Ugly Wake up Call

So when I wake up, especially on a day that I don't have my little Bean, I usually lay there, in my very nice comfy bed, and check on Facebook and Twitter. I like my news. Especially now that I am not longer listening to the good old CBC much any more. What greeted me on my twitter feed was this article from the Huffington Post: Cassidy Goodson, 14-Year-Old, Murders Her Newborn Baby.

I am pretty used to those types of story lines in this day and age. The news of the spectacular, and the spectacularly unimportant seem to hit the news feeds more and more every day. This story though makes me annoyed for several reasons. Makes me sad too, but I would hope that would be just obvious.

First of all, why is there a picture of the 14 year old on the front page? I get when teens do horrible things we feel the need to treat them like adults so that they learn their lesson, and hopefully show the other kids that there are consequences as well. To me though, this is just a tragic. I would make a comment about posting pictures of train wrecks, complete with bodies, but our "news" already does that as well.

Second, and perhaps the most important, I think this story shows why everyone should have actual sex education. Now I'm sure there is some wonder as to how a 14 year old strangling her baby, has anything to do with sex education, but I will show you.

Sex education has been proven to help kids be more responsible in their attitude towards sex. It does not make them more likely to have sex, just as teaching abstinence does not make kids less likely to have sex. Teenagers are gonna have sex, I think it's time we all accepted that. Parents who do this sex education at home, open up a dialogue and create and environment where the kids are more likely to talk to their parents when they have a problem. It doesn't fix every single problem, but I think if the parents were more likely to get their head of out their asses, and remember that sex is a natural part of human biology, and life then maybe their kids wouldn't be so stupid about things. Just maybe, it's really hard to tell these days.

I also think that the people in this story that claimed that they did know this kid was pregnant needs to get charged. If you're so awesome that you're just going to let a scared teen with an oblivious mother, have a kid, which you know will end very badly, then you need to be talked to as far as I am concerned. Charged at the very least.

We used to grow up in a world where everyone helped everyone else, including when it came to their kids. I'm not saying it's perfect, but maybe we need to look at the harm that we are doing by deciding that nothing is our responsibility any more. Who wants to make a bet that everyone is going to say this teen made her choice, now she needs to pay for it? Granted, fair point. Who will sit there and say "you raised this kid to be so afraid of disappointing/talking to you/making you angry, that you caused the death of a baby.

Just saying.