Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
“The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” How many times have we heard that doomsday cry of apocalypse? We are now using a similar tone to address sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in teenagers, whichever term you prefer. Trust, solidarity, cohesion, inclusion, and social capital are currently the weapons in the preventive armament against those maladies that are increasing in both incidence and prevalence at alarming rates in the adolescent population. Now, while education and confidentiality are of paramount importance in stemming the tide of uninformed, free sexuality, there are numerous issues involved here, all of which form part of an intricate puzzle. Intervening in only some of those pieces will effect minor change, at best. Unless all facets of the big picture, from peer pressure and safe sex practices to HPV vaccines and parental detachment, are scrutinized and addressed, no long-term, consistent policy will be formulated, and disparities will continue to exist between the rich and poor, affluent suburbia and urban inner city. Experts contend that education is the single most important concept to look at. However, who is ultimately responsible for the sexual education of teens? The schools? Parents? Local public health officials? The federal government? The states? Experience teaches us that education is but a “drop in the bucket,” in many cases.
The relationship between teenagers and their parents has come to the fore recently, as single working mothers and two-parent breadwinner households continue to grow. Parents can no longer take the time to “school” their teens in sex education and safe sex practices when they are more concerned with the day-to-day dilemma of making ends meet and putting food on the table. This situation is destined to deteriorate even further, as the U.S. economy continues to cool down. Furthermore, with cuts in education and public school systems throughout the U.S., parents who think the schools are competent surrogate instruction platforms for their own failings at sexual education of their teens are in for a grim awakening. Welfare rolls are also stagnant, as government resources are limited, and cost cutting has threatened programs such as WIC, SCHIP, and Leave No Child Behind. If that were not enough, while federal, state, and local public health officials continue to sing the praises of safe sex and condom use in television spots, those sound bites compete with the “machismo” and “party like a rock star” mentality of the numerous beer advertisements plastered all over billboards, popular magazine pages, and cathode-ray tubes in our homes. It has become romantic to hoist a beer and take a damsel. You’re a wimp if you stay at home, listen to your parents, dress conservatively, and don’t succumb to peer pressure.
Transportation is another issue. Even if teens are willing and able to seek professional care, they are often “paralyzed” by an inability to reach the resources they so desperately need. In surveys taken among teens and young mothers for the reasons why they have sought prenatal care so late in their pregnancies, transportation difficulties have been found to be in first or second place consistently. That means that prenatal vitamins like folic acid are, indeed, being prescribed when it may already be too late to prevent neural birth defects in their developing fetuses.
Confidentiality is also an exceedingly large issue. Young women and teenagers are often adamant about the fact that they do not want either their parents or their significant others to know they are “victims” of an unwanted pregnancy. Those are just the young women who come forward to be seen and heard, too! It has been estimated that there are many more who decline prenatal care and family planning, to remain in the shadows, only because their fear of parental and social repercussions are enormous. With the spread of HIV/AIDS also slowly but surely dropping off the radar screens of urgent public awareness, young teens are additionally being exposed in record numbers to another “can of worms” that will eventually weigh heavily on a U.S. health care system that may already be crippled financially beyond repair.
So, we have a major conundrum here on our hands, and earth-shattering answers to the questions raised are certainly not immediately forthcoming. The social capital that binds us as people and communities, and enables us to take cooperative action through trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors, has broken down and not been adequately handed down to our future generation of political, social, moral, and scientific leaders. Furthermore, social capital has taken a backseat to the more pressing issues of financial capital and economic degradation, as provision of food and shelter to our young precludes sex education in the quest for survival hierarchy.
Perhaps we need to start looking beyond “lions, tigers, bears, and bulls.”
© 2009, Albert M. Balesh, M.D. All rights reserved.
The relationship between teenagers and their parents has come to the fore recently, as single working mothers and two-parent breadwinner households continue to grow. Parents can no longer take the time to “school” their teens in sex education and safe sex practices when they are more concerned with the day-to-day dilemma of making ends meet and putting food on the table. This situation is destined to deteriorate even further, as the U.S. economy continues to cool down. Furthermore, with cuts in education and public school systems throughout the U.S., parents who think the schools are competent surrogate instruction platforms for their own failings at sexual education of their teens are in for a grim awakening. Welfare rolls are also stagnant, as government resources are limited, and cost cutting has threatened programs such as WIC, SCHIP, and Leave No Child Behind. If that were not enough, while federal, state, and local public health officials continue to sing the praises of safe sex and condom use in television spots, those sound bites compete with the “machismo” and “party like a rock star” mentality of the numerous beer advertisements plastered all over billboards, popular magazine pages, and cathode-ray tubes in our homes. It has become romantic to hoist a beer and take a damsel. You’re a wimp if you stay at home, listen to your parents, dress conservatively, and don’t succumb to peer pressure.
Transportation is another issue. Even if teens are willing and able to seek professional care, they are often “paralyzed” by an inability to reach the resources they so desperately need. In surveys taken among teens and young mothers for the reasons why they have sought prenatal care so late in their pregnancies, transportation difficulties have been found to be in first or second place consistently. That means that prenatal vitamins like folic acid are, indeed, being prescribed when it may already be too late to prevent neural birth defects in their developing fetuses.
Confidentiality is also an exceedingly large issue. Young women and teenagers are often adamant about the fact that they do not want either their parents or their significant others to know they are “victims” of an unwanted pregnancy. Those are just the young women who come forward to be seen and heard, too! It has been estimated that there are many more who decline prenatal care and family planning, to remain in the shadows, only because their fear of parental and social repercussions are enormous. With the spread of HIV/AIDS also slowly but surely dropping off the radar screens of urgent public awareness, young teens are additionally being exposed in record numbers to another “can of worms” that will eventually weigh heavily on a U.S. health care system that may already be crippled financially beyond repair.
So, we have a major conundrum here on our hands, and earth-shattering answers to the questions raised are certainly not immediately forthcoming. The social capital that binds us as people and communities, and enables us to take cooperative action through trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors, has broken down and not been adequately handed down to our future generation of political, social, moral, and scientific leaders. Furthermore, social capital has taken a backseat to the more pressing issues of financial capital and economic degradation, as provision of food and shelter to our young precludes sex education in the quest for survival hierarchy.
Perhaps we need to start looking beyond “lions, tigers, bears, and bulls.”
© 2009, Albert M. Balesh, M.D. All rights reserved.
posted by Dr. Al at
5/05/2009 07:46:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home