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Time to wake up
At the public hearing on the proposed Family Life Education curriculum Tuesday evening, speaker after speaker questioned why their children should be taught the sex education part of the program.
Why? Here are some examples:
• Last year, a Delaware man was convicted of incest, which occured while he lived in Rappahannock County. Testimony from his daughter indicated that the sexual attacks began when she was seven years old and continued for the next seven years. When she told her mother about it, the man was confronted but (surprise!) denied his daughter’s allegations. The family did nothing further. The abuse came to light during interviews by a social worker.
• Last month, according to stories circulating through the community, two students at the high school were interrupted “in the act” at the school.
• According to testimony at the public hearing, a fourth grader recently asked his father what a diaphram is. The word was overheard on the school bus, the child explained, where a seventh-grader was using it as a euphemism for the younger students.
. Jtis time>t<> recognize that the wlorld — even in rural i Rappahannotk County — is not the pretty, safe place most of us remember as children.
And although most of us, those with children and those without, would like to protect them from too much knowledge too soon, ignorance brings danger as well.
Many pubescent youngsters have dangerously misguided notions about sex — and most of them come courtesy of their peers and older children. It is apparently a fairly common belief, for example, that a girl cannot become pregnant the first time she has sex.
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