Does Obama want sex ed for kindergartners?

There are so many varied viewpoints on what students should be taught when that it is ridiculous for a candidate for the Presidency to be saying what he thinks kids in schools across the country should be taught. It should be up to the parents, school board, teachers, and administrators in each local community to decide.

I'm not sure what he meant by his comments, but it was politically stupid to say anything at all.

I'm not sure what "sex ed" means to most people. I have a feeling that everybody has a different set of ideas in mind when they say that. However, I'm puzzled by the idea that children can be suspended in a state of ignorance about their own bodies--as if those little pixellated blurs they use on TV could be imposed on the genital area until we get ready to "educate" them at some point.

When my youngest son was five, he came to me one day with furrowed brow and said "I have a question. I know about the big cells and the little cells, but what I want to know is, how does the big cell and the little cell get together?" So I told him. He thought about it for a minute and then said "Do I have to do that?" I told him it wasn't for kids, it was for grownups, and someday when he was older, he could make up his own mind if he wanted to do it. It was not a big deal.

He is now a very nice, well-balanced 21 year old with good, healthy relationships. Knowing about the mechanics of sex at age five does not do anything bad to you. It's normal to understand your own body.

This is actually something I know quite a bit about, having worked for years for a publishing company that produced "sex education" teaching materials for school districts. Agree with the underlying structure or not, but the way it operates is arguably sound:

- Multiple government offices are by congressional legislation mandated to devote a certain portion of their budgets to addressing certain issues, at both a macro and a micro level. In this case, the lead agencies are from the Dept. of Health and Human Services and Dept. of Education. The CDC is involved; SAMSA is involved; the National Office of Drug Control Policy is involved. The operating paradigm is essentially a national version of the "broken windows" philosophy of law enforcement. Create an environment where the linked problems of poor health, poverty, violence, neglect, mental illness and substance abuse is reduced, and you reduce the instances of local and in aggregate national social disintegration. It is about addressing "root causes."

- These agencies all have federal funds available for grants to any organization or entity that applies for them. Most of this grant funding goes to larger entities - like big city school districts or state-level social services departments or networks of private community service organizations or non-profits like Prevent Child Abuse America, who propose to then allocate the funding to a range of smaller local programs. These larger entities present as part of their lobbying for the funding reams of research by academics as well as statistical analyses of what methods prove effective at reducing whatever the funding is supposed to reduce - drugs or domestic violence or poor nutrition or such. They also provide a general plan for who they're going to subsequently distribute the funds to.

- A lot of these big entities are driven to play this game in part by unfunded mandates. They're under orders - from federal regulation, from state level legislation, or some other source - to reduce youth crime or increase test scores or some such, so they go to the feds to get the only money available to try to fulfill their mandate.

- The current best practices in this field are "comprehensive solutions." For example, a K-12 Life Skills curriculum that maps out exactly what courses and events will be offered when, what kinds of materials - videos, software, publications - will be purchased when, what community activities will be sponsored to try to increase parental involvement. The whole enchilada. In for a penny in for a pound. So, the Texas state legislature passes some kind of law ordering the reduction of home meth labs. So the Texas Dept. of Education gets $10 million a year from SAMSA to reduce school drug use by cultivating a culture that stigmatizes drugs in low income communities where meth labs are prevalent. Their pitch to get this funding is that they'll implement the PATHS program at every urban school district in Texas.

- They get the money, and give $1 million to San Antonio. PATHS, which runs a profitable business creating and selling these programs, sends a local consultant to help them set up the program. As part of it's comprehensive approach, it lays the groundwork for "self empowerment" and "personal safety" for 6 year olds who have no decent home life in the barrio anyway. And as part of this, the kids spend a few health classes doing coloring-books-on-steroids about how they should learn to say "no!" if someone tries to touch them inappropriately. Then they sit around with teacher for awhile talking about how their 13 year old sister is having a baby this summer, and is it because she wore a bikini to the beach, or is it because of this nasty thing the 6 year old heard about on that show before Oprah when everyone is always shouting, or because of the way boys attack girls sometimes like the 6 year old sees every night on "Law and Order" reruns.

- So, Obama by talking about this gets set up as favoring "sex ed for 6 year olds".

Bless,
Doug

It should be up to the parents, school board, teachers, and administrators in each local community to decide.

Yes and no. It IS a public health issue and facts never hurt anybody, but you know there are communities that would keep the kids ignorant because they believe it's naughty. On the flipside, there would be some communties that would need to be tempered in their overzealousness with respect to their demonstrations of proper sexual health. I received my first batch of formal sex ed in 5th grade, I don't recall it making any of the kids want to rush out and have sex, I'm not sure how many paid a lot of attention either. My mother also explained the very basics to me when I was in 2nd grade. I think having the information early was good, as I seemed to be the only kid my age (around 6) not interested in playing doctor or show me yours and I'll show you mine.

Here's a couple of more quick thoughts:

- It's this kind of stuff that makes me increasingly sympathetic towards Obama. The kinds of programs he's talking about are about strengthening local communities, not forcing condom education on little Lindsay before she plays with her purple pony at recess. Look at that Channing Bete Company language. Sounds like a crunchy manifesto to me. Its the means that we should be debating, not the ends. There are legions of conservatives who work quietly away in this field and have had a big impact on the structure of these programs. This is where the whole "compassionate conservatism" movement came from. Obviously, it's worth criticizing - strongly. But how about we offer alternatives rather than just throw rocks? It's the mirror image of the Democrats and the war. "OK, wise guy (not Rod!), what's YOUR solution?"

- How are "local districts" supposed to opt out of programs that are mandated by the state education department, when they agree with the ends anyway even if they have questions about the means, and doing so would likely hurt the individual careers of the local educational professionals involved?

- Why should we automatically assume parents should have the right to opt out, when a lot of the parents who would do so are the kinds who are, say, running a home meth lab and don't want little Monique to tip off the teacher in school or who are so drunk every night that they can't sign the permission slip or whose preschoolers eat dry pasta and pizza crusts every morning because they're afraid that if they wake up grandma to ask for breakfast she's going to whip them?

- This is about a lot more than the "yuck factor" for college-educated middle aged Christian families.

Bless,
Doug

Because if the government won't, who will? Certainly not the parents who are abusing their children.

In the grand scheme of things, the war, health insurance, the deficit and all that matters more than sex ed for kindergartners.

No! All that does NOT matter more than sex ed for kindergartners.

And I'm really surprised that someone who (rightly, IMHO) believes in the primacy of culture over politics would think otherwise.

Obama's true softheaded 1960s liberalism comes into clearer view.

Considering Obama was born in '61, I don't think 60s liberalism is the most influential factor in his life. He may be and actually is a liberal, but the 60s certainly weren't the formative years for his political views.

And of course we now find out that Romney as Governor supported (as any reasonable person who reads the details will) the same program he now attacks Obama for supporting...

"Nonsense on stilts. Any child who had a sensitive, temperamental reaction to this materials would do so only because of his or her parents' cues."

Great--nice to see bigotry and fascism are alive and well on the left. Talking about sex is a sensitive subject. People have different reactions, and certainly people have different beliefs and traditions. 9 out of 10 public schools can't teach kids basic math or reading. They should try to stick to the things that help people function in society, rather than teaching five year olds about sex. This would not even be an issue, were it not for the rampant obsession with sex coming from a few ideologues in this country. The world has survived for thousands of years without the state telling five years about sex--I think we'll continue to do so without the interference of a bunch of bored activists who have nothing better to do than stick their noses in other people's business.

"RAH, what's the matter with you? Knee-jerking is every American's God-given right (and left). "

Nice turn of phrase, Franklin

Kim M

Oops, sorry, that was me.

"It's nice to see that hyperbole is alive and well on the right.

C'mon, Don. You've (rightly) called me on the carpet for much less than that."

Okay--I'll play nice. Math and reading are essentials of learning. They form the basics of what a person needs to function in modern society. I'd say they are more of a public interest. Sex is something that is a private matter which deals with matters intimate to the family and a person's child. In a pluralistic society, there are going to be different views on sex as well as the proper time to talk about these matters. Frankly, as scotch meg pointed out, I fail to see why parents should be forced to surrender their natural rights in order to satisfy the cravings of a bunch of power hungry bureaucrats hiding under the guise of a small group of people who abuse their children.

If you read my original post on this matter, I gave an answer that was fairly well balanced. I said that one reason, among many others, for not having sex ed at five was that children are going to come from different backgrounds and have different reactions to such a subject matter that it should be individualized by parents (people they are close to) rather than in an institutionalized "one size fits all" setting. I also stated that, if people were concerned that children in areas where the parental structure is lacking were receiving information that was harmful, they should work with civic, cultural, and religious organizations that are close to these communities to provide whatever assistance they can. Problems should, in most cases, be addressed at the lowest level possible, where the circumstances, context, and nature of the problem is best understood. Sending in activist groups to mandate a one size fits all program reaks of authoritarianism (the same type we discussed in the homeschooling thread).

There comes a point (and that point is not reached often) when I stop dialoguing and engage in, as you say, "hyperbole", especially when others stop meeting me halfway.

Don Altabello, I strongly agree with you on your two previous posts
about the early grades (I am a socially conservative Democrat); I'm
somewhat surprised more people haven't agreed with you on this forum.

Don,

Parents who wish to view sex as "...something that is a private matter which deals with matters intimate to the family and a person's child..." and therefore want all mention of it removed from the public schools fail to recognize that this is a matter of public health.

That being said, I'm all for the sexophobic keeping their kids out of public schools, if they wish. Let them raise their kids at home, and arrange a nice marriage with another sexophobic family down the block.

Just think: if they ever find out where to put it, they may even get to raise a family!

First: Believing that sexuality is something sacred/special does not indicate a "negative" view of sex or "sexaphobia". The vast majority of parents -- i.e., those of us who have actually had sex resulting in children -- probably view it this way. Sexual union is at the core of marriage, and how we act sexually has serious implications for the dignity of the human person. This isn't a subject like math or spelling that can be handled well by schools or by government at any level.

Second: Workshops for young children on "inappropriate touching" are classic examples of the maxim that hard cases make bad law. It's unspeakably tragic that some young children are abused sexually by their parents (actually, in most such cases, by step-fathers). But it is unclear how Kindergarten "touching" workshops would do much, if anything, to prevent that.

Meanwhile, such workshops expose ALL children -- the vast majority of whom will never be subject to any such perverse abuse -- to information that is (1) not age appropriate, (2) should come from their parents rather than from a third party such as a teacher, and (3) has the potential to harm the child by giving rise to unfounded anxieties or interfering with the unconditional trust that children rightly place in their parents.

"Just think: if they ever find out where to put it, they may even get to raise a family!"

You needed a teacher to tell you where to put it? Wow! You really are stupid.

I didn't need a teacher to tell me about that. I had parents who actually cared for me.

Strangely enough, the breeding community has been sorely lacking in taking care of their offspring in this matter as of late. When y'all get your act together, then we won't need the state.

When the right gets control again, you can suck us back into the dark ages at will. Til then, suck it up and deal, just as we've had to every time one of you takes the reins.

PREGNANT TEEN DAUGHTER IS VICTIM OF SEXUAL IGNORANCE

Just goes to show that if you build something idiot proof, they will build a better idiot. If our culture wasn't so obsessed with having sex and avoiding pregnancy, maybe the simple truth that given enough practice sex will lead to pregnancy; it may not the first time, but eventually it will. Instead sex ed is the opportunity to teach kids that they have the power to violate the natural function of sex. Given that adults obsess over the matter, I guess it is little wonder that the kidios do.

Of course this was probably a crank writer. If not, one can almost always find an anecdote if they look wide enough and long enough.

Pleasure as its own end is generally defined as narcissism.

And technically, it's defined as Hedonism.

I learned everything I needed to know about sex in the mechanical sense " on the street" and consequent formal sex education added nothing to that knowledge.

The unfortunate thing was that the moral context of the education was a common desire to "get some". What was missing was a truly moral context. I fail to see how a secular state can adequately provide this. I am wide open in teaching my own 13-year old and have had several intimate conversations about male-female relations within the context of dating and mating. Other parents handle this differently and I respect their rights to do as they see fit.

He is my child. Consequently, I would like to avail him to the view that our family takes on these matters. Regardless of what Sen Obama may think he is doing, he is beyond naive if he doesn't know that in advocating sex education for 5 year olds he is opening the door to the sex education establishment to use the opportunity to enforce their values in opposition to those of many families. (Books have been written about the history of the academic sex industry and its roots in the fraudulent Kinsey reports). Given that Sen Obama was speaking to the nations largest abortion provider, I am guessing that he was throwing raw meat to a very important funder of democratic candidates and promising to be their best friend if they make him their candidate. Culture wars politics as usual for the phony "Mr I'm beyond the politics as usual."

In California approx 20% of the high school seniors are unable to pass a simple proficiency test that should be a minimum for leaving 8th grade. The school have plenty to do fixing that problem without stepping on place of families.

I would hardly call recognizing that pleasure *can* be an end the same thing as hedonism.

You people with your black and white thinking.

How do you ever get anything done?

Freedom always serves the "commonweal."

The problem is, your "team" has to make it an either/or situation. If one isn't having sex to have children, one is having sex for the "wrong reasons." Except it's not up to you to decide for everyone else what the right reasons are. It's up to everyone, individually, with the most information possible being available to them, to make those decisions for him or herself.

A truly educated populace is a populace better prepared for the realities of life, and that is *definitely* good for the "commonweal."

Point to all the statistics you'd like to show that what I'm saying is false. I will point back and say when has our education system ever been given free reign to teach without interference from the contentious? Every curriculum has had to water itself down for this interest, or that interest, all to keep school districts form being sued.

People spend their entire lives devoted to the science of education, yet one complaint from a mechanic, or an accountant, or (God forbid) some preacher is enough to throw a monkey wrench into the whole system. Let the professionals do their jobs. You wouldn't stand in an operating room and tell a doctor not to suture an artery a particular way because, with your great experience as a [fill in the blank], you obviously know better than he does.

Kids must be taught about what is "inappropriate touching", as you said there are parents, adults that are doing the abusing in kids life that will trying to protect themselves. Leaving families to cover such area are not acceptable. Neither is leaving this education to school districts reasonable after the recent church sex abuse scandle. Do you want to trust a church school district with possible pedophile as teacher to teach their version of what is "inappropriate touching"?. As for Obama should not have say about this infront of pro choice group, the same people would make whatever Obama said sound as horrible as they could. Quite a few of these people are the same one that is hosting the creepy "Purity Ball" for their 10 year daughters to pledge their virginities to their father.

Belae

Quite a few of these people are the same one that is hosting the creepy "Purity Ball" for their 10 year daughters to pledge their virginities to their father.

they pledge to keep themselves for marriage and their dads to protect them and be role models for them. get it right

Quite a few of these people are the same one that is hosting the creepy "Purity Ball" for their 10 year daughters to pledge their virginities to their father.

they pledge to keep themselves for marriage and their dads to protect them and be role models for them. get it right

Why isn't it the other way around too? The sons pledge to keep themelves for marriage? The Purity Ball makes the daughters seem inferior. Their sexuality is pretty much taken away from them until they get married and sign another contract. Since the sons don't have to do this, it seems like it's important for girls to stay virginal, pure, and innocent. While the boys are allowed to do whatever they want and chastity until marriage isn't as important for them.

and i most definetly agree with the above post.