Giving contraceptives to 11 year old girls?

arbilad · Head Chef

RE: Giving contraceptives to 11 year old girls?

Dyany · Senior Member

Sorry on the locking kids in their room reply; I must have misunderstood your previous post. I thought you said you saw firsthand where it brought people closer together...you must have meant the couple, not the child and parents.

Anyway, you said
To sum up, I am against teen pregnancy, and the best way to avoid it is to not enable the behavior, but change it.We all agree on that, actually. ALL of us here want chastity for our children. All of us will try with all our might to teach that. However, the gap exists for the scenario 'what if you can't change the behavior?' I don't see a backup plan in your scenario to cover that possibility.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Don't keep quiet NOW! I was just thinking how nice this has been that we can discuss and no one has busted a vein in their forehead yet. I think we're coming closer to understanding where each are coming from...

So really, what's the difference between the pioneers and us? How we teach the Gospel? Why don't we apparently believe in behavioral change anymore?

fwiw- I had misread arbi's post to say that very thing, too, dy. I actually went back and reread it and it made more sense. "Slow down..." I tell myself.

Dyany · Senior Member

Coco, thanks, I'm glad I'm not the only one that misread that. :)

As to the diff between us and the pioneers, I don't know. I think some of it is the 'empowering' children have received in recent generations, for good AND for ill. And part of it is the shame instilled by society, which has diminished greatly, for good and for ill. I think more 'bad' things happened 100 years ago than we realize, they just weren't so public. A woman bore a child out of wedlock, she left it on the steps of the orphanage or with a relative and it was never mentioned or documented half the time.

Me, I can only hope that contraception is something I never have to discuss with my children.

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

I agree with Dyany and Coco.

Thus sayeth Bokbadok.

Duke of Mirth · Profuse Pontificator

If it did happen to my family I would not supply birth control for my daughters. And I will not raise their out of wedlock child. I'm just not going to do it.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

You realize though, that if it's your son and you're in some sort of family business together, you could be paying the child support. Just sayin'...

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

Out of wedlock children should be given up for adoption through LDSFS. This allows the child to be sealed, and the mother to have a chance to get her life back together and possibly marry in the temple as well. Teen mothers who keep their babies rarely marry at all, and even more rarely in the temple, thus denying sealing for both mother and child.

Sadly, it is often the grandmothers of the baby that influence their daughters to keep the child because they can't bear the thought of breaking up "family." Selfish, that's what it is.

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

I am a strong supporter of adoption, too. I like calling it "place" for adoption instead of "giving up" for adoption.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

So, I've been watching this thread from the sidelines and just got to thinking... For me, this is one of those areas where I'll just try to teach to the ideal and then deal with the reality as needed. I'm not sure I could say with certainty what I'd do in this circumstance, because I'm just not there. The plan is to teach my kids as much of the whole picture as possible and leave it in God's hands unless/until further action is required. I plan to educate them with as many reasons not to have premarital sex as I can come up with. I also plan to talk about the positives of marital sex. Will I get the balance right? Ask me in 10 years. Or better yet, ask my kids.

hiccups · Future Queen in Zion

Oh, and ftr, I definitely won't be using the chewed gum analogy.

historian · Senior Member

The generation gap here interests me. Of course, when I was a teen, contraception wasn't so available, and there was a lot of societal pressure to be "good girls" and avoid having a bad reputation -- iow be chaste -- let alone not to have a child out of wedlock. And I grew up as a non-member and joined the church when I was a freshman in college.

A friend told me that when her dad got worried about her moral situation -- running with a "fast" crowd and a friend of hers did get pregnant -- her dad accepted an overseas job and got the whole family out of there. Perhaps new jobs were easier to get in those days.

There are ways of moving kids away from temptation when they seem to be in danger -- sometimes changing schools can make the difference.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Sometimes placing a child up for adoption is not an option. Though I suppose it is a matter of perspective in every case. In one case I know of, for example, the mother of the child was LDS, the father not LDS. They talked about marriage, but the mother then discovered the very unseemly detail that the inlaws to be thought she would be damned to hell if she didn't quit her church and become an evangelical. They saw nothing wrong with what their son had done, and sadly the son took the parent's side.

The mom could keep the baby and raise it in an LDS culture by herself, or give the baby up to the father (who's parents insisted they would raise their grandchild, to keep it from a life of hellish blasphemy). Legally due to the separation for some weird Washington state rule, she was prohibited in giving up the baby for adoption, though she had planned to use LDS Social Services Adoption, up to the point where the father's family got involved and claimed they would counter sue the mother for custody...

I suppose one can debate what's better for a child... growing up hating its birthmother because of her faith (that admittedly she didn't fully appreciate prior to getting pregnant), or growing up with a single mother who is now active in the church and has come full circle regarding the whole repentance thing.

As a whole, I'm a huge fan of the adoption route, and wish it was more encouraged, because I don't believe that there are any "unwanted" children in our society, because I know so many good people who would love to have children were it not such a difficult process, and then there are the selfish hangers-on who use their children as a way to manipulate others.

Then again... there are plenty of married parents who do the same with their kids. :)

--Ray

Duke of Mirth · Profuse Pontificator

When I was in highschool they cut driver's training for lack of funds but boosted spending on the day care center for teen moms. One teen mom had three kids in the daycare center. I was one unhappy guy. I was fortunate that my parents were tired of driving me to seminary so they paid the private instructor to teach me. These girls and their boyfriends or in some cases all the various guys at the party where they got knocked up all had access to cheap birth control, understood the dangers, and still chose to do whatever they wanted. I've been pretty intollerant of teens doing this sort of thing in the years since.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

My wife noted when she was on her mission that many women got wellfare if their children were under two years old, and so they regularly got pregnant every two years... each child had a different father... that part wasn't important.

--Ray

Cocobeem · Keeper of the Holy Grail

Actually it is, because 3 children from 3 different fathers will bring in significantly more child support than if all 3 were from one man.