Biology 101

It seems that we are heading to a time where we will not only be giving our children lunch money but also latex money. The debate is raging on whether we should allow condoms in schools. Those for it are saying that the children are having sex anyways so let’s help cut down on the teen pregnancies and spread of STD’s. The nay-sayers are scared that we will be promoting sex from an early age and should instead be preaching abstinence. What does my mother’s first child say? I say parents need to step up to the plate a bit more on this.

I won’t pretend to be a living in a Utopia and claim that I don’t know that teens are having sex. Heck primary school children are starting to emulate what they are seeing on television or in mommy and/or daddy’s rooms. So the argument that we need to put condoms in the schools to cut down on the spread of diseases and the numbers of teenage pregnancies hold some merit. However, I personally think the old saying of “a monkey holding gun” holds weight here. Give an idiot access to condoms without proper education of how to use them, when they should use them or the fact that there are still some venereal diseases condoms can’t prevent; would be like skydiving and not safety checking the equipment before jumping out the plane.

To the ones saying that we would be promoting sex I say to them that yes you have a point. For I’m sure more than one of us in the teen exploration years thought about heading for home base but the lack of protection was a deterrent. So who knows if those slightly innocent 1 on 1 biology lessons would have led to a more in depth analysis of male female interactions in an empty class room with the right tools to facilitate.  Also despite the fact that a few are creative and brazen enough to pull off the full acts with the restrictions of uniforms, funny shaped desk or small unhygienic rooms most sex amongst teens doesn’t occur at the actual school.

We’ve heard reports of school girls going into Queen’s Park and changing uniforms. I, as an athletics coach witnessed a parent drop off their ward at the front gate of the stadium and she hurriedly walk to the gate by the netball stadium and be carted off by a waiting vehicle. Unsupervised summers at home alone, picnics, trips to town, visits to the best friend’s house are the more popular ones I’ve heard and witnessed in my short tenure on this earth as means of having some grown folk excitement in your life. Unfortunately it’s these “innocent” getaways that lead to the most trouble. I just want to put it in and see how it feels; it doesn’t feel the same with a condom; you’re the only one I’ve ever been with; you can’t catch anything unless you cum; are all excuses that we sit and laugh at now but I’m sure we’ve all heard them or heard of someone who used or fell for them.

This is why I say instead of considering condoms in schools that parents need to play a bigger part in the child’s life. Instill the values that would help them to abstain. Talk to them so that if they choose not to abstain they know it’s not a free for all with their pubic areas and that nothing should occur without protection. Leaving the television with its sex sell undertones and straight up sex at every corner to babysit and raise the children must stop. Allowing Kartel to have more sexually conversations with your child must also stop. Carrying on adult conversations and acting in promiscuous ways around your children must stop. This way with the parents and schools working together for the education and benefit of the child we can hope that when face with the inevitable scenarios that pop up they make the best decisions.