Category Archives: Family Issues

If Truth Be Known

September 3, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

The 60s sexual revolution was in full bloom as I headed to college in 1969.  Founded on a new definition of happiness…the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…the revolution spawned a new vocabulary.

Words birthed in the sexual revolution…liberation, freedom, self-expression, empowerment…all of these defined the supposed rewards of releasing strictures and limits of a more “primitive world” imposed on human behavior.  We demanded a better happiness.  Anything goes.  If it feels good, do it.  No limits.  No fear.

A new kind of happiness at the end of the rainbow thus demanded a new road to happiness.  Planning families gave way to preventing families.  Babies were prevented by pills instead of self-control, and when both self-control and pills failed, babies were redefined as tissues and cells to be removed or eliminated.

Social institutions and cultural pace-setters became vested in affirming this new road to happiness.  Professors wrote new textbooks based on an untested social hypothesis, and they began indoctrinating a generation to believe that science would eventually document the success of re-engineering creation.

Capitalizing on the profits to be made in promoting the proposition that unrestrained human behavior leads to self-fulfillment, marketing campaigns put the mantra to snappy jingles, do it my way for the me generation.

Man as the creator…recreating ourselves in the image of the happiness we thought we most wanted.  We have finally succeeded in elevating our selfish interests to the pinnacle of noble achievement.

Now all that remains to complete this brave new world is removing the vestiges of antiquated notions of family from our laws and social government.  California is prepared to lead the way.  In legal briefs filed with the California Supreme Court by the California Governor and Attorney General, marriage between a man and a woman has been reduced to an inconsequential notion without any social merit to motivate governmental support.

This is an odd time to dismantle marriage as mankind has known it…just at the time when social research has given expression to the powerfully positive effects of raising children in a stable marriage between mother and father.  Even as we have insisted for forty years on our rights to construct a new happiness, research leads back to the world we are running from.

Social research clearly shows the benefits of traditional family structure on building self-esteem for children, leading to their success in school and reducing the negatives for them of crime, drugs, alcohol and risky behaviors.  Children in modern research studies are giving powerful witness to the pain and harm of divorce.  Listening to them…what is the impact on our children of recreating the world for ourselves?  We have “won” at their expense.

The breakup of families is no easy path to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Neither is the destruction of life required by campaigns to prevent families.  Courageous voices of women who bought into the sexual revolution are being heard, a testimony to the failure of pills and medical procedures to produce the promised happiness.

Families, marriage and children…these were not accidents of an antiquated creation we could dispose of without consequence.  They were the products of truth, the truth of human existence created long before we were the twinkle in our parents’ eyes.

Truth exists for us to know.  We must learn truth, not create it.  Truth doesn’t come and go, changing hither and thither, based on our own whims.  Truth was created in the beginning…without our input.  It forms the foundation for our human nature and happiness.

Lust and covetousness were more than sins.  They defined boundaries set on human willfulness and rebellion, limiting our selfishness in wanting more of the world than we were entitled to.

If truth be known, happiness was always there for us to have.  We just ignored the road signs and charted our own path away from the end of the rainbow.

Big Fathers

June 25, 2007

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

He is an engaging boy, close to ten years of age.  A ball cap turned back on his head, he looks straight into the camera.  The poster on the wall brags on the young man.  He could be the child of any proud father or mother:

James is well on his way to become a statistic.  One we can be proud of.

 

  • 70% less likely to use drugs,
  • 27% less likely to start drinking,
  • 52% less likely to skip class,
  • 64% achieve higher grades,
  • Celebrating 100 years, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Donate – Volunteer.

One hundred years of matching children with Big Brothers and Big Sisters, a lot has changed since the day they made the first match.  Fifty years ago, when Little Rickie ruled the house on television, and when I jumped rope with kids on the street, I knew few children growing up in single parent homes.  In most cases, they were children impacted by death of a parent or, in rare cases, children of divorce.

Today, children raised by single parents are the norm.  And for every child without a dad, Big Brothers, Big Sisters works hard recruiting men to fill in the gap.

This is a Herculean task, recruiting enough Big Brothers and Big Sisters to take care of the needing children in America.  It sets my mind on fire with questions.

Where are the men who have fathered these children?  And if they didn’t stay around to be a Big Father, can we expect them to be a Big Brother?

And for the fathers who have stepped up to the plate to be the fathers they should be, how many more children can they adopt under their wings before they are unable to fly for the weight of the burdens we have placed on them?

The biggest question of all?

Educators around the country are working to instill in young people the notion that the sex that produces children should be saved for the time in their lives when they will be able and willing to marry.  Children born into families built on the healthy marriages of Big Fathers and Big Mothers is the most secure way of providing what Big Brothers and Big Sisters are attempting to give.

In one case, Big Brothers, Big Sisters is applauded for their generosity and their efforts to help young boys and girls succeed.  They boldly place posters and billboards and recruit donations and volunteers.

In the other case, promoting the benefits of marriage which, if successful, results in Big Fathers and Big Mothers, draws down the wrath of people who denounce this effort to “force your values on me.”  Why?

Why are we afraid to recruit Big Fathers through education programs that connect sex, marriage and families as a positive goal?  And why do we reject this education at the same time that we laud Big Brothers for recruiting men to fill the void created by the breakdown in social norms for marriage?

Consider the benefits for James of living with his married parents:

  • less likely to use drugs,
  • less likely to start drinking,
  • less likely to skip class, and
  • will achieve higher grades.

Celebrate this…thousands of years, families founded on fathers married to mothers.  Volunteer your support.  James needs you.  All children need you.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters.  Yes.  Better still…

Big Fathers, Big Mothers.  Yes!

A Forest of One Tree

October 23, 2006

No issue this year looms larger than marriage and the fight to define what marriage will be for the next generation.

All sorts of arguments fly through the air.  What is fair?  Who is going to get or lose health insurance?  Who won’t be able to get married?  Who will?  Why should government care who gets married?

There are lots of questions and lots of arguments.  But there is really only one agenda pushing them all.  This is about certifying same-sex marriage as an equivalent to traditional marriage.

Will I get to wear a wedding ring?  Will I get health insurance?  Will my relationship be validated as special by the government?  Why does it matter who or what I am when I get married?

There are lots of questions and lots of arguments.  But they are only branches of the same tree.  Marriage…what’s in this for me?

My, myself and I…will I be allowed to get all the “stuff” that belongs to marriage?

But wait.  Since when did marriage focus on “getting”?  This is a modern invention.

Since when did marriage focus on “me, myself, and I?”  This is a modern concoction.

If this is only about me, and if it’s only about what I get out of it, then I am the only tree in the forest.

This is an odd way to think about a relationship that only survives out of a desire to be a sacrificial servant to another person.  Foundationally, marriage is about giving up my right to be the only tree in the forest.

When we marry, with our attention focused outwards, looking at the other trees in the forest, it is our interest in the future of the forest that lets us see the seedlings just pushing up out of the soil and beginning to grow.  If this is about me, myself, and I…then seedlings don’t matter.

If this is about me, myself, and I, then…when I am gone, the forest will be gone.  But that won’t matter.  Who needs seedlings?  I won’t be around to see it.  And because the forest was only about me anyway, that will be just fine.

At the heart of the heated arguments about marriage, we need to step back from the trees and see the forest.  Are we building a society of individual trees?  Or are we building a society that nurtures seedlings?

Marriage, when properly focused, is about a larger society that flourishes because it nurtures the smaller family society that is raising the next generation.  It is not an arbitrary definition contrived to allow me to qualify for wedding rings and insurance.

Marriage is focused on the sacrificial relationship between a man and a woman for a logical reason.  This is the relationship out of which children are born and raised.  If children don’t flourish under the care of their parents, they will lose… we will all lose.

Government defines marriage and sets it aside as a unique relationship because of its significance for our children…for our future.  Marriage is not a random definition created by legislators.  It is a relationship of importance, a relationship that matters for the sake of the preservation of the forest.

If we are going to build a forest, then our laws best be about what is good for our children.  Marriage matters.  Mothers and fathers united in stable relationships defined by a focus on creating a nurturing environment for their children…this has always been the focus of a society that cares about the future.

Me, myself, and I will never create a seedling.  I may be a very pretty tree.  But I won’t live forever.  And I will never be more than a forest of one tree.

 

 September 3, 2004 – We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

June 13, 2005  – A Recipe for Families

See Archives for past editorials.

 

Fear-Based Sex Education

September 4, 2006

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Much has been said about fear-based sex education in the past few years.  And I finally think I have figured out what they are talking about.

Yes, there is a lot of fear out there in the world of sex education.  It literally leaps off the pages of newspapers as editors willingly print the sound bites fed to them by people who are afraid of abstinence education.  One gigantic fear, built on lots of big, big fears:

  • Fear of admitting to differences between men and women…hormonal, physical, and emotional differences.  Any hint that men and women see sex and relationships from different perspectives is denounced as stereotyping the sexes.
  • Fear about medically accurate information on fetal development.  Any hint that students might think the “blob” inside the womb is a baby…this is denounced as teaching a moral value.
  • Fear about medically accurate information on failure rates of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.  This is denounced as too much information.  Fear-mongers prefer to wrap up all this information into one vague promise called “protected sex.”
  • Fear of typical use rates about the real failure rates of condoms and contraception.  This is denounced is the wrong type of information.  Fear-mongers prefer teaching the laboratory rates of failure which occur when a stainless steel machine wears a condom installed carefully by a dispassionate lab tech under bright lights.
  • Fear of defining sex as absolutely inappropriate for youth.  Instead, fearing to set a line in the sand, these “sexperts” have decided to let children decide for themselves when they are ready for sex: “Are you ready to have sex, dear?  Go ahead and think about it.  You decide.  Don’t ask me.  Are you mature enough?  You are mature enough when you think you are mature enough.  Don’t ask me.”
  • Fear of scrutiny on sex education lessons such as those that promote mutual masturbation, redefined as outercourse (as opposed to intercourse)…fear of parents and medical experts exposing this type of “education” as a violation of sound judgment and medically accurate truths about its high-risk nature.
  • Fear of concrete language which sets unambiguous standards based on unambiguous information about healthy sexual behaviors.  Instead, fearing fear itself, they prefer to hide behind vague, undefined terms such as saf-er-er-er-er sex…and “protected sex”…and the all-important “responsible sex,” terms that children, once again, are left to define for themselves.
  • Fear of letting parents have control of the health and well-being of their own children, these advocates of saf-er-er-er-er sex prefer to hide behind “confidentiality”.  This conveniently allows them to provide STD testing and abortions to students, without the knowledge of parents, never having to deal truthfully with what happens when saf-er-er-er-er sex is not saf-er-er-er-er sex.

And finally…when all else fails…the champions of fear can scrape all the way down to the bottom of the barrel of their fears and dredge up fear of religion.  They make sexual intercourse into a religious value.  They make marriage a religious issue.  They make everything a religious issue.  And not just any religion.

Tapping into the deepest fear of Americans, these fear-mongers promote the idea that supporters of abstinence education are members of a draconian conspiracy conceived by Catholics and adopted by Protestants to teach religion, to have kids genuflecting before they graduate.

Yes, fear is rampant in public discourse about sex education.  Afraid that their version of liberated sex will be revealed by medically accurate information as a threat to the health and well-being of young people, fear is the major tool used by those who spend every waking and sleeping moment figuring out ways to derail, disembowel, and disenfranchise those who support abstinence education programs.

The greatest fear of those who promote fear-based sex education is that the truth will get out.  Waving their arms, like scoundrels crying “fire” in a crowded theater, they are hoping parents and legislators will close their eyes and run away from abstinence education, in a mindless panic.  But, in the light of thoughtful discourse, truth will endure.  It always does.

Abstinence education promotes healthy attitudes about sex for young people, attitudes and behaviors founded on medically accurate information about sex and healthy relationships.  Abstinence education advocates that sex be reserved for a time in life when it will produce the healthiest outcomes for our children…and their children…sex at the right time, for the right reasons, with the right person.

If this is a message that generates fear, then you have to wonder if these fearful “sexperts” deserve the right to teach our children.

 

July 17, 2006 –  Curing a Disease that “Wasn’t”

 See Archives for past editorials.

Why Condoms Will Not Save us

May 29, 2006

The Washington Times reported last week on a consensus report on sexual health just issued by “wildly divergent political organizations.”  Yet, in spite of this much-heralded consensus, no agreement was reached on “what constitutes sexual abstinence, responsible sexual behavior, sexual orientation and ‘medical accuracy,’ such as condom efficacy.”

So just what does consensus mean?  In truth, it seems we are left with the same splits, divides and disagreements.  Consider condoms.  Long heralded as the KEY to solving problems associated with teen sex, you would think a national agreement on at least that one issue would exist by now.

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Why Condoms Will Not Save Us

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

Teen parents Dan and Christy[1] are just two people. I love them.  They are personal, they live in my world. But their two lives speak of the millions of children and parents in our country today.

Dan’s parents love him.  That has never been in doubt.  It’s just that they couldn’t remain in love with each other.  As Dan was maturing, he watched his parents argue, separate, reunite and then begin the cycle again–over and over again. Until one day, his mother sent divorce papers to his father.  And it ended.

Dan’s mother was determined to make a good life for herself and her two children.  She enrolled in a university, gained government assistance, and worked any part time job she could find.  She supported him in his school work, rented movies to watch late at night with Dan and his older sister, and went to all of his basketball games.

Yet, the strain of the family breakup was too much.  Dan missed his father, and his sister became ensnared in a cycle of drugs, truancy, and running away.  His mother, working hard to deal with each emergency as it happened, was glad Dan seemed to be motivated at school and surrounded by good friends.  She just didn’t have time to do everything.

Without a father at home, and with a mother and sister caught in a battle of teenage rebellion, Dan took solace in his friendships.  And he sought affection in the arms of his high school sweetheart.  Dan and Christy only had sex once.  But that was enough to create a new life, Allyson.

Today, Allyson is being raised most of the time by her great-grandmother, Christy’s grandmother.  Christy takes care of Allyson when she is at home.  She and Dan broke up right after she knew she was pregnant, and Christy has had a steady string of boyfriends since then moving in and moving out of her life.  And she is pregnant again.

After a paternity test proved Dan to be Allyson’s father, the court assigned him a support payment of $100 per month.  He felt a sense of duty to meet this payment and began a pizza delivery job, but with his basketball practices and the demands on him as senior class treasurer, Dan finally quit work, and his mom took over the monthly payments.

Dan has just entered college on a basketball scholarship, and he tries to drive home on weekends to spend time with Allyson.  He and Christy end up in court periodically to argue over custody arrangements that involve both sets of Allyson’s grandparents and her great-grandmother.  Dan’s parents, both mother and father, along with a sister who has finally settled down, and aunts and uncles who love him, support him in his role as Allyson’s father.  But it’s not easy.  Dan’s grades last semester were low enough to threaten his scholarship.

And what about Allyson?  She just celebrated her first birthday as a bright-eyed toddler.

In only twelve more years, Allyson will herself be a teenager.  Meanwhile, who will be the adults in her life to guide her and love her?  Will she grow up to seek love in the arms of a high school sweetheart?  Will she ever know what it means to have two parents at home, a mother and a father who love and hug each other at night in the kitchen?

When she enters high school, will a teen pregnancy and a baby create a problem for Allyson?  Or might they solve a problem for her?  Might a teen pregnancy give Allyson’s life a focus, a meaning–a glimpse of the love and affection that seemed just out of reach in the few short years she had for learning what love and parenting are all about?

Yes, what about Allyson?

[1] Names have been changed to protect the privacy of these individuals.

    

April 30, 2004 –Condoms: A Failure to Protect

January 3, 2005 – Teen Sex: What’s the Problem?

 See Archives for past editorials.