Purity in the 21st Century?

We home school our children. Not that we think that there is anything wrong with our local school system – on the contrary, I understand that it’s one of the best schools in the area. We felt that God was calling us to home school, and so we do.

Over the years of home schooling, we have noticed some areas where we don’t always believe what the public school systems teach. They teach a worldview that is not consistent with our Christian worldview. They can’t teach that God is at the center holding everything together, but my wife and I believe that with all our hearts, and we want our children to grow up knowing that as well. Perhaps teaching them at home is the best way to know what they’re being taught.

Morality is another thing that I want to make sure our children learn. Removing them from the negative peer pressure in the public school is one way to make sure they have a fighting chance. Our kids aren’t sheltered from other kids their age, they go to youth groups and have many, many friends, but we know who their friends are! And it’s not just the absence of negative peer pressure, but the absence of a teaching of a morality that bothers me.

Let me give an example from the newspaper last Thursday. A headline caught my eye: Most favor public schools providing birth control. This was from a poll of 1004 adults taken just last month.

If the poll is accurate, 67% of parents support giving contraceptives to their teenagers in the public school. This shocks me. Perhaps I’m old school, but I still believe that parents should be the ones teaching morality to their children, not passing it off to the schools.

There is another part to this story that bothers me even more. The Portland (Maine) school district has voted to let a middle school provide “full contraceptive services.” This includes birth control pills. Please remember that middle school students are in grades 6-8. That means about 11 to 13 years old!

Listen to this statement: “Portland school officials plan to consider a proposal soon that would let parents forbid their children from receiving prescription contraceptives like birth control pills.” Think about this for a minute. Right now, an 11 year old can go to school and get a prescription for birth control without the parent’s consent or knowledge. And the parent can’t stop it!

I’m not sticking my head in the sand and pretending there isn’t a problem, but does anybody think this is a good solution long term? I realize that our teenage pregnancy rates are a problem, but I hardly believe the solution is found in condoning sex and handing out birth control pills to 11 year olds. Aren’t we playing a sort of Russian-roulette with a host of sexually transmitted diseases – many of which with long term health problems (some even fatal – but at least they won’t get pregnant!)

I believe there is a better solution. I believe that by teaching morality to our children, and by being involved in their education at every step of the way, we can teach them better. Perhaps that by doing some things that might work to reduce peer-pressure in school, that by teaching self-discipline and personal responsibility, and insisting on a certain level of sexual morality, our school systems might do better. At least we might give our children a chance to do better.

As a people of faith, let’s return to the Biblical calling of sexual purity, abstaining from sexual immorality, and let’s teach these things to our children.