Topic : 03/03 Teens and Sex with Bishop T.D. Jakes

I have a daughter who is now 19 and in college.  I was very honest and blunt in talking about love, abstinence, sex, birth control. STDs, reputation, and other pertinent facts.  While I am aware that I cannot "make" her abstinent, she needed all the information so she could make her decision when the time came.  I made it very clear that having sex has medical and emotional consequences that can impact the rest of her life. 

When a friend of hers became pregnant and had a baby, I was sympathetic.  I used that situation to point out that having a baby isn't the end of the world, but it finishes your childhood and makes it much more difficult to finish school and pursue higher education.  It made her life a lot harder.  There are consequences to your choices.

I don't think this is the responsibility of the school or church.  I love and care about my child more than anyone else.  I know more than the school or church about what is best for her.  For a teen, it isn't just enough to tell them that abstinence is best for them, you must go into all the details and consequence of why it is best.  I don't think it is scaring them; it's just giving them the facts so they can make informed decisions. 

I know that talking about this with your child can be difficult, but lots of things are difficult. 

Did you keep your mouth shut when your child was young and got in the street?  Did you ride a bike without a helmet?  Did you let them put their hands on a hot stove or in a fireplace?  Of course you alerted them to dangers they couldn't see!!!   Having sex as a teen or younger can be dangerous for them.  They expose themselves to uncurable STDs, pregnancy and great emotional distress!!.  If they are not informed, they don't see these dangers.   

While I believe and teach my daughters to refrain from having sex until they have finished school and meet the right person not in a matter of religion but self preservation, I unfortunately did not heed to my own advice. Speaking from personal experience and having my first child at age 16, I have experienced everything discussed in this show and see both sides of the story. To think that offering a teen birth control options is freely giving them permission to have sex is absurd. More often than not if it comes to that point the teen has either made up their mind this is going to happen or it has all ready happened and birth control is an after thought. I totally agree that parents need to step up and be the teachers in the situation. We weren't even aloud the say the word sex in my house without getting yelled at because of the embarrassment it made my mother feel. No, it's not the most comfortable thing in the world to openly talk about with your child but it is an absolute must. If you don't want the schools offering up their views and advice then you, as the parent need to be to first one to discuss it with your child, boy or girl.

So with that said, here are a couple of other things to think about. Problem pregnancies and handicapped children. Again speaking from personal experience and being a teenage mother, no one EVER brought these topics up. I was 15 when I became pregnant it was my freshman year of  high school, I was caught up in the "going with the flow" to fit in and BAM it all came to a screeching halt. Half way through the school year I was faced with a pregnancy. Being so young and immature I thought what most people think, Oh crap what am I going to do and then after talking to counselors and my mom and it sunk in I was going to have a baby. I made my OB appointment and things continued status quo. I continued on with school but with a black cloud over my head. People looked at me differently ,my friends parents forbid me to hang out with their daughters and I was pretty much cut off from everything. When I was about 5 months pregnant I started having complications and going into preterm labor. I was pulled out of school and placed on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy. I had to take this nasty medicine that made me shake so bad I couldn't even hold a glass of water and was admitted to the hospital more times than I can count for IV medication because the oral stopped working. I made it 35 weeks into my pregnancy and my son was born, luckily he did not have any respiratory problems at birth but was diagnosed with CP at 8 months old. My life has been very restricted because of this. All of his doctors appointments, case managers, home health aides constantly in and out of my house to help care for him, surgeries, etc. I have never heard anyone speak to these issues but it's a real life reality and because your young you are not immune. Just something to think about...

To my point above, I went to my mother and told her I wasn't asking permission, I was all ready having sex but wanted protection so I wouldn't get pregnant, my mothers words were " absolutely not!, I will not take you to get birth control just so you have permission and if your doing it, you better stop and if you choose not to then you can suffer the consequences of your choice!" Was it a morally right thing for me to engage in such activities and that age, no but I don't feel it was right for my mom to be so closed minded and refuse to offer an alternative either. You can strong arm your teens. you can put the fear of God in them, you can demand they follow your rules, you can threaten them, you can even lock them in their rooms but if their going to do it, they will find a way regardless. Today is a very different day than even 17 years ago when I became a pregnant teen.

If there are any pregnant teens out there reading this, just know that you don't have to be a statistic. Continue your education and become the best you can be for your child, it's not easy but it can be done. And if there are any contemplates out there, WAIT! You have plenty of time, this isn't a decision that should be taken lightly and if HE loves you, he will wait. Always put yourself first, I know what I'm talking about. I have been there. Being the determined person I am and hating the constant judgement I was faced with daily, instead of falling into the whole poor me self pity stuff, I used that as motivation to prove everyone wrong. It wasnt easy, but I now have a very good career and I am successful. I own a very nice home, my children go to private school and are on the honor roll. I chose my destiny, I didn't let society choose it for me and you shouldn't either.  Hind sight is 20/20 looking back if I would have put myself first I would have never been in the situation I found myself in, so definately take a step back and evaluate the situation before jumping into the anything.

   Lets be realistic!!! Teens have been having sex for as long as we can remember, religious groups are no exception. Taking a vow of selabacy for teenagers deeling with hormones, drugs, peer pressure, & so much sexuality is like an alcoholic taking a vow that they wont drink. They might mean it at the time but when faced with the temptation their is no telling what they might choose. 

   I am astonished that no one discussed in further detail what, giving out birth control in school means. It's not like you walk into math class and the teacher has bc pills, the nuva ring & condoms on her desk with a sign that reads "FREE"... In many states there are "school based heath centers", this means it's a clinic that treat our children for a number of things NOT JUST SEX...This is funded by our government. It's just lke a regular clinic, which fyi a teenager can still go to and receive the same treatment including confidentiality & birth control without parental consent. To obtain birth control pills you have to be of a certain age before you can receive them, under that age you need "PARENTAL CONSENT".  Where I live the age is 16...

   As far as the mother of the 14 yr old girl having sex, what do people really expect her to do? She didn't want her daugther to have sex but what else can you do when you know for a fact that they are going to do it no matter what. GO MOM for preventing another teen pregnancy. Am I saying that she should be having sex at 14? Absoltely not... But she did what she had to do for her family.

   At this day and age we should be educating our children with all the information. Teach them ALL the concequences that stem from having sex. Lets unite parents & experiened pofessionals to teach our children about life. I agree with the OB/GYN, parents need to start bringing their daughers into the doctor at an early age, educate them, show them you care. This is about  EDUCATION!!!!!!!!

After watching the show and reading some of these posts I am really surprised that no one pointed out or even mentioned one of the biggest culprits of this issue; The entertainment we've stooped to in this country, movies, magazines, music, sexually explicit novels, all of which glorify sex outside of marriage. All of which glorify having many sexual partners. We have thong underare for 10 year olds!!!!!. We have our 5 and six year olds idolizing the actions of entertainers such as Britney Spears and Lidnsey Lohan, who wear clothes to entertain that barely cover their bodies, then they jirate their bodies around in a very sexually explicit  manner, and we let them watch this stuff, then later sit back and ask what happened?

Although the sexual revolution brought about much needed change for women in the workplace it also changed the dynamic of the home. Mom's began to think "staying at home" was somehow now a demeaning way to spend ones life. Even still, many times when asked what your occupation is the word "just" seems to precede "a stay at home mom". The way women were looked upon changed. Men began to look at women as sexual objects and it has continued to escalate from one generation to the next.

If we look back to the days of our grandparents, we didn't have these issues in such great proportions. I say this because some would argue, it was there we just didn't hear of it, I beg to differ. No, we did not have these issues the way we do today. But, no one wants to carry the burden of blame, that too has spooled out onto this generation. The generation of "no consequences", ! We want to be able to do want we want, when we want, however we want, and when the consequences come, we want someone else to either take them off our backs completely, or at the very least, take the brunt of it; ie, grandparents raising their childrens, children, taking care of them financially well into their twenty's when they are perfectly capable to take care of themselves. We have parents that are emotionally, mentally and spiritually not to mention physically scarred from the errors of their ways from their own generation trying to raise a new generation, with the delusion they will do it better, yet using the same standard.

The standard needs to be raised back up. Responsibility needs to get back into the home with the parents for raising their children, not the schools, not the churches,and not the community group down the street. The value of family has been diminished to a "take it or leave it" mentality. Responsibility, consequences for poor choices, love and support in the home, guidance and understanding from the parents.

Bottom line......this is more than an issue about a teen keeping their virginity until marriage, this is an issue about the demise of the "family".  If we would stop taking our kids to see these raunchy sex filled movies, stop buying the junk teen magazines that glorify the "hook up", stop buying the sexually explicit music, start monitoring our television programing with our kids.  Get back to setting the boundaries with our kids that they so look for and need. Showing them we value them, teaching them how to value themselves, their futures and each other. Show them by example with solid parental relationships.

I just think if we beagn implementing less exposure to all this stuff and got back to what it means to "raise a child up", we would see remakable change!

I fear how much more we will tolerate before we get fed up enough to say "enough", it needs to stop now. Let teachers do what they went to school to do, teach academics and let the parents do what they agreed to do when they took the risk of having a child, "raise them up responsibly".

I get picked on alot by my boyfriend because I bring up how the world SHOULD be on a variety of different topics. And he always points out that yes the world would be great if it was as it should be but it just isn't, so what are you going to do about how it is. He has a point even when it ruffles my feathers :)

I certainly would come down on the side of teens should not be having sex of any kind, their not ready, but that's not how it IS. There are a thousand reasons why teens have sex and 99% percent of the time it's not for love. So the only question really is what are we going to do about it.  They need protection, not just condoms but every conceivable kind of protection. So in my mind until we get over how it should be and start dealing with what is it will never get any better.

Personally I want to low-jack my daughter and some how install a live camera feed that she can't disable, but we all know that isn't realistic so ......

~Nixi

Our children attend church weekly and we are a very close family. Both our children (age 7 and 13) know all about sex, along with rape, abortion (killing of children), sexual diseases, etc. They know that sex is wonderful and God wants us to have sex. He also wants it to be between husbands and wives.

My husband and I have been happily married 18 years. Due to me being STUPID and having sex with others prior to marriage, I have HPV and had to go thru painful procedures to make sure my pre-cancerous cells on my cervix were not cancerous. My children know about that as well. It is a REAL life consequence to stupid, pre-marital sex. I was lucky; things could have been much worse.

It's sad that more parents do not speak with their chidren IN DETAIL about sex. But what's sadder is that more parents are not BETTER ROLE MODELS for their children. How many mothers and fathers move boyfriends/girlfriends in and out of their homes and bedrooms? How many parents have affairs? How many divorce? How many stay married, but treat eachother like crap? Kids more from watching our actions than from listening to what we say.

Sex should NOT be a recreational sport between unmmaried, unloving people. We've seen the results of that....alienation, lonliness, disease, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, suicide, depression, kids living with no fathers in their lives, kids living in poverty, etc. Chidren are NOT physically nor emotionally ready for sex and what can and often does come along with it.

Parents should have to OPT-IN for sex education in the schools. Parents should NOT have to opt-out ot it. Governemnt raising our children is like asking Satan to raise them:) When I taught high school in the Tampa area schools, the word "marriage" could NOT be mentioned when sex eduation was discussed! THAT is unacceptable to me, as a parent. And it is MY duty to raise MY child.

It is ridiculous for schools to pass out birth control pills or for Planned Parenting to be allowed to perform abortions without the parent's consent. It is the parent's responsibility to teach morality and raise their own children. Parents need to consider their children, long before they give birth. The parents of today have a philosophy of popping pills to fix their mistakes and using MP3 players and TV to babysit their children.

It is ridiculous for a person to say, if they had been given birth control when they were sexually active at 12, they would not have gotten pregnant at 13. Either the parents were negligent or the child was not listening. But, mostly the parents were not listening and too busy with their lives to raise their own child. It takes parents that go to church and obtain guidance from God and are responsible to raise their children in a morally charged God influenced household.

How moronic for any one to suggest that a school give children birth control and take control of their sexual development, when they bankrupt them selves morally when they took God and prayer out of school. This experiment about removing God from school is over. The moral decline of society and schools parallel this decision. When abortion, birth control and the removal of God from schools became the law, teen pregnancy and sexual abuse became the norm.

Now, we don't have the guts to teach our children that the morally bankrupt student or teacher peddling homosexuality to 14 year old's, is part of the moral decay. It is up to the parents to decide what beliefs and religion they wish to follow and not let schools teach their religion of Secular Humanism and its false teachings of the THEORY of evolution. The foundation of sex education must start with the parent and the parent must hold themselves to be the architect of a child's healthy upbringing. If a parent wants to teach the religion of Secular Humanism, it is their choice, and if a parent wants to teach Christianity or Judaism, it is their choice. The school has not right teaching their religion of Secular Humanism, situational values, and stepping into the boundaries of parenting.

I challenge any parent, to make a weekly journal of the time they spend talking with their children. Not scolding them, bossing them, or yelling at them, but talking. If both parents must work, then the parents need to allocate more of their free time to talking with their children. You should know who all their friends are, because you should meet them. This needs to start from an early age. You know be aware of everyone they are chatting with and actually no child should be chatting with some one that they do not know. Ask them about school. Tell them stories about when you were a child. Let them know that you are not an alien. Don't try to be friends. You have to be their guide.

Bad children are the result of bad parenting. Period. Good parenting is not your child texting all the way to their grandparents house, because you don't know how to talk to them. If your child is having sex at 13, you might be guilty of child neglect. As a parent, how could you not know?

You are right about entertainment it's gotten awful.....

What I was surprised about was that no body focused any of the attention on telling boys to keep it in their pants, once again it was all about the girls. It takes two, and we all know when it comes to teens it's usually the boy that brings it up first but the girl gets all the flack and responsibility. It's irritating.

~Nixi