52% Abstinence Not Enough

This WAS printed in the Dallas Morning News. I couldn't believe that I was reading an editorial, one day, that was trying to say to its readers that teens were doing much better because, within six years time, 6 percent fewer of them were having sex with each other. This effectively said that 48 percent of all teens in America WERE having sex! Where were their parents? I simply did not think that this was anything to be proud of, as the editor wanted us to believe. I think this is a reflection of where our society has gone today. Sad, but true. So, as a father of three home-educated teenagers, who have made a conscious decision not to have premarital sex, let alone sexual partners in their teen years, I decided to offer the following response:

I could not help but notice that your article, on teen sexual activity, did not include statistics on home-educated teens. I think you would find that the percentage of teens that abstain from sexual partners before marriage is at least 99%, if not 100%, in the home educated set. What contributes to this phenomenon is self-willed submission to parental authority in all areas of life. Loving, caring, exterior discipline at an earlier age that becomes an interior discipline as the child moves toward adulthood and needs to make more important decisions on his or her own. Home-educated children, not taught or advised by their peers, learn that saving ones self for one's marriage partner is the moral and honorable choice. This truism bares fruit in an equally high statistic in marital longevity among this set. It is not just a boast to state that home-educated student statistics far exceed that of public educated students in a majority of life questions. Instead of applauding gradual increases in abstinence among public schooled teens, it would behoove us all to take a careful look at what caused the statistic for sexual promiscuity to surge upward in the 1960s. All applause and attention should go to those whose understanding of the basic principles of this life present no struggle with the former statistic.