Oh yeah, right. Blame me.

The Globe and Mail is carrying a report called "The New Sex Talk" and leads with this quote below the heading:

Kids are getting away with risky behaviours online because parents are afraid to ask about their Internet use

Oh yeah. Now you blame me.

I guess it's the downright preachiness of this article laced with the sinister undertone of 'blame the parents' which sticks in my craw. Let me tell you something, I have been trying to raise moral children for the last 16 years and it's been an uphill battle all the way. The clash hasn't been so much with my children themselves but the schools, the teachers, the child & youth care workers, the advertising & marketing agencies, the media, children's television etc.

Why I even have a provincial government which sees absolutely nothing wrong in attempting to indoctrinate behaviour patterns in my children by using an advertising campaign geared to "pre-teens/teens" which utilizes vulgarity and coarse language.

I have a school system which demands the right to teach my children about all manner of human sexuality, without morality or judgement, and there is very little I can do about. I am lucky if I even know what days sex education is taught in the elementary school classroom. My daughter, the Last Amazon, was only 10 when she came home to enlighten me on the various positions males take with other males during sex. Lucky for us, the public health nurse took the time to illustrate on the blackboard using stick men. I can object till the cows come home or I turn blue in the face but what is done is done and cannot be undone.

I have had an alleged Child & Youth Care Worker attempt to brow-beat me in front of my daughter because in my home, a 12 year daughter does not attend dances or go to school dances escorted by a 12 year old boy on a “date”. And no, I don’t care how I have negatively narrowed her socially development as a human being. As far as I am concerned - she has her whole life to grow out of it.

Since elementary school, I have my moral authority as a parent under constant attack by principals and teachers who respectively who fill my children’s head with their “alleged rights” but never take the time to advise the children under their care what their responsibilities are as decent moral human beings.

How do you think I feel after all these years of attempting to teach my sons not to objectify women as sexual objects, and then find myself with the boys at the streetcar stop only to have the street car pull up with a larger than life ad on the side showing; a teenage model pretending to be a grown woman, caught in a series of suggestive poses, dressed only in her panties and with her breasts practically falling out of her bra? Gee, well, thanks a lot Calvin Klein. Ask yourself why thongs need to be manufactured in little girl’s sizes and training bras now come in push-up styles. Ask yourself why, in this marketing savvy society - there are no stores selling age appropriate clothing for teenage girls or boys?

And if a group of concerned parents attempt to make a stand in public; who in the MSM stands up and says - you know they may have a point? Instead, the parents are demonized in the media at large for attempting to limit Suzie and Johnny’s right to explore and discover their sexuality before they develop any real sense of personal responsibility.

How is that if you suggest the age of sexual consent be raised from 14 to at least 16 years of age – you’re sexually repressed but everyone seems to be in agreement that 14 is far too young to raise a child or die from AIDS. Actually, so is 16, but don’t you know - age ain’t nothing but a number. So just who is responsible for the sexualization of our children?

It’s not me, and I am a tough old bird, but like I said, it’s an uphill battle. I understand how it is that other parents can fall by the wayside as the pressure to conform is beyond tremendous and your moral authority as parents usually lies in tatters by the time your children hit their prime teenage years. How much worse is it for our children when almost every teen movie/program (which has been produced specifically for their age) is heavily sexualized - just think Degrassi High for starters.

Is it any wonder that some of our children are behaving inappropriately online when the messages in the media celebrate vulgarity, coarseness and camp and our schools have spent years indoctrinating our children in human sexuality without the context of ethics or morals? But take heart, all is not lost, as our schools do teach one great moral lesson - to pass judgement on another is a sin.