News

Jul 22, 2010

An author and mother of five is alarmed at the recent news of school districts in Massachusetts and Montana that in her opinion are encouraging the sexuality of young children.

From condoms for young children in Provincetown to sex education for kindergartners in Helena, Katie Reid -- author of When the Bough Breaks -- believes the intent of such actions is to provide children a means to engage in sexual relations with fewer possible side effects. But as Reid points out, there are more consequences to sex than just pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

"When you as a child engage in sex, you have no ability to really understand the depth of the gravity of the situation that you're dealing in or what it means to lose your innocence or how vulnerable having sex can make you," says the author. "And there seems to be a complete disregard for the emotional and social consequences of sex -- especially on girls."

One of those consequences, says Reid, is boyfriend abuse.

"That's one of the first things that a boyfriend who's likely going to abuse [his girlfriend] will do," she explains. "...He will get the girl to become sexually active even if she doesn't want to, even if she protests -- and he will create that huge intimacy so that she feels she has no choice but to do anything that he says.

"I really just don't see how a condom is going to protect any girl from that."

right-wrong decision sign smallThe author is also concerned that school officials believe they have the right and authority to trump the rights and interests of parents in raising their own child. For example, the reasoning of the Provincetown School Committee for their decision? "Children alone decide when they become sexually active, and we can't control that, but we can ensure that when they're making those decisions, there are caring adults and support present."

To that argument, Reid states in a recent column for Human Events: "Instead of handing our children over to the foolishness of youth with a state-funded piece of rubber as their only guardian, maybe we could take back the authority from the school boards who were never given such power in the first place."

She also writes that after decades of debate about whether morality can be legislated, Provincetown School Committee "took it upon itself to legislate immorality."