Trendy Teen Store Starts to Carry Maternity Clothes; What Message Does that Send?

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Martha Kempner for Advocates for Youth_scoop

This story was originally onAdvocates for Youth’s Birds and Bees Blog.

A few weeks ago a friend posted an update on Facebook about how horrified she was to find that Forever 21, a chain of stores that carries inexpensive, trendy clothing aimed at teens and tweens was now carrying maternity clothes. I laughed. I have never actually shopped at Forever 21, I don’t think I’m young or trendy enough to wear their clothes and in all honesty, I don’t think I’m thin enough to look good in them. So it struck me as funny that right now—in my third trimester of pregnancy, at my very largest—might be the best time for me start dressing like those half my age. On a very practical level, it’s hard to find maternity clothes that look halfway decent and don’t cost a fortune and I’ve already tapped out Target and Old Navy, so one more shopping option sounded good to me.

Then I started thinking about it a little more. A trendy store making clothing for pregnant women (as Target, Old Navy, and H&M have already done) sends a message that you don’t have to give up fashion for 10 months of your life. My sister (who, though older, is far hipper than me and does shop at Forever 21) has said that she’s jealous of the options I have now; 13 years ago when she was pregnant with my nephew, there were no stylish maternity clothes. Today, she could keep wearing her favorite Seven for All Mankind jeans. But neither I nor my sister are Forever 21’s target audience. In fact her daughter (at 11) and even mine (at four) are closer to its demographic than we are. One can imagine that when the marketing person pitched the new line to the higher ups, the discussion had more to do with an untapped market of pregnant teens than it did with 30-somethings who wanted to look fashionable even while huge. (In a posting on salon.com’s broadsheet, Sara Libby points out that the line is premiering in five states, three of which also have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country.)

So, should a store that is marketing to teens and tweens really be selling maternity clothes? Does it fill a legitimate need or does it send the message that “it’s okay for you, our young shopper, to be pregnant?” And is that, in and of itself, a problem. There are some tricky issues here for both educators and parents.

When Forever 21 and stores like Old Navy, Torrid, and H&M started plus-size lines that were appropriate for teenagers, I applauded. People come in all shapes and sizes and it was unfair that the latest fashion and nicest styles seemed reserved for the size-four set. While we want to make sure that all young people are healthy, we need to acknowledge that some of them will wear a 14 or above, and I was pleased that those teens, who often face criticism because of their size, had appealing clothing options. I never once worried that the availability of plus-sized clothing would in any way lead to obesity or accused these stores of encouraging unhealthy eating or discouraging physical fitness. They were simply acknowledging the reality of teens’ bodies.

The same argument could be made for Forever 21’s new line of maternity clothes. There are upwards of 400,000 teens who give birth each year; these young people will need things to wear for the better part of a year. Maybe making the clothes and marketing to them is just filling a need and as such makes good business and social sense. We have come a long way from the days of scarlet letters and sending pregnant teens to their “aunt’s house in the country” as soon as they started to show, and I think most would agree that this is a good thing.

As an educator, I know that one of the challenges of preventing teen pregnancy is to be able to do so without stigmatizing those teens who do become parents. I have often criticized strict abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula for suggesting that by getting pregnant these women (because most messages of purity are aimed at women) have clearly done something wrong and lack the morals and integrity of their peers who have remained chaste. The same challenge goes for me in talking to my own kids. I’m sure they will meet the children of teen parents and may very well have friends who become parents at a young age, and I don’t want them to judge these people for it. It is possible that a line of trendy clothes can help alleviate the stigma and judgment that surrounds teen childbearing.

That said, as both an educator and a parent, I want my children to know that teen parenting is extremely difficult. Teen parents are less likely to finish school and they and their children are more likely to live in poverty. Moreover, the children of teen parents are more likely to have health issues, education issues, and behavioral issues. The unfortunate truth is that statistic after statistic shows that teen parents have a much harder road ahead of them than those that waited until they were older (which often also means better educated and more financially secure).

These truths, however, have to compete with the seemingly glamorous pregnancies of Bristol Palin, Jamie Lynn Spears, and other young women in the spotlight. These young women got a great deal of (often positive) attention for accidentally becoming pregnant and even more for how they are handling being mothers. Bristol Palin – who none of us would likely remember had she not been scandalously pregnant while her mother ran for Vice President – is making a career out of discussing her teen parenthood to the tune of $30,000 per speaking engagement and a possible reality television show.

We can’t blame Forever 21 for causing teen pregnancy any more than we can blame Bristol or Jamie Lynn, however, it does seem possible that together they are giving off the wrong messages. The National Survey of Family Growth, recently found that 14% of females and 18% of males ages 15–19 would be “a little pleased” or “very pleased” if they got (a partner) pregnant. That scares me. And it suggests to me that as parents, we have a lot of work to do on this subject.

We have to tell our kids (nicely, so as not to offend them of course) how difficult it really is to be a parent. There is no room to be selfish once you become a parent (and though I’m sure I will regret saying this in 12 years, 16 year olds should still be able to be a little selfish sometimes). When I tell my daughter this, I might point to this very Monday when I was looking forward to taking a sick day, lying in bed by myself, sleeping, and watching HGTV in an effort to get rid of this horrid summer cold that she so nicely passed on to me. That sick day plan, however, was shattered at 2 am, when she came into my room crying because of a fever and what turned out to be a double ear infection. My upcoming day was no longer about taking care of a myself, it was about the pediatrician, the pharmacy, and making sure she felt better. And when I tell my other daughter about this (the one who has not been born yet), I may find it necessary to point out just how many days I have spent nauseated and exhausted in the last 32 weeks (basically all of them). I will do this in much the same way my mother continues to point out the 6 weeks she spent on bed rest entertaining my then 2 ½ year old sister, all in the effort to keep me in until I was more fully cooked. I don’t want apologies from either of them; I became their parent willingly and I love it. I just want them to know what they are getting into and plan it carefully and realistically (because once you are a parent whether you are 19 or 39, you are a parent for the rest of your life).

So like everything else (sorry to be a broken record), I suggest we use this new line of clothing as an opportunity to find out what our kids are hearing on a subject, help them think through issues critically, and ultimately pass on our own values. In a few years, when my four year old becomes a tween (she’s already started rolling her eyes and calling me mom in such a way that it has more than one syllable) and discovers a cute maternity dress at her favorite store, I will start a conversation about who the dress was made for and what she thinks about marketing clothes to pregnant teens. I am already curious to see what she’ll think. And after that, I will tell her what I think about the whole issue, remind her how hard parenting is even when you are established in your career, your finances, and your relationship, and then gently (or not so gently) suggest that, if you ask me, she shouldn’t become a parent until she’s at least 30.

Naked Kids, Naked Parents: What’s Appropriate (Part II)

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Martha Kempner for Advocates for Youth_scoop

This article was originally published onAdvocates for Youth’s Birds and Bees Blog

In Part I, I talked about naked kids and questions that start coming up as kids enter pre-school about whether it’s okay for them to be naked around each other and around adults. The other question that starts to come up around this age is similar but maybe even more complicated: when does it stop being okay for us as parents to be naked in front of our children?

As parents we often worry about this one more. It is trickier because it involves adults’ own perceptions of modesty and comfort with their own bodies as well societal perceptions and fears about sexuality and incest. I think a lot of discomfort stems from parents’ fears of doing something that other people might find inappropriate. While we can laugh off inappropriate behavior exhibited by our four year olds, we’re held to slightly higher standards. Again, I say go with your gut.

This also came up in our house recently because Charlie discovered showers. We got a new showerhead in the master bathroom that is removable and she became fascinated with it. Instead of the scary stream of water that comes down from miles above her head, this hose allows her to control where the water hits her.

She think this is fantastic because “she’s just like a grown up.“ I think it’s fantastic because it takes far less time than a bath – which never involves less than half-an-hour of playing mermaid. And, I’m convinced that (if only she’ll let me try it), the direct stream of water from the showerhead will get the shampoo out of her curly hair far more efficiently than pouring cups of bath water over it.

So, this weekend, when it was Daddy’s turn to do the bath, she suggested that, instead, they take a shower, together. My husband did not say no – logistics ruled it out as an option, because the master shower (which I affectionately refer to as Barbie’s dream shower) really doesn’t fit two people and we have not yet installed the new showerhead in the bathroom that has the tub. Later, however, he admitted, somewhat reluctantly, that he was uncomfortable with the idea of taking a shower with her at this age. My first thought was to tell him he was being silly, she’s four not fourteen, but I stopped myself.

Again, parents and experts disagree on when it is and is not appropriate for kids to see their parents naked. And, more often than not, this disagreement focuses on parents of the opposite gender. I have heard some experts give precise rules that parents must keep their clothes on from the time their child is six and others suggest that appropriateness has more to do with the situation, the family structure, and the parents and kids themselves than with any exact of age of development. For some reason, I remember an expert on an episode of Oprah that aired at least 15 years ago saying it depended on what the family dynamics were, “If a naked parent is like furniture,“ he explained, “just a casual, unnoticed part of the household, it could be no big deal.“

So I go back to; trust your gut and take your cue from your kid. My husband’s gut said it made him uncomfortable and that was enough. The next time it comes up, we won’t make a big deal out of it, in fact, we won’t even make it about her. We already know, in this house, that Daddy like privacy when he goes to the bathroom. We will just extend that to the shower. “Daddy is happy to help you take a shower, but he likes privacy when it’s his turn to shower.“ (This logic also works in reverse, if there is a situation where a child is the one reluctant about the nudity, he/she should be able to ask for privacy as well.) Not only does it help make my husband more comfortable but it also sets the precedent for personal preference, allowing individuals in the family to decide what they are and aren’t comfortable with, which in the end is the most important “rule“ to follow.

Naked Kids, Naked Parents: What’s Appropriate? (Part I)

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Martha Kempner for Advocates for Youth_scoop

This article was originally published on Advocates for Youth’s Birds and Bees Blog.
The count-down to my daughter’s fourth birthday has definitely begun (if you ask, she will say she’s three-and-three-quarters) and with it, as with any new milestone, comes some new questions about appropriate behavior. Last week the questions were all about nudity.

Up until the age of two, no one seems at all concerned about kids being naked in front of other people or parents being naked in front of kids; after all two-year olds are still really babies and naked babies are cute. And, on the flip side, how aware are they, really, that their parents are naked? But the lines start to blur around three and get even more questionable as the toddler turns into a preschooler and the preschooler starts looking and acting much more like a miniature adult.

Last week, two independent events brought up separate but related questions: When does it stop being okay for her to run around naked in front other people and when does it stop being okay for her to see us naked?

Let’s start with the first question about naked kids (stay tuned for the naked parent part).

The first thing that happened last week was a play date between Charlie and two other friends. We’re still at the stage where most play dates involve children in one room and parents in another. And Charlie is in a stage where most play dates seem to involve numerous changes of clothes – whether it is swapping clothes with the friends so they can wear each other’s outfits or taking clothes off to put on princess dresses, ballet outfits, or the Wonder Women costume my mother-in-law made her, every time the children come tearing through the living room, they are wearing something new. And inevitably, at some point during the play date they come tearing through the living room wearing nothing at all. This usually elicits fits of giggles, especially last Thursday when she and her friend Molly decided to bump tushies as they ran.

Molly’s mom and I are used to it. And, in all honesty, we think it’s pretty damn cute. We just laughed. The other mother, however, did not. Though she said nothing, she was clearly a little less-than- comfortable with the situation.

Last year, an article in the New York Times, entitled, “When Do They Need Fig Leaves?,“ examined the issue of naked kids and found lots of different opinions from both parents and experts. Is it okay at 4, at 6, at 10? In the house? In the backyard? When guests are over? Moms and dads in the article disagreed with each other, parents disagreed with grandparents, and experts provided no hard-and-fast rules. I think that’s because there are none. All kids are different and all parents have different opinions and different values. And I think this is one area where you have to go with your gut instinct and provide a careful explanation.

I try to balance helping Charlie have a positive view of her naked body as something that is beautiful and not to be ashamed of with helping her understand etiquette and appropriate behavior. For example, when we were having work done on the house and the contractors arrived before 8 am, I would make sure we both got dressed before we came downstairs and explained that we needed privacy from Joe and the guys. When she lifted up her dress at the park thinking it was funny to show everyone her underwear, I gently suggested that it wasn’t such a good idea. And, though I usually say nothing about the naked play dates, I occasionally use them as teachable moments. One day, when she and her friend Keira came into the room and shed their tutus, Charlie suggested, giggling, that they take their underwear off too. Keira seemed a little reluctant. So I stepped in and said casually, “maybe you should leave your underwear on because vulvas and tushies are private.“ They agreed and ran off for the next wardrobe change (if I remember correctly, it was bathing suits so they could play beach).

Just as I took my cue to step in from Keira, I plan to take most of my cues from my daughter. Kids do develop a natural sense of modesty and it does begin around three or four. An adult friend of mine says she can pinpoint the moment it happened for her; she was four and she had gone to a fair wearing a pair of patterned overalls with no shirt underneath, the straps were thin, and to this day she has a vivid recollection of feeling uncomfortable that everyone could see her nipples. While I can’t point to an exact date, I certainly remember wanting to get dressed in my own room with the door shut so no one could see me naked. In fact, I already see the concept of privacy taking shape in Charlie. She now asks for privacy when she poops. Her rules are still loose – often that means that only I can see her but sometimes she’ll say daddy can too because he lives at her house and other times she’ll extend it to Nana and Juby because they are her grandmothers and they’re girls.

So, on this subject I will live by her rules, knowing that someday she will put her clothes on in her room and even I will rarely see her naked. (There is one important exception I will make, however. Now that she is four, an age that seems to be on the other side of the nudity line for some people, there may come a time when her nudity clearly makes a guest, a relative, or one of her friends uncomfortable, and I will have to tell her in the most matter-of-fact way possible that she should put her clothes back on, at least for that moment.)

Part two of this article talks about naked parents (possibly even trickier).

Talking about Sex Might Not be Easy, but We Can’t Simply Avoid It

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Martha Kempner for Advocates for Youth_scoop

This article was originally published on Advocates for Youth’s Birds and Bees Blog.

I am an unrepentant eavesdropper. On a bus, in the supermarket, or even in the ladies room, I keep my ears open to interesting conversations among strangers. Seated next to another table for two, I am far more likely to listen to their conversation than to attempt to engage in one of my one. I suppose this doesn’t make me the best dinner date but it has led to some great stories. Like the one about the 30-something guy from the Bronx who was clearly on his first date with a 22-year-old blonde who had recently emigrated from Russia. When he couldn’t start a conversation about ice-hockey (a topic he seemed to have assumed they would share a mutual interest in), he said to her, and I quote, “Are you into current events, because I’m really into current events.“ This has become somewhat of a catchphrase in our house.

The other day, my husband and I found ourselves in a cute diner in Westchester, which in the middle of the day was full of moms dining in pairs or quads while their children were at school. I could not figure out the age of the pair sitting next to us but I gathered from their conversation that they each had children between the ages of 6 and 10 or so. They were discussing what to listen to on the radio in the car and one suggested that she often puts on the news which prompted the other to tell a “funny“ story. Apparently, a few weeks earlier, she was watching a 60 Minutes story with her children about the continuing recovery from the earthquake in Haiti when, as she described it, the worst thing happened: the reporter focused on a 13-year old who was pregnant. And her son asked the hardest question: “how can a 13 year old get pregnant?“

Really? She was watching footage of the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that left thousands dead and thousands more homeless and set an already poverty-stricken country back by at least a decade. Images out of Haiti included injured people without food, water, and medical care, dead bodies lying in the street, and desperate individuals searching for relatives who are most likely dead. Yet, to this mom the most disturbing image was that of a pregnant teenager.

I can imagine that the questions that come up for many children when viewing such horrors are scary and possibly unanswerable. How can such a bad thing happen? How come they couldn’t just go to a hospital? Why isn’t there enough food? What happens to the children whose parents died? Could this happen here? Yet, to this mom the most difficult question she could imagine answering was about how a teenager could become pregnant.

I know that as a society we have always been uncomfortable talking about sex (especially with children) but I find the idea that sex is harder to explain than poverty and death discouraging.

Please know that I am not criticizing this mother, I understand that explaining sex (or even conversations where sex may come up) can be a very scary proposition for many parents. For one thing, most of today’s parents grew up in households where no one ever talked about sex. For another, our society gives such mixed messages about sex that it is often very hard to know, even when talking to our own children, what we should and shouldn’t say. What if we say too little, might it damage our kids forever? Or worse, if we say too much and they repeat it to friends, neighbors, and teachers, will it ruin our reputation?

Still, we have to get better at this. We have to break the cycle where parents find it so hard to talk to their kids about sex that they simply never do. That is the only way we will be able to raise generation of sexually healthy young people who have the information and skills they need to make responsible sexual decision throughout their lives.

So here’s my first piece of advice. We should all relax. Talking about sex is like talking about any of the myriad of things our kids are going to ask us about over the years. It might not be easy but, like everything else, we just have to muddle through and figure it out as we go.

This 60 Minutes segment could have been a great moment to pass on both information and values. She could have started simply by saying that women, even young women, are capable of getting pregnant once they reach puberty. Or if she wasn’t ready to discuss puberty, she could just say some young women are physically capable of getting pregnant as early as thirteen. And follow that quickly with “but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.“ Then she could have started a conversation with her son about how hard it is to have a baby at 13. The news story would be a perfect launching point for that because everything is hard in Haiti now. She could have gone on to try figure out (together with her son) when they think it’s best for women to have babies – they might have decided in their twenties or thirties or that age is less important than having finished school or gotten married.

If I’m right and the son she was talking to was around 10, that would probably be the end of the conversation, and it would have gone a long way in teaching him information and values and opening up the lines of communication for more discussions as he got older. (By the way, you’ll notice that the topic of sex never really did come up.) A parent having this conversation with a teenager might want to be more specific and get into how pregnancy occurs and how it can be avoided. For teenagers, the conversation about how difficult it is to raise a child could have gotten more detailed and more personal as well.

I am not saying that conversations with kids about sex are easy or that we will always know the right thing to say. I’m just saying it’s no harder than many other topics we get asked about and we can’t afford to avoid it anymore. Hey, I’m a trained sex educator and I got flummoxed just the other day when my 3 ½ year old asked me how the baby got into her teacher’s uterus. While I get points for the fact that she said uterus, I think I lose them for my answer which seems to have conjured up images of babies waiting in chicken eggs. Of course, this was no better and or worse than my answer when she asked me where people go “when they get dead“ and when we can see them again. I muddled through that one too and will have to do it better next time as well. But I know there will be a next time and I think the most important thing is that she keeps asking and I keep answering.

You Are Bee-You-Ti-Ful; Helping our Kids Develop a Health Body Image

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Martha Kempner for Advocates for Youth_scoop

This article was originally published on Advocates for Youth’s Birds and Bees Blog.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine was in Walgreens with her six-year-old son when, somewhere in the stomach remedy aisle, he told her that the kids at school had started making fun of him because his penis was too big. Apparently, two boys in his first grade class had commented on it during a trip to the bathroom and later pointed him out to other boys in the cafeteria by saying “that’s the kid who has the big penis.“ Tempted to grab Maalox off the shelf and swig it right there, my friend resisted the urge to leave it at “someday that will make you happy and popular,“ and attempted a conversation about body image, self esteem, and teasing.

By her retelling of the story, I think she did a really good job especially for being blindsided in a public place. It’s a difficult conversation to have and I’m sure we can all imagine how it could have been even more difficult. What if her son were older and the teasing was about his penis being too small? What if it was her daughter and the body parts in questions were her breasts (whether they were being called too big or too small they are far more visible)? And, of course, it wouldn’t have had to be about reproductive organs at all to be a self-esteem issue; plenty of young people get made fun of because of their body shape or size.

Self-esteem and body image are probably one of the hardest things to deal with as a parent. For one thing most of us are still grappling with body image issues of our own. For another, our society bombards our children from day one with images of what they “should“ look like. From the princess with the skinny waist and the prince with enormous arms to the swimsuit models with the ridiculously long torsos and their counterparts with six-pack abs; young people of all ages are being told that there are strict criteria that they need to live up to in order to be considered beautiful. And more over, positive body image isn’t necessarily something we can teach, it’s something we as individuals have to learn to feel. As parents, those are always the hardest issues. There is only so much we can do, but we can do some things. Here are a few ideas:

* Keep our own body image issues to ourselves.
This one has always been hard for me. As someone who has gained and lost the same 20 pounds numerous times in the last decade, I have a closet full of clothes of varying sizes and a head full of issues about how I look. When I’m at the skinny end of the closet, I’m pleased with my reflection but when I have to dig for the bigger pants I tend to get upset. I have worked very hard to keep this (or at least the reasons behind it) from my daughter. Even if I’m visibly dissatisfied with how I look, I never say “I feel fat“ in front of her (usually I blame the pants when what I’m really upset about is the body that I’m trying to get into them).
That said, as she grows up and invariably decides that something about her appearance is off, I think it will be helpful for her to know that I haven’t always loved the way I looked. Of course, when we do discuss it, I will try to emphasize the times when I’ve worked to make the best of it (whether it was trying to lose weight to be healthier or trying to look and feel good regardless of the number on the scale) instead of the times when I just berated myself for having gained the weight again and took no proactive steps.

* Tell our children how beautiful they are, early and often.
To this day, my father calls me beautiful almost like a nickname; “yes beautiful,“ he’ll say when I call, “what can I do for you?“ And while his opinion of my looks was completely invalid throughout my adolescence, I do believe that somewhere in the back of my brain knowing someone thought of me as beautiful was helpful. Which is why, I have continued the tradition with my daughter. In fact, I tell her how beautiful she is with great regularity.
A week ago or so, she was running around the house naked and I was struck by the elegance of her miniature body. My first instinct was not to say anything because she was naked and it somehow seemed inappropriate. But then I realized that it was not just appropriate but important, so I told her. The next day her grandmother was visiting and Charlie, who was once again running around naked , said, with an amount of pride that brought tears to my eyes, “Juby, my mommy things I’m bee-you-ti-ful when I’m naked.“
Now I realize that she’s only 3 ½ and that the peer pressure to look a certain way has not yet set in, but I’m hopeful that knowing somewhere deep down that her family thinks she’s fantastic looking will help even in the worst years of puberty.

* Help them remember that health is more important than the beauty myths they are being fed.

Bodies come in all shapes and sizes but only a select few of them are going to be peeking out at us from newsstands and televisions. We need to help our young people be critical consumers of media and make sure they realize that the images of perfect people with straight white teeth, perky breasts, and bulging muscles are not just not normal but often not real. Telling them about, or better yet, showing them the magic of Photo Shop may go a long way toward diminishing the impact of magazine covers and billboards.

* We should also emphasize that the most important thing is being healthy and happy with your body.

Weight is an issue, we can’t pretend that it’s not but we should emphasize that this is not because of how one looks but because being over or underweight does impact long-term health. This is why, when my husband decided recently that is was time to drop a few pound, we bought an elliptical and talked to Charlie about the importance of exercise and good blood pressure instead of pot bellies and smaller jeans.
By the way, when we do talk to our kids about how all bodies look different and how healthy is the most important thing, we can’t forget about genitals and breasts. We should point out that shape and size vary from person to person, that they are all normal, and, when talking to older kids, that they do not impact sexual performance or pleasure.
Remind them that it’s never okay to make fun of someone else for how they look.

* Finally, remind them not to make fun of anyone else.

While we hate to think that our own children might ever be on the opposite side of the taunting, clearly someone’s kids are. So, it is important to remind young people that it is never okay to make fun of anyone else for how they look. Using all the same messages we said when we wanted them to feel good about themselves, we have to talk about how hard it can be to be made fun of and how we all have to help each other people feel good about ourselves.

Hopefully some of these simple steps can help us raise a generation of people with fewer body image issues than we have. And, who knows, when that generation starts being in charge of the media we see maybe their kids will be given magazines and televisions shows that celebrate more realistic and varied images of what it means to be bee-you-ti-ful .

The New Evil: Formspring

Posted on May 7, 2010 by gloria_scoop

When I was younger, maybe around 10-14 years old, my parents often drove us to visit with our grandmother, who lived in Tijuana, B.C. On the way, we always stopped at a JC Penney that I loved to visit, because their bathrooms had anonymous gossip written on the wall. Girls asking for advice about relationships, and other girls offering advice. There was also the salacious gossip and inevitable curse words. I never participated in it, but I LOVED IT.

Formspring is sort of like that, but it hits a little closer to home. It is a social networking site that has become the next new thing with the teenage set. However, this is not like MySpace or Facebook, because the whole point of this website is to post gossip, ask inappropriate questions (a lot of them sexual in nature), talk carp about people, and spread rumors. All anonymously.

The questions could range from the innocent, “do you have a boyfriend?” to the not so innocent, “how many guys have you had sex with?” To the downright mean, “you’re a f-en whore and guys just use you for sex.” Again, all anonymously.

Recently, there was an article in the New York Times that addressed this new phenomenon. It mentioned something that I wasn’t aware of. Apparently, users can choose not to accept anonymous questions, but most ignore that option. And some Formspring users say it is precisely the negative comments that interest them.

I found a quote by a high school freshman the most telling and disturbing:

“Nice stuff is not why you get it,” said Ariane Barrie-Stern, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in New York City. “I think it’s interesting to find out what people really think that they don’t have the guts to say to you. If it’s hurtful, you have to remind yourself that it doesn’t really mean anything.”

That was the same thing Karina told me a couple of months ago when I found out about her Formspring account. She came to me with an anonymous comment she received and asked me for advice on how she should answer it. The comment was mean, referencing her (barely there!) acne. There was comment, after comment, after COMMENT, about her skin – all anonymous. I wondered why she would care enough to answer someone who obviously had so little self-esteem that they would hide behind a computer? She said, “because it’s fun.”

But, what of those young people who are not as strong as Ariane? Or, as strong as Karina? What if a comment goes too far?

Jezebel recently posted on this very topic, and I think the last paragraph of that story is what we should all keep in mind:

So again, why is anyone, young girls especially, subjecting themselves to this? Because they want someone to care enough to ask about them, and to validate that they matter. And unfortunately, for young girls, too often mattering means whether or not boys want to fuck them, or how much girls think boys do. And there’s not much out there in the world to tell them any differently.

Keep a vigilant eye on your child’s internet exposure. Ask if he/she has a Formspring account and take a peek. You may not like what you read, but I guarantee that it will open the door to some honest communication.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Elisa_scoop

164

What’s up?

Boston University’s Bostonia magazine had a question and answer session with a professor who wrote a book about the bible in regards to homosexuality and sexuality in general. This piece is worth a read, especially in light of all the theological discussion we have had here lately. Thanks all for that, by the way! I have been enjoying it as it has made me stop and reflect on my faith.

In related news, Christian music singer and songwriter Jennifer Knapp has come out of the closet. CNN ran a profile on her, and I especially liked this quote by Knapp: “I would rather be judged before God as being an honest human being. If I am in any way unpleasing in his sight, I can only hope and pray that he gives me the opportunity to find who I am supposed to be.”

Here is yet another article critical of the Catholic Church’s handling of the sex abuse scandal. This piece was written by conservative columnist and practicing Catholic Peggy Noonan for the Wall Street Journal. She has written extensively about the Catholic Church and gives, IMHO, an accurate portrayal of the Vatican.

In the first of its kind, Nebraska just passed laws banning abortion at and after 20 weeks of pregnancy and requiring mental screening for patients who seek an abortion, according to the Guardian in the UK.

This is sad: New York City will begin charging some people living in homeless shelters rent, according to the New York Daily News. The people who will be paying rent have jobs, but are struggling and will be contributing about 44 percent of their paltry income to the city.

Here is a fascinating Science Daily story about children with a genetic condition who are not racist. Basically, those children with so-called Williams syndrome lack fear and are friendly in nature. In this study, they were found less likely than other children to stereotype based on race.

The state of Vermont voted to ban the synthetic chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) in sippy cups, water bottles, infant formula, and food containers, according to our Katy Farber in a special report for the Mighty Nest blog. Go Vermont!

What else is in the news? What’s up with you?

A new twist on sleepovers

Posted on November 10, 2009 by KMS_scoop

What would you do if your 16 year old daughter came to you and asked if her boyfriend could sleep over? Sounds a little crazy and you may be thinking to yourself, has my daughter lost her mind? But the idea may not be so crazy after all. I recently came across some comparisons researchers have been doing in how in the U.S. we talk about and deal with adolescent sexuality compared to folks in the Netherlands.

When researchers compare the two countries, they find: teenagers in the U.S. and the Netherlands begin to engage in sexual activity at about the same age, but teenagers in the U.S. are nine times more likely to give birth than teens in the Netherlands, syphilis rates are more than twice those in the Netherlands, and gonorrhea rate in U.S. among adolescents is almost 33 times greater than the reported teen rates the Netherlands. You can see the comparisons at Advocates for Youth website.

Why the differences? A piece by John Santelli and Amy Schalet shed some light on the issues. They say:

An important reason that European youth have better sexual health outcomes is that adults approach teenage sexuality differently than do adults in the United States. The Netherlands is a case in point: prior to the sexual revolution, sex outside of marriage met with strong disapproval. When the sexual behavior of young people changed in the decades that followed, Dutch parents and health care providers came to see sexual intercourse as an acceptable part of adolescent development, as long as youth were using contraceptives responsibly and involved in healthy relationships. Health care providers, policy makers, educators, and members of the media facilitated a normalization of adolescent sexuality by ensuring that young people had access to reliable contraception and by providing different public forums for the discussion of sexuality and relationships (Jones et al., 1986; Ketting & Visser, 1994).

The article goes on to talk about how in the U.S. parents — of course not MTers — but many parents “dramatize” adolescent sexuality and focus on the “dangers, conflicts, and difficulties of becoming a sexually active teenager.” On the other hand, the authors talk about how the Dutch “normalize sexuality” and view it as a normal part of development. Here is how they describe a “sleepover.”

Parents also approached teenage sexuality very differently at home. The majority of U.S. parents interviewed opposed giving young people the opportunity to have sex. Dutch parents, on the other hand, counseled teenagers to move slowly and exercise caution, but most reported they would permit 16- and 17-year-old teenagers in steady relationships to spend the night with their boy- or girlfriends at home.
While permitting a teenage couple to spend the night together may seem like extreme parental laxity to parents in the United States, Dutch parents continue to exert a great deal of control over the terms of the sleepover. Most parents interviewed said they would permit a sleepover only when they saw that adolescents felt ready, were using contraceptives, and related in healthy and loving ways. By normalizing adolescent sexuality within distinct parameters, Dutch parents are able to maintain a connection with their adolescent children as they develop their sexual identities. (Several Dutch parents spontaneously mentioned that their child might prefer a same-sex partner.) Thus, Dutch parents can encourage their adolescent children to stay true to their own sense of readiness, can urge caution and contraceptive use, and are able to monitor the nature of their children’s romantic relationships. In fact, one reason that the Dutch parents cite for permitting the sleepover is a desire to stay connected to their children and prevent secrets which could interfere with open communication. By contrast, the dramatization of adolescent sexuality in American society instills fear of teenage sexuality among parents and teenagers, but gives them few tools to create an empowered sexual development.

Since my DDs are only 9 and 6 I figure I have a couple more years (but just a couple) to ponder this issue and I am curious to see what other MTers think about this idea.

Coming Out in Middle School

Posted on September 27, 2009 by KMS_scoop

I just finished a great article in this week’s New York Times Magazine titled, “Coming Out in Middle School.” It talks about middle schoolers coming out in schools and to their families. The amazing part of the article is reading these young people, as young as 12 and 13, discuss their sexuality. The article also illustrates what a loving home and accepting school community can do for these young people’s self esteem and well being, as well as what it can do for a whole school. One piece that particulalry caught my attention is a quote from a school principal talking about the Gay Straight Alliance club at her middle school:

“I had some staff who were livid at first, because they thought it would be about sex, or us endorsing a lifestyle,” she said. “But the G.S.A. isn’t about that, and they’ve come around. This is a club that promotes safety, and it gives kids a voice. And the most amazing thing has happened since the G.S.A. started. Bullying of all kinds is way down. The G.S.A. created this pervasive anti-bullying culture on campus that affects everyone.”

Interested in what other folks think of the article. There is a lot here to chew on.

The (Sad) State of Sex Ed in Texas

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Lisa in Austin_scoop

Thank you for posting this, Lisa. That video could pass for a joke on SNL! Unbelievable. -Elisa

I remember the “sex ed” I received in my small, east Texas school district. “Write down what you know about sex, and turn in your paper, face down, on my desk.” These were the instructions of my 8th grade earth sciences teacher. We had the hour of class to complete the assignment. I remember writing the basics: what goes where, sperm meets egg, etc. I have no idea if anyone ever read my paper — or what would have happened had I been completely uninformed, or if a classmate had confessed to being sexually active. This was the full extent of my public school’s sexuality education in the 1970s. As my kids are in middle school now, I would have hoped things had vastly improved. Today I learned the truth about Sexuality Education in Texas.

The Texas Freedom Network is a non-profit that promotes the separation of church and state. TFN has completed a comprehensive study of the state of sexuality education in Texas. Through public information requests, TFN sought copies of sexuality curriculum and materials from each of the 1,031 school districts in Texas. As of the end of January, 96% of the school districts had responded. Their findings would be laughable in a Saturday Night Live skit – but as reality, they are quite frightening.

Find the full report here

Their first finding: Most Texas students receive no instruction about human sexuality apart from the promotion of sexual abstinence. No information about disease prevention; no information about responsible sexuality or pregnancy – just don’t do it. And some schools fail to even teach that much. A superintendent at a small Central Texas district responded to the public information request by saying:

[We are] a small school with 301 students in grades PK to 12. Most of these kids live on a farm or have animals they feed and care for. They get a pretty good sex education from their animals.

Yep, if you’ve watched two animals get it on in the pasture, that’s all you need to know about human sexuality.

Their second finding: Most school districts do not receive meaningful local input from their School Health Advisory Councils regarding sexuality education. Texas law requires local input from these community-based groups, and unfortunately 81% of school districts could not produce any formal SHAC recommendations, regardless of date.

Third: Sexuality education materials used in Texas schools regularly contain factual errors and perpetuate lies and distortions about condoms and STDs. Actually, this one doesn’t surprise me at all. Inaccurate information about condom effectiveness and failure rates is most common, with the apparent purpose of discouraging teens from using condoms. A speaker whose materials are used in three Texas school districts says:

“Students, condoms aren’t safe. Never have been. Never will be.“

In another district, kids are encouraged to participate in a skit where the message is that giving a teen a condom is equivalent to saying if you’re going to jump from a bridge, at least wear elbow pads – they may protect you some.

Fourth: Shaming and fear-based instruction are standard means of teaching students about sexuality. One set of materials for 6th graders says, about sex:

WARNING! Going on this ride could change your life forever, result in poverty, heartache, disease, and even DEATH.

Other consequences of sex which are referenced in materials used across the state include: cervical cancer, aggression toward women, suicide, divorce, infertility, poverty, radical hysterectomy, low self-esteem and of course, the all-important, disappointing God.

Findings Five and Six: sexuality instruction in Texas promotes gender and sexual orientation stereotypes, and some classrooms mix religious instruction into sexuality education programs. Responsibility is placed on the female for making sure she does not “turn on“ the male, materials expressly (and incorrectly) state that homosexual acts are illegal in Texas, and some materials ask what the Bible says about premarital sex.

In 2006, Texas had the third highest teen birth rate in the country. Clearly, sexuality information is something that Texas teens need to hear.

This report can serve as a wake-up call for us all. We all need to know what kind of sexuality education our kids are receiving – in Texas or any other state. Regardless of what the curriculum is – what is actually being taught in the classrooms?

Have you read your child’s sex ed curriculum? What are you doing to ensure that your children learn accurate information in their schools?

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