January 25, 2012
If you, like most parents, are anxious about how to impart a healthy and moral view of sexuality to your children, a coalition of ”experts” want to come to your rescue. They have decided what your children need to know about sex and when they need to know it.
The Journal of School Health published the special report, National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K–12. The purpose of these standards is to make a radical agenda normative for all public schools in the United States.
According to the “experts,” what should your child know? By the end of the second grade, your child needs to, “Identify different kinds of family structures,” which means that they not only want your child to know about traditional two-parent families, single-parent families, blended divorced families and gay-parent families, but they want them to see each of these as equally acceptable and good. In addition, by the end of the second grade your child should be able to, “Provide examples of how friends, family, media, society and culture influence ways in which boys and girls think they should act.” Notice how family is lumped in with the media, society and culture as just another source of influence to be critically evaluated – by children in the second grade.
The lessons become more detailed as your child grows. A fifth grader will, “Define sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender.” They think my eleven-year-old child needs to be educated about homosexuality, and that it is normal behavior?
By the end of eighth grade these standards call for involving students in advocacy for a liberal agenda: “Develop a plan to promote dignity and respect for all people in the school community.” These words may sound unobjectionable, but when you couple this plan with their repeated statements that homosexuality is just another form of sexual orientation and is perfectly acceptable, do you think the plan includes statements of respect for Catholic families that define marriage as only between one man and one woman?
The standards for high school students require your child to, “Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of abstinence and other contraceptive methods, including condoms.” In addition, this report states that students should know that their peers use a condom for their first sexual experience. It is the “normal” thing to do.
Obviously this is not the help Catholic parents are seeking. The organizations sponsoring this report effectively advocate for the violation of the innocence of young children by sexualizing their education. They also undermine the role of parents by repeatedly suggesting to students that the values they learned at home need to be critically evaluated in light of current cultural norms for sexuality. Furthermore, this report is highly discriminatory because it incorporates the views of only a very narrow ideology.
Look at who produced this report. Future of Sex Education is an organization whose mission is to “advance the implementation and institutionalization of comprehensive sex education in public schools.”
Nowhere in their mission description do they suggest cooperation with parents. Likewise, another sponsor of this report, the National Education Association—Health Information Network (NEA-HIN) sees schools, rather than families, as the primary source of education on sexuality claiming that schools are the “optimal location to educate children and young adults about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy.” When the NEA-HIN announced the release of this report it claimed, “Nearly 40 stakeholders including content experts, medical and public health professionals, teachers, sexuality educators, and young people developed the standards in a two-year process.”
No parents? Are parents not experts in sexuality? These “experts” also decided that there would be no consultation with religious leaders to make these standards compatible with the family values of a diverse student population. Of course, the “experts” did include Planned Parenthood, who will inevitably profit by providing services to all the young children who take their advice and engage in risky and demeaning sexual behavior.
For all the high minded rhetoric of tolerance and acceptance that is expressed in this report, these standards are actually a tool for indoctrination in a very specific agenda that is in conflict with many religious principles, including those of Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Muslims and Orthodox Jews.
Perhaps even more significant is the fact that these standards are an affront to parental rights. It is my privilege and my duty as a parent to determine when and what my child learns about sexuality. The school has no authority to usurp this role. I recently wrote about the responsibility of all parents to be the primary educators of their children. We do not abdicate our role as educators when we utilize the assistance of either public or private schools. We must maintain a vigilant eye on the material presented to our children as “correct” ideas that conflict with our Catholic morals. It is critical to establish within family life a solid foundation of education on these issues so children recognize errors and inconsistencies and ask about them at home. Most children are going to resist being interrogated about their classes, but frequent healthy conversations about assignments and presentations at school can give parents a window on the classroom experience.
The good news is that for all the hype this report has received in the press, it has no authoritative standing. It is the opinion of a cohort of liberal education policy advocates. There is no government mandate for the adoption of these standards—yet. However, expect to see this report presented at your local school board meeting to justify an explicit sex education program in your child’s school.
And be ready. We must protect our children from indoctrination that poses as education. Demand that the schools be respectful of your religious principles and your parental rights. I am happy to let the school cover calculus, but as a parent, it is my job to teach about sexuality and virtue.
Denise Hunnell, MD, is a Fellow of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International. She writes for HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.
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Hopefully for the sake of YOUR child, he/she isn’t gay. Imagine if your parents told you ,you weren’t “normal” You were an abomination. Imagine if other kids or teachers told YOUR child they were going to hell, They were bad, They were Not “Normal” They were taunted unmerifully every day?
Christian? I think not.
YOU don’t want sex education to be taught in schools but you don’t want to teach your kid sex education either. So now it’s up to Me (society) to PAY for YOUR daughter’s teen pregnancy?
Should it be the Parent’s responsibilty? Yes, but if you are NOT going to do it(and apparently, you’re not) Who pays in the end for YOUR child’s ignorance?
If your religious beliefs are strong enough and TRUE enough, you teach your children those beliefs and they decide for themselves what is right or wrong for themselves using those beliefs.
It’s a scary world out there, Maybe they should be prepared and not sheltered?
Note: Little girls as young as 8-9 years old can become pregnant, so when IS IT a good time to teach them the” birds and the bees”??
Kat,
You are certainly making some broad assumptions about what I have or have not taught my children. Nowhere do I advocate for keeping children ignorant. I do advocate for my duty and my privilege to educate my own children. Feel free to educate your own children as you see fit. I respect your right to do so and ask that you respect my right to do the same.
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And who is to say Kat that your version of what are the important things to impart to children over their “sexuality” is the correct one.
The problem as I see it is that this area of our culture has been captured by people with an agenda and their agenda is not necessarily benign.
Everyone needs to know that the core of our society is the family. Family defined as a male (protector) and female (nurturer) parents and children (dependents).
She might be the bread winner and he might stay home with the children, but the roles still end up the same.
Procreation is the goal of the family, not self gratification. Sexual activity is only for the married. Sexual activity outside of marriage ends in misery. Much like medicine is only helpful when used for it\\\’s designed purpose: help the sick. If medicine is used for self gratification it is called \\\’drugs\\\’, and leads to misery.
Sexual activity is wonderful, fun, gratifying but is only indulged within marriage.
The best part is NO INSTUCTION is necessary: it is natural and takes care of itself.