Big Beautiful Dreamer
ridiculously contented
A confluence of several news events and books I have been reading has led me to reflect once again on some of the big issues our country faces. What I'm doing here is putting out what I think on these issues, and inviting anyone who is interested into thoughtful discussion. I'm hoping that this will be nonpartisan and free of name calling. Yes, I also believe in fairies.
Abortion: Forty years of both studies and real-world experience have shown us that the most effective way to get to fewer abortions is to start at the other end.
That is, abortion rates go down when comprehensive sex ed is provided. By comprehensive, I mean first that it is medically accurate and second, that it provides both encouraging abstinence - if that's part of what a given state wants in its curriculum - and providing basic truths and exploding the myths about pregnancy prevention.
States that require abstinence-only sex education and do not require the information to be medically accurate have higher teen birth rates than other states. QED.
When I was 13, we were taught about the mechanics of sex and pregnancy. We were taught about STDs. We were taught about breast cancer, and I assume the boys were taught about testicular cancer. We had several myths shot down (e.g., you can't get pregnant if: you do it standing up, it's your first time, the girl is on top, you don't have an orgasm). I had classmates who were having sex at 14, and I had classmates who did not have sex until age 20 or older.
There will always be teens who have sex. Encouraging abstinence while pairing that encouragement with accurate, comprehensive information about methods of contraception have been proved to significantly lower unwanted pregnancies, and thus, any need for abortions.
Want fewer abortions? Make sure the teens are educated about ways to stop a baby being made other than "hold an aspirin between your knees."
With education and prisons: One of my concerns for the prison system is a combination of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws of the 1980s and 1990s combined with the privatization of the prison systems. With states increasingly engaging private, for-profit companies to operate prisons, the result (as it is for any for-profit company) is butts in seats.
It's in the best interests of private prison companies to have as many people utilizing their product as possible. The more prisoners, the better.
That is, may I say, not a healthy approach to criminal justice.
Prison goes hand in hand with education. Wait, what? Yup. As with sex ed and abortion, it's my opinion that a healthy, long-term approach begins at the kindergarten door, not the prison gate.
Or even before.
Back when North Carolina made education a fiscal priority (which I am ashamed to say is no longer the case), a previous governor initiated a program he called "More at 4." It's akin to Head Start.
Children who lived in households that met certain criteria for income and for the education levels of the parents, were enrolled at age 4 in preschool programs that gave them small-class attention, ensuring that they could read, write, and know their numbers before entering kindergarten. More at 4 kids were then targeted for free- or low-cost after-school programs that would provide tutoring and homework help. As the kids got older, they were steered toward YMCA summer camps and Boys & Girls clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters programs. All geared to give them healthy social options and to encourage them to stay in school.
The idea was to identify children whose backgrounds made them potentially "at risk" and minimize the risk factors.
Graduation rates increased, gang activity decreased, crime rates decreased.
It turns out that identifying, as early as possible, children whose socio-economic factors might make their climb up the ladder challenging ... and addressing those challenges...
Is a healthy, long-term investment that pays off 20 or so years in the future by having fewer teens slide into gangs, drugs, guns, and crime.
The privatized prison-industrial complex is a problem in and of itself. But I also believe that focusing on kids with the potential to be "at risk" and making sure they at least have the opportunity to stay on track can help.
"That's the parents' job."
Ideally, yes. And ideally, there would be fewer single-parent households, and fewer parents working multiple jobs at long hours, so that Junior has no homework help, has to get his own supper, and has never been read a bedtime story.
However the single-parent, working poor household got that way, the fact that we're looking at now is the child of that household. If we help the child of that household, without devoting too much time and energy to tsk-ing over the single-parenthood and working-poor-ness of it, we just might end up in 20 years with a child who has a Ph.D. instead of a prison record.
Abortion: Forty years of both studies and real-world experience have shown us that the most effective way to get to fewer abortions is to start at the other end.
That is, abortion rates go down when comprehensive sex ed is provided. By comprehensive, I mean first that it is medically accurate and second, that it provides both encouraging abstinence - if that's part of what a given state wants in its curriculum - and providing basic truths and exploding the myths about pregnancy prevention.
States that require abstinence-only sex education and do not require the information to be medically accurate have higher teen birth rates than other states. QED.
When I was 13, we were taught about the mechanics of sex and pregnancy. We were taught about STDs. We were taught about breast cancer, and I assume the boys were taught about testicular cancer. We had several myths shot down (e.g., you can't get pregnant if: you do it standing up, it's your first time, the girl is on top, you don't have an orgasm). I had classmates who were having sex at 14, and I had classmates who did not have sex until age 20 or older.
There will always be teens who have sex. Encouraging abstinence while pairing that encouragement with accurate, comprehensive information about methods of contraception have been proved to significantly lower unwanted pregnancies, and thus, any need for abortions.
Want fewer abortions? Make sure the teens are educated about ways to stop a baby being made other than "hold an aspirin between your knees."
With education and prisons: One of my concerns for the prison system is a combination of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws of the 1980s and 1990s combined with the privatization of the prison systems. With states increasingly engaging private, for-profit companies to operate prisons, the result (as it is for any for-profit company) is butts in seats.
It's in the best interests of private prison companies to have as many people utilizing their product as possible. The more prisoners, the better.
That is, may I say, not a healthy approach to criminal justice.
Prison goes hand in hand with education. Wait, what? Yup. As with sex ed and abortion, it's my opinion that a healthy, long-term approach begins at the kindergarten door, not the prison gate.
Or even before.
Back when North Carolina made education a fiscal priority (which I am ashamed to say is no longer the case), a previous governor initiated a program he called "More at 4." It's akin to Head Start.
Children who lived in households that met certain criteria for income and for the education levels of the parents, were enrolled at age 4 in preschool programs that gave them small-class attention, ensuring that they could read, write, and know their numbers before entering kindergarten. More at 4 kids were then targeted for free- or low-cost after-school programs that would provide tutoring and homework help. As the kids got older, they were steered toward YMCA summer camps and Boys & Girls clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters programs. All geared to give them healthy social options and to encourage them to stay in school.
The idea was to identify children whose backgrounds made them potentially "at risk" and minimize the risk factors.
Graduation rates increased, gang activity decreased, crime rates decreased.
It turns out that identifying, as early as possible, children whose socio-economic factors might make their climb up the ladder challenging ... and addressing those challenges...
Is a healthy, long-term investment that pays off 20 or so years in the future by having fewer teens slide into gangs, drugs, guns, and crime.
The privatized prison-industrial complex is a problem in and of itself. But I also believe that focusing on kids with the potential to be "at risk" and making sure they at least have the opportunity to stay on track can help.
"That's the parents' job."
Ideally, yes. And ideally, there would be fewer single-parent households, and fewer parents working multiple jobs at long hours, so that Junior has no homework help, has to get his own supper, and has never been read a bedtime story.
However the single-parent, working poor household got that way, the fact that we're looking at now is the child of that household. If we help the child of that household, without devoting too much time and energy to tsk-ing over the single-parenthood and working-poor-ness of it, we just might end up in 20 years with a child who has a Ph.D. instead of a prison record.
