Wednesday, March 12, 2008

What are kids thinking?

It was all over the news yesterday about this CDC report concluding that 1 in 4 girls have an STD. HPV, the virus mostly known to cause cervical cancer is the most common. It is very sad that so many teens are having sex and not caring about their bodies, but using a scare tactic of the possibility of cancer is pointless. What about all those smokers? Lung cancer doesn't seem to really scare them. People still continue to smoke and can spread the potential of catching the disease with second hand smoke. Did you know that every 1 in 4 cigarette's that you smoke in front of a child is like them smoking a full cigarette themselves?

What kind of message are we continuing to give teens? In today's society, every time we turn on the TV there is a commercial on for medications. It seems we are so quick to go for the easy fix, rather than doing the hard work and helping our bodies. Rather than getting a good cardio workout and watching what we eat, doctors quickly distribute medicines for high blood pressure and cholesterol. I can't recall the name, but there's even one for genital herpes. So, does that give them the message that there is a fix for that too and they can take their chances?

So, for some reason the results of this study don't surprise me, but it does anger me. Kids are raping kids on school buses (a few counties over here in TN) and we find it stressful to find it in the budgets to add teacher aides to prevent things like this? Kids are needing sex so much they feel they have to victimize kids and pass along these viruses this way? Are kids becoming more stupid and ignorant or are parents becoming more irresponsible in what we teach them?

1 comment:

lmreed said...

You know we haven't heard much about STD's other than HPV in a while. Why don't they start back up on those scare the crap out of you AIDS commercials. Obviously kids aren't using protection. I don't think its a "need" sex thing, though. My bet is on curiosity and "being cool". I just don't think anybody "needs" sex. Even sex-a-holics won't die if they don't get any. :)
What shocks me is that there are people who have been DIAGNOSED with these STD's and are STILL HAVING UNSAFE SEX! Now you have a victim and a victimizer...because they knowlingly transmitted a possibly deadly scourge. So, keep the drugs (valtrex and what not) around for the victims, at least. But I agree, let's definitely give our kids some common sense, common decency, and proper information. That seems to be lacking in all areas these days.