Sarah Palin announces daughter is pregnant

reply to post by MsFab


I agree with you that telling a 17 year old what to do is not the same as telling a 7 year old what to do. The problem is that you should not have to tell a 17 year old what to do by that time the personality and character of the individual is already formed.

I'm a parent of 6 year old boy, and I'm making damn sure at this early age he knows about morals, right and wrong, good or bad, girls and boys, drugs, homosexuality, wining and losing, what you can touch and what you cant as it relates to the body, strangers, private parts, and specially how to treat girls. Of course everything is done in a way he understand but those seed of moral knowledge stay with kids since a very young age and I know it works because my son has already got in trouble in school for defending girls... let me remind you he is my only son he has no sisters or family nearby. Thats the way I was raised and it work for me.

We have become too P.C. when it comes to raising our childs and combine that with the lack of time that we have to dedicate to them because of work and other stuff in our own lives that we expect our schools and our kids friends to teach our children everything about life...is just pathetic and ridiculous.

[edit on 3-9-2008 by Bunch]

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by MsFab

 

No matter how good of a parent you are or have been and no matter how you raised your child, when they get to a certain age they will choose for themself wether they will live with the moral code you raised them by or wether they have some different feelings about some of the morals they were raised with.

Finally, someone who understands that children don't always do what they're taught and raised to do. A star for you.

For those that don't believe the above wonderful quote, it's WHY the call the teenage years the "REBELLIOUS YEARS".

I have been both a child and now a parent of 2 young teens and as I'm trying to raise them through their teen years, I'm remembering alot about how I was as a teen.

My parents raised me in church where abstinence was preached, they talked to me about abstinence many times. They were cautious who I hung around with and they were real involved parents. Though I was a fairly good kid, when I was 16 and met 'that dreamy guy' I could have cared less at that time what my parents had said about sex and abstinence and I was going to do what I wanted to do. I did become pregnant (even though a condom was used so I don't believe those are as effective as we may think they are) and never once felt that me becoming pregnant had anything to do with my parents being a failure. But it had everything to do with the choice that I chose to make even though I was fully aware that a pregnancy could occur. The raging hormones got the best of me.

With that said, I also think that maybe not pushing the abstinence stand could remove the 'forbidden' idea of sex. I sometimes wonder, in my case, if it hadn't be presented to me as something that I needed to wait to do until after married, would it have seemed so enticing.

With our kids, we aren't telling them abstinence, but we are giving them all the honest facts and consequences and trying to arm them with enough knowledge that they can make a good choice for themselves and we've talked to them about valueing their heart and body. And hopefully when they are wanting something to rebel against they will find some different form of rebellion since we haven't preached abstinence to them.

P.S. Thanks for the star!

Originally posted by Bunch
reply to post by MsFab

 

We have become too P.C. when it comes to raising our childs and combine that with the lack of time that we have to dedicate to them because of work and other stuff in our own lives that we expect our schools and our kids friends to teach our children everything about life...is just pathetic and ridiculous.

[edit on 3-9-2008 by Bunch]

As you can read in my posts in another thread www.abovetopsecret.com...&mem=MsFab that I agree totally with your above statement. Which is one of the reasons that I am a stay at home mom and will continue to be until both my kids are out of high school. (my kids are in 7th and 9th grade) I chose to have children and feel that the responsibilities of my choices belong to no one but me (and my husband) and I am dedicating my time to raising our kids with our values and we have very open communication in our house and no question or topic is off limits and our responses to the kids are always honest and we discuss the pros and cons of everything and we are trying to give them enough knowledge so they can make the best decisions for them in the future.

I feel very blessed to say that my children are not involved in the majority of what their peers are involved in. They are focused in school, they aren't worrying about having a boyfriend/girlfriend yet (and you would not believe how many 6th/7th grade girls already say they have had numerous boyfriends, in fact my daughter has chosen to give up some friends because all they do is talk about boys or are always on the phone with boys and she is focused on school and sports and just enjoying being a kid and got tired of all the boy crazy talk)

However, you could drill all your morals into your 6 year old child, just as I'm drilling all my morals in my young teens, but that still does not guarantee you that when they become 16, 17, 18 and they are of the age to drive and you let them go out on 'one on one' dates with the opposite sex, that they will choose to abide by all the morals that were drilled into them.

That is the age where you are trying to identify yourself as individual and seperate from your parents (not to mention the raging hormones) and the kids will have big decisions to make and one can only pray that they remember everything you have taught them and that they will use all the info you gave them to make the best choices. But a parent cannot make that choice for a child of that age.

It's much easier when they are younger and aren't driving and you have better control of each environment they are in and making sure they aren't somewhere they shouldn't be in an environment or situation they shouldn't be in and you can control which of their friends you allow them to hang out with or whose house they go to, but at some point you have to allow them to become young adults and make their own decisions based upon how you raised them and like I said, there is no guarantee that they won't have sex at 17 just because you have either told them not to or that they shouldn't.

Originally posted by MsFab
With our kids, we aren't telling them abstinence, but we are giving them all the honest facts and consequences and trying to arm them with enough knowledge that they can make a good choice for themselves and we've talked to them about valueing their heart and body.

That is smart. Studies have shown that if abstinence is really pushed hard on kids and they believe in it as the only option they will be MORE likely to get pregnant if they slip up.

It makes sense, they won't have condoms around, they won't practice birth control because that would mean they "planned" to have sex, so instead if/when they get swept away and do it they are totally unprepared and unprotected. And if they believe in abstinence strongly enough, they slip up once and swear "never again", but when "again" happens they are still unprepared.

A lot of people will wait until their mid twenties or thirties to get married these days. To expect them to remain celibate until they are 30 is really not all that realistic in most cases, especially in Western countries.

However, you could drill all your morals into your 6 year old child, just as I'm drilling all my morals in my young teens, but that still does not guarantee you that when they become 16, 17, 18 and they are of the age to drive and you let them go out on 'one on one' dates with the opposite sex, that they will choose to abide by all the morals that were drilled into them.

reply to post by MsFab



That is SO true!!! And another thing that must be considered is that EVERY child is different and the way you 'teach' morals and values to one might not be effective to another.

I have four daughters, and while two of them don't need to 'test' what I tell them is wrong, the other two only get things through their head when they learn from their own mistakes.

I'm a stay at home Mom (by choice!) and my girls are 10, 8, 7 and 7. The doors of communication are WIDE open in this house and I'm going to do everything in my power to keep it that way but I know that isn't always possible.

No matter how 'perfect' a parent is, no family is guaranteed that their child will not make mistakes. It is wrong for any of us to sit in judgement of Sarah Palin and blame her parenting skills for her daughters pregnancy.

With the age of consent being 16 in Alaska, Bristol didn't do anything 'illegal', and though I grew up in an area where everyone went to college after high school and didn't even CONSIDER getting married prior to earning at least a bachelors degree, my husband grew up in a small town where the norm was for girls to get pregnant and then married either toward the end of their senior year in high school or shortly thereafter. He said it was just the way things were down in that town. Perhaps that's what things are like where Bristol lives?

Jemison

Well Alaska does have some very long nights and I cant imagine there is alot for a 17yr old girl to do there...So she has to have some fun some how. Granted its not the best thing for a 17yr old girl, but if mom had invited businesses into the state that cater to young people so they stay on the straight and narrow, the girl may not be pregnant now or then again, she may still be, only she can answer that question.

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