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By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor
On September 1, US vice presidential candidate
Sarah Palin—conservative Christian, a staunch supporter of natural
family planning and advocate of abstinence for
adolescents—announced that her 17-year-old daughter Bristol was
pregnant. Also announced was Bristol’s decision to marry the
father of the child, 18-year-old Levi Johnston.
The news of Palin’s grandmotherhood resonates
with many Filipinos. Like Palin many have been brought up with a
conservative Christian values. And as with Palin, there is an
obvious disconnect between what parents, politicians and priests
preach and what happens in practical reality with youths today.
Amid the din among opponents and supporters of
the Reproductive Health Care Act, it’s easy to forget that,
regardless of one’s stand on the issue, parents need to take
responsibility and dialogue with their coming-of-age children about
sexuality, gender equality, reproductive health and romantic
relationships.
1. Educate yourself. Parents can’t dialogue
with their children or help make informed decisions unless they
themselves know the facts.
Source your information from objective medical
and scientific literature that are easy to understand and not from
religious partisans—such as supposed celibates who want to control
the sex lives of all—who have their own agenda. Learn how and when
exactly life is conceived, the pros and cons as well as practical
success rates of various contraceptive and birth control methods
including abstinence. Then present all these facts these as well as
your own informed opinion to your children to allow them to make
their own informed choices.
Despite disinformation, fear mongering and
threats of damnation by opponents of the Reproductive Health Care
Act, most have not even read the bill itself. Read it for your self.
2. Ignorance protects neither children nor
parents. Besides, they will discover their sexuality through the
ubiquitous media—be it through movies, video games or the
news—or worse, their equally immature peers. Stop passing the buck
to the Church and state with regards to value formation.
Provide guidance, not censorship. Shielding your
children from the mere mention of sex promotes the notion that it is
illicit like a drug. And it is human nature to desire what you
cannot have. Man is the only being to engage in sex as an expression
of love. To believe that sex is only for procreation is to demean
our selves to the level of beasts.
Instead, expose young adults to literature,
theater, cinema and other art forms where sex and violence are not
gratuitous and where they are shown in the proper context. For
example: sex within a realistic but loving relationship or war as
gory and inhumane.
Challenge young adults with fare that provokes
them to think critically for themselves instead of spoon-feeding
them heavy-handed morals. Parents need to prepare youths to deal
with complex issues soberly and maturely.
Encourage them to be open about the friends they
keep and the hobbies they have. Forbidding all contact will only
drive such basic human activities underground.
3. Don’t idealize the past. Don’t tell your
children how great it was in your day or how depraved people are
now. Decades ago, it was acceptable for a man to beat his wife, for
families to abuse and disown homosexuals, for people keep
appearances and to value dignity over happiness and honesty. And
despite all that, generations past produced unplanned pregnancies
and unhappy marriages. People still became who they were and did
what they did, regardless. Such “traditional values” were not
only immoral; they did not work.
Current reproductive health measures are
evidently inadequate and impractical. Past generations’ eschewing
of birth control and sex education is what has led to overpopulation
and the consequent environmental and economic crisis.
4. Remember how it was to be an adolescent.
Recall exploring your sexuality and feeling the disconnect between
what was preached and what you really felt. Reminisce the painful
coming of age experience of reconciling one’s indoctrinated guilt
with one’s primal urges for love. Remember the confusion of not
having anyone enough to confide in and the fear of being judged and
punished by elders who might find out.
These same things shouldn’t have to happen to
yet another generation.
Today’s norms are different from yours in much
the same way yours was different from your parents. Remembering will
help you tolerate today’s youth.
5. Accept your children’s individuality. With
individuality comes choice. And one will not agree with all the
choices one’s offspring make. Treat your adult children like
adults.
The one thing most Filipino parents fear
more than the probability that their children are engaging in
premarital sex is having to confront them with it. They’d rather
not talk about it. “Not my child,” is often the refrain.
That’s what you think.
Most Filipino parents cannot perceive of their
children as adults. Instead of engaging in dialogue, many mouth the
same slogans their own parents said (and did not necessarily
follow). That has been the status quo for generations. Evidently,
that has not worked.
Dialogue and advise. Don’t command, lie or
threaten. Or else they will not be honest with you.
Don’t be afraid to be a maverick yourself (as
Palin asserts she is). Those who cast a critical eye on current
Church dogma and flout social conventions follow in the footsteps of
national hero Jose Rizal and scientific genius Galileo Galilei, both
persecuted by the Church yet later proven correct.
Hopefully, they’ll come around in your
lifetime.
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