Yesterday, on Father's Day appropriately, Senator Barack Obama addressed a congregation in Chicago about the importance of young men supporting their families and taking the responsibility to raise the children they have.  Suggesting that too many fathers are absent from their children's lives, the Democratic Presidential candidate said this:

"We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child -- it's the courage to raise one."

Might I suggest that what would be even more courageous would be rewinding the clock a bit, say nine months or so earlier? Responsibility, it seems to me, begins long before sex, pregnancy, and birth.  What makes you a man is having the courage to wait to become a father until he is really ready to raise a child.  For some that means not having sex at all; for many it means making sure you and your partner use condoms and birth control every single time.

Don't get me wrong; I think the Senator's thoughts about responsible fatherhood are right on target.  Where I grew up, a situation like mine--living with both mom and dad--made me a part of the "weird" family.  We usually ate dinner together, and my dad would come fetch me from doing ultra-cool things with my pre-teen friends to do so.  And research without question shows that kids generally do better when both parents are around.

But why is it that when it comes to male involvement and responsible fatherhood programs, there is so little focus on encouraging men to be responsible by preventing an unplanned pregnancy--before a child or even a pregnancy is involved?  While there are numerous attorneys general and child support enforcement officials all over the country doing great work to make sure men take responsibility for their actions and support the lives they helped create, I suspect their jobs would be a whole lot easier if we devoted more attention to making sure they don't become daddies in the first place.

A new battle front in the culture wars has opened.  The issue is ICK -- in this case, some arguably salacious material in a sex ed curriculum. 

Here are a few thoughts: advocates on all sides of the sex ed battles have found sections in various curricula that they dislike.  As a general matter, the right dislikes sexually explicit content (the current flap) and the left routinely flags material that is medically inaccurate, homophobic and/or tied to religion.  It seems that almost anyone who sets foot into sex education offends at least someone.  It's tough terrain.    

So, what's a parent to do?  By all means review what your child's school plans to offer in sex ed 101.  If you find aspects of the curriculum that you don't like, consider having your child opt out of the class or perhaps just one session.  

But if you do so, keep in mind the following:

1. Some sex ed programs have been proven to help reduce the risk of teen pregnancy.  It is far better to have your child taught using an effective program than one lacking any evidence of good results.

2.  The overall popular culture that our children live in is very sexually explicit---and remember, it is on the watch of everyone reading this note that our culture has become what it is. Your children know and wonder about and hear tales of things that many of us old ones still don't get.  What makes you blush would hardly be noticed by the vast majority of teens.  Sorry.  It's the truth. 

3.  You are bound to find something that you do not agree with in any curriculum.  The question therefore is---on balance---does the curriculum seem right overall?  Does one disagreeable passage negate what might be 100 pages of positive material?  Analogy: Do you vote for a political candidate because you agree with him/her on every issue or just on most issues?

 4 . If you do remove your child from a class or curriculum, all that does is increase the burden on YOU to become a top flight sex educator.  Are you willing to do that?  To learn about the reality of teens' lives and the choices/pressures facing them, and then offer accurate, complete and compassionate advice?

Discuss.

It's like deja vu all over again at The New York Times.  For the second time in the past several weeks the grey lady is red in the face over virginity.  Today's entry: purity balls.  (See previous postings on the topic here and here.) 

Leaving aside everything else one might say about these father-daughter purity balls, I am left wondering--like so many others---where are the purity balls for fathers and their sons.  Don't these father-daughter gatherings underscore the sexual double standard still alive and still well---the double standard that tells young women to say "no" and young men to be "careful." 

Check out some polling data on this topic here (charts 5, 15, and 16)---65% of teens and 61% of parents of teens agree that parents send one message about sex to their sons and an altogether different message to their daughters.  Not too good.

Gentle reminder time friends. 

Although the official 2008 National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy has come and gone  (by the way, anyone have any ideas for a pithier title?), remember that May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month (again, title ideas anyone?) and the snappy National Day online quiz will be up and operating throughout the month. 

Please alert family, friends, neighbors, and enemies.  Take the quiz, you'll be glad you did.

For more information and to see what others around the country are doing to support the National Day, visit our National Day page the TheNationalCampaign.org. 

Two events of interest taking place deep inside the Beltway this Wednesday:

1. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing Wednesday on abstinence education programs. 
2. The Brookings Institution is holding a gabfest (they are always interesting) with some thoughtful folks on the effects of media on young people and children.  The Future of Children Journal, "Children and Electronic Media," published by Brookings and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, will be released at the event.

More in due course on both...

Bill's post on Straight Edge got me thinking about abstinence and what it means to declare yourself a "Virgin" (you can almost hear the capital letter 'V').  I was a student at an all-girls, Catholic high school.  It was a wonderful academic environment and - contrary to what you might have heard - we had regular dances and social events, shared with the neighboring all boys' Catholic high school. 

With this proximity to (gasp!) the opposite sex AND a rigorous dedication to creating a sheltered...goody-goody...parochial  secondary education experience, one might assume that the administration would have jumped at the chance to present its captive audience of impressionable young girls with the chance to sign a virginity pledge. 

What hath Ian MacKaye wrought? 

As leader of the great and seminal (Don't believe me?  Look it up here and here) punk band Minor Threat, Ian wrote a song way back in 1981--I think Taft was President at the time--called "Straight Edge."  In the song he celebrates his own choice not to drink, smoke, or do drugs; his straight edge. 

Quite unintentionally, at least according to what MacKaye has said in the past, the song took on a life of its own and became a rallying cry for many young people nationwide.  Since then, the straight edge "movement" has taken on a life of its own and now means many things to many people.  Some in the abstinence movement have, apparently, even latched onto the straight edge concept.

Tonight, the National Geographic Channel premieres a documentary on adherents to the straight edge lifestyle.  

So, the New York Times has discovered virginity.  In the Sunday magazine article by Randall Patterson, we read about "ivy league virginity" (not to be confused with virginity among less well bred plants).  Question: would this article have been written about a virginity club at LSU or Ohio State?  Or is the core idea of this piece that people at Harvard should be too worldly wise--too smart!!!--to even consider restraint?  

Mind you, abstaining until marriage seems to be beyond rare; fewer than 5 percent of brides are virgins on their wedding day (silence reigns on the grooms, of course--nudge nudge, wink wink).  But is it really newsworthy  that a few young adults at Harvard and other exalted schools see room for taking sex and love a bit more seriously than so much of our culture suggests?  The "wait til marriage" message might be hard for some to stomach, of course, especially given the rising age of marriage and the increase in co-habitation.  But there is a moderate middle in all this.

The real club that I think we need is one that gives voice to a commonsense, centrist view -- that sex has risks and meaning along with real potential for intimacy, and that it belongs in committed relationships not one night stands.  What shall we call this new club at Harvard?  Any nominations?  And once it is formed, will the NYT write about it?