A Stitch in Time.

Some years ago, Queen’s College, the top notch girls-only high school in Lagos, Nigeria held its PTA meeting. The meeting had barely ended when many of the parents, panic-stricken, dashed toward the dormitories to bombard their daughters with a cacophony of queries and threats of “fire and brimstones”.

The cause of this uproar had been the disclosure that some of the students were found with contraceptives. As a parent of one of the students who was following the events on phone over 10,000 miles away, I could appreciate the official concern of the school authorities. But the hysterics and the moral posturing of the parents were absolutely uncalled for. These reactions, if anything, were terribly flawed.

It’s amazing to behold the "fire department" manner by which a great number of parents worldwide react to the upsurge in sexual promiscuity among teenagers. If they are not blaming the TV, the movies and the other usual scapegoats, these parents are ever busy placing all emphasis on the female child. Alas…they are as ignorant as the kids for whom they seem to be concerned.

Governments, mostly in the Third World and even the United States, especially in the Bush era, have been demanding for total abstinence. The situation is worse in Middle-eastern authoritarian societies where political and religious leaders are not only demanding for total sexual abstinence but also have often relied on draconian laws to discourage female teenagers from premarital sex. In the global community however, individual parents and largely more so, in the western hemisphere, have simply resolved to leave kids to their devices.

It’s very important for every parent to have, at least, the patience to provide a basic understanding of the fast-evolving human physiology to their kids. In the 21st Century, there are several preteen girls (as tenderly young as eight years old) who have begun to menstruate. Going further, many of these girls, with their male counterparts, are already experiencing raging hormones that baffle them. But how many parents are up to the task of providing these confused kids with appropriate education and guidance?

On the subject of sex, many youngsters are so ignorant that they can only fumble and wobble into maturity. Most parents, on the other hand, are either playing “the ostrich” or (and) playing the role of a moral judge. To these parents, the mere sight or mention of a condom to their kids by anyone (even on the TV) is enough to send the parents into fits of rage and righteous indignation.

Ideally, the ultimate panacea to the dangers of sexual recklessness among our young people is abstinence. But to stubbornly insist on abstinence without a consideration of other worthy options is akin to assuming that teenagers are immune to “weakness of the flesh”.

There is a strong need for every family, community and society to strike a reasonable balance between the pursuit of sexual abstinence and safe sex. And this is where sexuality education (sex-ed) comes in as the only effective tool in the attainment of this feat. It’s shameful though that some parents, out of ignorance, view sex-ed as an avenue for indiscriminate sex.

Sex-ed recognizes but goes beyond a mere sermon of sexual abstinence. It’s “a stitch in time that saves nine” with comprehensive information on self-awareness, reproductive organs and preventive measures. No amount of stubborn demands for abstinence can help a fully-blossomed twelve-year-old girl who doesn’t understand the fixation of boys’ attentions to her chest. And neither can this rigid doctrine enable the same girl to grasp the implications of being called a “sweet sixteen” by some leering, dirty old men.

Equipped with sex-ed however, such a fast-growing preteen will get to understand the purpose, cause and effect of her natural endowments. And with this understanding, she is bound to survive, unscathed, the many destructive social pestilences such as unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and self-imposed infertility. Better still the preteen is spared a future laden with regrets, physical and emotional scars.