsible for their children, but it is naive to say that the outside culture has no affect on the kidlings. As I pointed out in the comments, you can forbid various television shows, movies, and music from your own home, but you cannot control what Junior comes in contact with when he mingles with other kids at daycare, school, or the playground.
The problem those advocating "blame the parents" don't want to recognize is that the reason kids think teenage sex is fun, cool, acceptable, and mature is that our culture is teaching them these ideas. And the reason they don't want to discuss society's role in the coarsening of the culture is that to alter things requires restraint on the part of individuals.
I'm not advocating censorship; I don't think the government should be in the business of determining what I can and cannot read. It's what I should and should not read that is the issue. Most people in our secular society dislike the word morality, but, in fact, that's what we're talking about when we want to discourage teenage sex and pregnancy. It's pretty tough to get teenagers to forego sex in the first place, but when we pretend that it's sad but all right when they do, we fail as adults.
The reason teenagers shouldn't have sex isn't just about teenage pregnancy and STDs. It's because teenagers lack the reasoning ability to make good choices regarding these matters. Should parents spend more time impressing their values about sex, pregancy, and marriage on their children? Certainly, and they do. The problem is that our culture now tells kids that sex is cool, fun, and something adults do (which always makes kids want to do it). Until adults start acting differently, kids won't, either.
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