Sex Education- Should it start at home or left to someone else?

     This morning I was browsing the Blogher  site and stumbled across an interesting question.... to educate our teenage girls about birth control.  I suppose that I have an interesting take on this subject because I was the product of a teen pregnancy myself.   Yes, I will honestly say that I have a more liberal view of parenting.  Believe it or not, my view is actually more liberal than that of my own mother.  Let me start by saying that my mother is 16 years older than me and I am 21 years older than my daughter.  Granted I have a college education and was able to finish my last year of college despite being pregnant. 


I'm terminally liberal in the rearing of my biological and step-children.  I believe that the more you deny and withhold (be it things they wish to do or things you don't think they need to know) those things come to be more desirable.  I'm not saying that I'm going to put a gun in my son's hands just because he wants one.  But I will share with him the consequences of guns and how damaging they can be.  I'm not going to give any of my children alcohol but will share with them the negative consequences that have directly affected our family.  Just like with my biological daughter and sex.  We have had conversations about sex and the consequences.  I'm not going to brush under the rug the fact that two of her 8th grade classmates were pregnant last year. 


Statistically the odds are against our daughters if we choose not to educate them and for that matter our sons who will be the ones copulating with other people's daughters.

• Every year around 750,000 teenagers will get pregnant. 
• Depending on the state, teenage birth rates are incredibly different. Nevada has the highest rate: 113 per 1000 and North Dakota the lowest 42 per 1000. 
• Unmarried teenagers having children account for 24 percent of all unmarried expectant mothers. 
• More than 2/3 of all teenagers who have a baby will not graduate from high school. 
• Billions of dollars are spent taking care of teenage mothers and their children and they are more likely to be in the poverty bracket. On the flip side, millions of dollars are spent in prevention programs.