Dan

Calabrese

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October 22, 2007

Equipping 11-Year-Olds for Sex at King Middle School

Not all parents at Portland, Maine’s King Middle School are outraged that school officials are setting up health clinics that will provide contraceptives to children as young as 11.

Carol Schiller is reportedly elated. She has had a son and a daughter graduate from King, and says those who find it shocking that 11-year-olds have sex should “get over it.”

OK. I’m over it. I know 11-year-olds have sex. My wife and I run a drug/alcohol-prevention group for teens, and the teens are very honest with us about what they do. We are well past the point of finding just about anything shocking.

What is shocking, however, is how poorly the officials at King Middle School are applying their own knowledge of the nature of 11-year-olds to this issue. An 11-year-old cannot get a work permit, cannot get a driver’s license and cannot get a prescription for cold medicine filled without a parent’s permission. In most cases, the 11-year-old cannot even go home after school if his or her parents are working, because he or she is too young to be alone for two hours, which is why latchkey programs were established.

In short, 11-year-olds are immature and irresponsible. That is no indictment. It is the nature of being 11. That is why they are too young, under any circumstances whatsoever, to have sex.

But the folks at King Middle School, reasoning that they’re going to do it anyway and can’t be stopped, figure that by handing them condoms, birth control pills and contraceptive patches, they are protecting them against pregnancy.

So the same pre-adolescents who can’t even sit home at night without a babysitter are now being trusted to take birth control pills and put on condoms. And this, school officials believe, amounts to protection. It amounts to insanity.

Leave aside the moral issue of facilitating sexual activity among children so young. Anyone who thinks this will actually work clearly knows nothing about the sexual activity of teens and pre-teens.

First of all, birth control is already available to the kids. Planned Parenthood will give it to anyone. The kids know this, and so does the school, because before this policy was established, the school would refer the kids to Planned Parenthood. But the kids wouldn’t go. Did the school take a clue from that? Apparently not.

The kids don’t go because the kids don’t want to use birth control. Girls don’t like taking the pill because it messes up their hormones. Even those who decide to take it often don’t remember to take it every day. They’re freaking 11! They can’t remember to do their homework and pick up their rooms. But you’re banking on their remembering to take birth control pills every day?

Now. Condoms. Boys hate using condoms. So do men, if we’re to be honest here. But as immature and irresponsible as many men are in impregnating their sexual partners, boys are even more so. They are so determined to have condom-free sex, they convince the girls that they will be able to pull out before they ejaculate. Ever try that?

Making condoms available to them will not do anything to change this. Condoms are already available to them. They don’t want to use them. One young “couple” we know – operating in a no-strings-attached sex arrangement known as “friends with benefits” – confessed to us that they played with fire for months by having completely unprotected sex, although the boy expressed confidence that “my little swimmers won’t let me down.”

What’s more, a high percentage of youth sex occurs when the participants have been drinking. No one is thinking about condoms, patches or pills. It’s rip and roll.

The only thing you do by giving contraceptives to 11-year-olds is affirm their behavior. I don’t care how many times you say, “I’m not condoning it.” You are. If you equip them to engage in the act, you have condoned it. You can tell yourself otherwise all you want if it makes you feel better.

Once King Middle School parents give permission for their children to use the clinic for any reason whatsoever, they sign away their right to know what treatment has been provided. Band aid. Cough medicine. Birth control pills. It’s all covered by doctor/patient confidentiality. Don’t ask. They won’t tell.

Youth sex equals youth pregnancy. Anyone who thinks they are “protecting” the kids by giving them contraceptives needs to get a clue about the real-life sexual behavior of kids. You might find it shocking.

Get over it.

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