Re: Randolph Kreck's Sept. 25 letter, "It's called parenting":
Kreck wrote that educating our children is a parental responsibility. I fully agree with him, as far as it goes. While appealing on the surface, it only begs the question. In the first place, do the parents know enough to teach methods of birth control, AIDS/HIV prevention, etc.?
Lots of parents do not know enough to teach all the subjects of sex education that kids need to know. Many parents are simply not comfortable talking with their kids about sex and procrastinate until it is too late, in more than a few cases. Sex ed in schools removes much of the emotional "freight" of such talks.
Sarah Palin and her husband are married and, according to all known witnesses, love their kids and are involved in their children's lives. I don't know what they talked to their kids about, but we know the result. The Palin family is luckier than what many of our kids experience -- kids who have no one to parent them or mentor them.
Parental responsibility for sex education is like making sure kids have decent clothes, an adequate diet, attention and support for their schooling, etc. It doesn't happen in all too many cases. Unless we systematically make sure kids get this information, too many kids will "luck out" if they make it through to adulthood without becoming pregnant or fathering a child or contracting AIDS/HIV. I would love for it to be the responsibility of parents, but sex ed is necessary for kids' welfare. The schools have to pick up because the parents aren't there.
I don't want kids' futures to be determined by "luck." And no child should be conceived simply because the kids involved didn't know any better.
-- The Rev. Christine Miller, Camarillo