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Kids these days

March 28, 2008 by Véronique Bergeron 1 Comment

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My children Liesl and Kurt are in the same split 5/6 class in school. Liesl and Kurt are pseudonyms: since they sing a mean Sound of Music, I decided to dub my children with their singing part which is more or less age-appropriate and also reflects their birth order and personalities. Because they are my oldest children, Liesl and Kurt are the family’s guinea pigs. Age-appropriate parenting is not the only thing my husband and I experiment on Liesl and Kurt, we also discover new realms of peer interactions at every turn. Enter dating, crushes, flirtation and match-making… Did I mention this was a grade 5/6 class?

Since we shamelessly monitor our family email account, we already had an inkling of the underage equivalent of “Merlot and email don’t mix.” But I have to ask you what I asked Kurt and Liesl – who, I should mention, don’t have mates but associate with people who do – “What on earth are grade 5 kids doing with a boyfriend/girlfriend?” And this I mean both conceptually and practically.

What troubles me, above and beyond wondering how kids get such ideas, is the effect of these pint-sized soap operas on class dynamic. Liesl was up late yesterday evening worrying about recess. She told me: “Nobody plays anymore. Instead, they huddle in their little corners commiserating about their broken hearts and bad-mouthing whoever dumped them.” She concluded: “Playing tag is no fun with 2 players.” So there you have it: little cliques of broken-hearted 10-year-olds who can’t play tag if that other clique is also playing ‘cuz that would be disloyal. The drama has somehow percolated to the younger grades, meaning that Martha and Brigetta are also acquainted with such delicious morsels as whether or not Nick kissed Jen on the bus ride back from ski club. Supper time conversations at my place sound increasingly like a clip from Entertainment Tonight and I don’t mean this as a compliment.

With apologies to Brigitte for yanking the Crusty-Ol’Goat crown so abruptly, I am wondering if I am the only one who sees a problem? Let me be quite blunt here: physical and emotional attraction between these kids is not likely to decrease as they reach adolescence. And by adolescence, I mean the real, medical, adolescence, not the silly state of mind these kids think themselves in. When you start dating and hugging at 10, what do you do at 12 when you meet that “really-really-nice-guy-you-totally-crush-on”? And when you start kissing and fondling at 12, what do you do at 14 when you meet “the-real-love-of-your-life”? And when you start kissing and fondling at 14, what do you do at 16 when your hormones are raging for real and “the-most-adorable-guy” asks you on a date? You become a statistic. A teen sex, teen pregnancy, teen STD, teen abortion statistic. Parents, wake-up! This is not cute!

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Brigitte is: Quite horrified by these stories and does not mind sharing the goat crown.

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Rebecca goes off to reread Wendy Shalit, but first adds: I’m going to enter the bidding for the Crusty Old Goat crown this week, too! Seriously, I’ve seen all too many examples of this, and it makes me contemplate homeschooling and/or single sex schools.

But really, what do we expect when we wallow in today’s popular culture? When 5-year-olds watch prime time television (which they don’t in my house) and see the sexual behaviour that is now considered unworthy of comment, it’s so common, why is it surprising that they think that normal behaviour includes sexual innuendo, kissing, hand holding, and, especially for little girls, the kind of hip-wiggling walk and coquettish behaviour that was in the 19th century literally the province of prostitutes?

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Tanya wonders: Can I send my daughter to school in the 19th century? Do they do that?

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abortion, dating, elementary, school, teenagers

The fight over our young

March 14, 2008 by Tanya Zaleski Leave a Comment

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No, not the young you may be thinking. (After all, when we talk about young ones in these parts, we’re usually referring to the unborn.)

These statistics caught my eye again recently:

Looking specifically at teens … 72 percent call abortion morally wrong, and 32 percent believe it should be illegal in all circumstances. Among adults … 17 percent backed a total ban.”

While some dismiss this statistic, choosing to focus on the lack of life-experience a teenager possesses, I am reminded of my own pre-teen self, already well anchored into my opinion on many important issues.

There must be a few people who see it as I do on the pro-abortion side.

They [major abortion-rights groups] hope to win over young people by focusing on issues less controversial (and to many students, more pressing) than abortion, such as the rising price of birth control on college campuses.”

To the pro-abortion side I say, “College campuses are a great place to start. After all, they seem to be gagging one side of the debate; silencing the unfavorable point of view.”

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: college, teenagers, university

Abstinence is not a dirty word

March 12, 2008 by Véronique Bergeron Leave a Comment

Heard a news item on the CBC about rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among young teens. (You can read about it, here.) And what would be the cause of this rise? They don’t get tested.

I would have laughed if it wasn’t so sad. How about young teens are having sex? On goes the CBC reporter: “While abstinence will prevent 100% of sexually transmitted infections…” — I never thought I would live to hear the CBC talk about teen sex and abstinence in the same segment — “… it isn’t for everybody.”

Abstinence may not be for everybody but if I had to take a wild guess at a likely population for abstinence education, 13-year-olds would be my second choice… right after 12-year-olds.

Filed Under: All Posts Tagged With: abstinence, CBC, sexually transmitted infections, STI, teenagers

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