It’s parenting, plain and simple. I had precious little sex education in the public schools, but plenty from my mother and my Catholic upbringing. I managed not to get pregnant, or get a disease, and wait to have sex with someone I loved and who loved me and was concerned for my welfare and safety before, during and after. The one pregnancy scare I had, at 19, my MOTHER took me to buy the test, and my mother sat with me on the edge of the tub and waited.
As a human, not just an educator, I have found this story disturbing to the core, not only because of the facts of the story (17 pregnant girls in one high school), but of the media circus surrounding it. And the best I can come up with, after reading and listening, is that it’s parenting. Well, the lack of parenting. It has nothing to do with availability of birth control, or comprehensive sex education, or religion, or anything else. These girls have been FAILED by the adults in their lives who were entrusted to care for them.
