Newspaper Page Text
OpEd
We can ’t give in
to bad behavior
I rushed over to the child in
the aisle at Riche's. My fear
was that she was lost because
her screams of alarm were
frightening. Another lady
reached her at the same time
and like myself, she thought
the child was lost from her
mother.
By the time we both
reached the 3-year-old child, a
young lady with a stroller
reached her also, her mother.
The mother seemed surprised
at our attention. She had been
ignoring the temper fit and
allowing the child to scream
and holler at the top of her
lungs.
The other shopper and
myself walked slowly away
shaking our heads in confu
sion. 1 took my purchases to
the salesman who was too dis
tracted by the incident to
immediately take my mer
chandise even though I am
sure he worked on a commis
sion. He said, “Parents don't
raise children the same any
more.”
While 1 understand the
young mother’s technique of
trying to modify the child's
behavior. I also realized it was
not working. The young moth
er had said “no" to her child
and had proceeded to ignore
an even worse behavior, that
of pitching a fit in the store.
If you observe the behavior
of children in public places
like I often do, it will surprise
you at the new techniques of
behavior training that are not
working. When a child
screams in anger for many
minutes because she refuses to
accept the answer from her
parent, the technique is cer
tainly not working.
Ethics & Reliqion
Emphasizing abstinence works
Ten years ago Southern
Baptist churches began asking
their teenagers to sign a "True
Love Waits" pledge of chasti
ty. This was derided by
groups like Planned Parent
hood who argued that it was
unrealistic to expect teenagers
to remain chaste ‘til marriage.
Planned Parenthood’s
answer is comprehensive sex
education which assumed
teens would be sexually
active, and urged them to have
“safe sex" with condoms.
It did not work. In 1970,
only 29 percent of females
aged 15-19 had premarital
sex. By 1991, the figure shot
up to 54 percent.
The greatest increase was
among the youngest teens. In
1970, less than 5 percent of
15-year-olds had experienced
sex. That soared five-fold to
26 percent by 1988.
The consequences have
been devastating.
There were only 59,000
births to unmarried teens in
1950 which skyrocketed 10-
fold to 522.000 by 1990. And
that is in spite of 364,000
abortions to teenagers in
1990, which were virtually
zero before 1970.
When teaching contracep
tion increased teen pregnancy,
sex educators got birth control
clinics opened nearby, then
moved into the schools and
finally simply handed out
condoms. All of this with fed
eral funding.
The emotional impact of
premature sex has been devas
tating. Teen rates of depres
sion have soared and teen sui
cides quadrupled from 2.7 per
100,000 in 1955 to 11.1 in
1995.
Amidst this moral chaos,
Southern Baptists lit a candle
of hope, that teenagers might
be persuaded to remain
chaste. Specifically, Baptist
youth groups were urged to
sign a “True Love Waits"
pledge card that states:
“Believing that true love
waits, I make a commitment
to God, myself, my family,
w ■* Julianne
Boling
Needless to say, all parents
go through the trials and errors
of learning as they try to dis
cover the right way a child
will respond to discipline.
What works for one child will
not work for all children. What
helps a child learn self-control
and self-discipline will not
work for everyone. It is the
pursuit of the right way to
teach children self-value and
self-discipline that is impor
tant in the long run.
The young mother, while
showing she was in charge of
her child, chose a busy depart
ment store full of strangers to
teach her child the conse
quences of her wrong behav
ior. She was ignored! While
the screams went on and on
other shoppers were quick to
surmise the child was lost.
Did the technique work?
No! The young mother gave
into the child and took her to
get the item the child had
wanted just to quiet her down.
After all the misbehavior, her
mother rewarded the child for
pitching a fit. The idea was a
good one for the child in the
beginning, but the results of
her mother giving in to her
demands erased the lesson
quickly.
Guess what will happen the
next time the child wants
something in a store and the
mother says "no”?
Cumming resident Julianne
Boling writes a weeekly col
umn.
—■— n
Mike
those I date, my future mate,
and my future children to be
sexually pure until the day 1
enter a covenant marriage
relationship."
In 1994 I remember seeing
a sea of 211.643 pledge cards
displayed in neat rows of plas
tic holders over acres between
the Washington .Monument
and the U.S. Capitol.
Ten years later, a total of
2.5 million teens have pledged
"True Love Waits.”
What has been the impact
of this inspiring commitment
of young people to moral
lives?
First, according to the
Centers for Disease Control,
the percentage of sexually
active high schoolers has fall
en from 54 percent to 46 per
cent. And the greatest drop
has been among boys!
Second, teen birth rates
have fallen 31 percent.
Chastity is the only real form
of “safe sex.”
Third, teen suicides have
fallen 13.5 percent.
Fourth, True Love Waits
launched an abstinence revo
lution, moving Congress to
appropriate funds for sex edu
cation programs that not only
make a case for chastity, but
teach skills to teenagers on
how to resist the lines of the
MTV culture:
“You would, if you loved
me” can be countered, “If you
loved me, you would not ask."
Unquestionably, the
declines in teen sexuality are
partly due to providing $144
million to promote abstinence.
For example, there is now an
Abstinence Clearing-house
that provided many of the sta
tistics you are seeing in this
column (abstinence.org)
Yet federal and state gov
ernments still spend $1.73 bil-
Bush could have done something
WASHINGTON Listen
ing to George W. Bush and
members of his senior staff
talk about the days leading up
to Sept. 11, 2001, reminds me
of an old, sad joke: Doctor
comes into the waiting room
and tells the family, “The oper
ation was a success, but the
patient died.”
The official line of the
Bush administration is that no
mistakes were made.
They are so adamant about
this it makes you want to rush
to New York to see if the World
Trade Center is still there.
True, when pressed, the
administration admits that a
bad thing did happen. And
some members of the adminis
tration actually have the decen
cy to feel some guilt.
CIA Director George Tenet
said before the Sept. 11
Commission on Wednesday
that, "The victims and the fam
ilies of 9-11 deserved better.”
FBI Director Robert Mueller
told the commission a few
hours later, “I feel a tremen
dous burden, guilt for not hav
ing done a better job."
But the top members of the
administration sing a different
tune. They are without guilt.
According to National
Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, all the problems leading
up to Sept. 11 were “systemic.”
Individuals were not at fault.
She has nothing to apologize
for.
According to Attorney
General John Ashcroft, there
was a “wall" that prevented
him from preventing the
attack. (He mentioned this wall
so often in his testimony
before the Sept. 11
Commission that one got the
impression somebody had
actually encased him in
masonry.)
And the president says he
couldn’t have prevented the
attack because nobody told
him the “time and place" of the
attack.
Nobody told him the time
and place? Did he think terror
ist attacks were like weddings?
lion to promote contraception.
“Overall, government
spent sl2 to promote con
doms and comprehensive sex
ed for every dollar to encour
age abstinence,” reports
Robert Rector of the Heritage
Foundation.
These priorities are upside
down, according to parents. A
Zogby poll found that 85 per
cent of parents said the
emphasis placed on absti
nence for teens should be
equal to. or greater than the
emphasis on contraception.
What can be done?
First, more parents need to
attend School Board meetings
to demand that abstinence
education replace comprehen
sive sex ed.
Second, citizens ought to
swing behind the President’s
attempt to nearly double fed
eral funds for abstinence
which are a part of the welfare
reform bill that died on the
Senate floor two weeks ago,
thanks to Democratic opposi
tion.
This is the same bill which
provides the first major fund
ing for marriage education.
The bill will surface again in
June. Write Democratic sena
tors.
Or better, send teenage
pledgers to meet their sena
tors!
Most important, religious
youth groups in other denomi
nations should go to truelove
waits.com to order pledge
cards, father-daughter rings
and other material to promote
God’s plan of chastity.
Southern Baptists are
organizing an international
display of commitment cards
on Aug. 22 at the Olympics.
Two hundred thousand have
already been collected in
South Africa.
Will your teenagers or
those from your church have
their pledges displayed in
Athens?
That is up to you!
Michael McManus is a
nationally syndicated colum
nist.
Roger
Simon
Did he think that terrorists
announced the time and place
in advance?
Aren’t things like the time
and place of future attacks
what our intelligence and law
enforcement agencies are sup
posed to find out by “shaking
the trees”?
Asked at his press confer
ence Tuesday night if he had
made any mistakes, the presi
dent seemed genuinely baffled.
He froze like a Miss America
contestant who had just been
asked her formula for world
peace.
"1 am sure something will
pop into my head here,” he
said.
Nothing did.
So can I suggest perhaps
just one, little mistake? On
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, April H, 2004 I
Aug. 6, 2001, while on vaca
tion in Crawford, Texas, the
president got a briefing titled,
“Bin Ladin Determined To
Strike in U.S.”
I have that now-declassified
briefing paper in front of me. It
is not long. And one paragraph
leaps out: ”... FBI information
since that time indicates pat
terns of suspicious activity in
this country consistent with
preparation for hijackings or
other types of attacks, includ
ing recent surveillance of fed
eral buildings in New York."
True, Osama bin Ladin was
crafty enough not to take out
an ad in The New York Times
telling Bush the time and place
of the attack, but the president
could have sat sharply upright
and said the following to his
staff:
“This vacation is over. I am
heading back to the White
House immediately. We will
meet again in 48 hours, and I
expect you to have some
answers as to the time and
place of a possible attack.
Meanwhile, I am placing the
nation on a heightened state of
alert. Tell all the airlines that
there is an increased threat of a
hijacking. Shake the trees! Get
me some answers! And get to
work!”
President Bush did none of
these things. In fact, nobody
seemed especially excited at
all by the Aug. 6 briefing.
“Frankly, I didn’t think there
was anything new,” Bush said
Tuesday.
Bush also said he had “no
inkling whatsoever that the
people were going to fly air
planes into buildings.”
“We were not on a war
footing,” the president con
cluded sadly.
And that is a sad answer.
Because it takes a president to
place the nation on a war foot
ing.
And George Bush has to
ask himself: Where was ours?
Roger Simon is a nationally
syndicated columnist. His e
mail address is Writeßoger
@ aol.com.
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