Schools used to care about the three Rs. Now there’s only one: Reproduction. While math and reading scores tank across the U.S. for the 10th straight year, local districts seem to have only one thing on their minds. Sex—and how to teach it to your kids.
In Austin, Texas, like a lot of places, the school board decided to take a crack at overhauling the city’s sex ed. It was the first time the city had touched the curriculum in more than 10 years, and, based on the parents’ response, they should have left it for another 10 years. Moms and dads everywhere crammed into a special session of the board late Monday to protest the Independent School District’s plan to include “gender identity,” “reproductive anatomy,” and a host of other controversial topics.
Just to get into the meeting, locals had to stand in a line that wound down the sidewalk—passing dozens of parents wearing t-shirts that said “AUSTIN SEXXX ED” with the words circled and slashed out. For hours, people took turns at the microphone, blasting the suggested changes that, as one mom said, would encourage kids to “engage in vaginal, oral, and anal sexual activity.” It’s just not age-appropriate, another woman argued. “It introduces and normalizes advance[d] sexual behaviors to children at a very young age and perhaps places ideas in their mind that might not have been there before and can potentially lead to some early and unhealthy sexual behaviors.” Others took issue with the radical indoctrination. “Should you be suggesting to a 5-year-old or an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old that maybe they’re not a girl?”
“Yes” was the school board’s response, which voted well past midnight to ignore family’s concerns and give the new lessons the green light. Jennifer Kratky, a mom with a first and fifth-grader in the district, couldn’t believe it. What she and her friends object to, she told listeners on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” is just how explicit the content is. “We’re talking about eleven-, twelve-, and thirteen-year-olds,” she reminded people. Apart from that, Jennifer went on, “For me as a Christian, I think it’s particularly disturbing that even if you opt out of these lessons, as we have the freedom to do in Texas, the other children who do take the lessons are going to hold that our worldview is harmful and homophobic and transphobic. And I find that disturbing and discriminatory to me, too.”
Of course, the city’s defense is that parents have the right to opt their children out. But in reality, most parents have no idea that they can pull their kids out of class—or worse, that they’d even need to. A lot of parents trust their local schools—and the districts have taken advantage of that trust by misleading them about the true content of sex ed. It’s much better—and frankly, more honest—if schools have an opt-in policy, where moms and dads would have to knowingly let their children be exposed to this graphic material.
For Jennifer, like a lot of adults, the idea that our society just throws up its hands and refuses to teach kids some self-restraint is frustrating.
“I find it really sad that this is potentially where we are in society—that I’ve seen some parents on the other side just kind of shrugging their shoulders, saying, ‘Well, middle schoolers are going to have sex, so we better teach them how to do it safely.’ I mean, we’re talking about 12-year-olds. Really? Can we not aim higher for our children in American society today?”
She’s right. Somewhere along the way, it became assumed, not discouraged, that teenagers would have sex. And as a result, we have an entire area of teen education accelerates the risks instead of curbing them. Think about the other behaviors that can devastate a young person’s life. We don’t tell kids to drink less. We tell them not to drink, period. The same with smoking. We don’t hand them filters assuming that they’ll light up anyway. We challenge them not to.
And guess what? The abstinence approach isn’t just what works—it’s what most kids want. According to our friends at Ascend, most teenagers support saving sex for marriage. They don’t like the idea of casual sex, want to wait, or wish they’d waited longer. If you asked most young people, they don’t mind being challenged to stay celibate too. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough adults teaching them how.
If you want to control the message your kids are hearing about sex, send one. Then, make sure your school district isn’t undermining your values by staying up-to-date on their curriculum. Or, better yet, run for school board yourself!