Let's talk about sex....

At the all-staff meeting at CCLM yesterday, one of the biggest topics that was discussed was sex education and reproductive health. The clinic is in the process of receiving funding to give free condoms and birth control as part of a CA statewide initiative (of which I can’t remember the name right now), and lots of the women connected with CCLM—mothers and grandmothers—are in quite a stir apparently. The issue, of course, is sex.

In the state of CA, at the age of 12 a child no longer needs parental permission to receive STD tests or birth control. This is not ok with the many Mexican families who use the services at the clinic and CCLM.

The parents are quite conservative, usually, and want to protect their kids. What the staff were trying to communicate to the women was that things are different in the US and that kids are having sex much earlier. Refusing to teach them about sex, STDs, and birth control won’t stop them from having sex, as much as the parents try to shield and protect them.

The clinic was asked if some of their medical assistants would go to a few of the community classes CCLM offers for women to do a presentation on reproductive health and the culture of sex among teenagers today. When the parents (and grandparents) are better educated, perhaps the kids will be, too. At least it’s a start...

That said… When a visiting high school youth group was encountered with a rape scene in a video tonight about the dangers of crossing the border, those (white, middle class) parents had a similar reaction—they wanted to protect the kids from seeing such an explicit scene. Reality didn’t matter much, they wanted to shield the young, mostly girls, from the violence. When, the truth of the matter is that 1 in 4 women experience some form of sexual assault before they’re 18—which means that many of the girls there may have either experienced sexual violence or know someone who has. It wasn’t the kids who put up the fuss about the scene, either—they’ve seen worse. It was the parents.

Now, I can appreciate wanting to shield your loved ones from danger and even in wanting your kids to stay safe and protected in a world of sexual violence, teenage pregnancy, and STDs. And yet, ignoring the issues or trying to fast forward through the messy parts of life doesn’t help kids learn to become educated, responsible, healthy adults. Instill morals—great! Tell them how you feel and what your own expectations of them are—ok. But, to let them walk in the world with no resources or tools is dangerous. We create an entire generation of at-risk youth when we send them out of our homes, schools, and churches ill-equipped to manage things in the real world.