Researchers Ron Haskins and Isabell Sawhill call it “The Success Sequence” in their book Creating an Opportunity Society.  The steps to take for achieving success are described very simply as

1. Get at least a high school degree
2. Work full time
3. Marry before having children

Haskins and Sawhill’s have uncovered proof of the economic advantage for an individual who follows this pattern in their lives.  

​There is some GOOD NEWS:  There was another decline in the percentage of high school students who reported they had ever had sex (it went from 47.8% to 39.5%) and another decrease among teens who had four or more sexual partners (from 14.9% to 9.7%).  Those represent the lowest levels since the CDC began conducting the survey in 1991.

The BAD NEWS: The National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (taken every other year) indicates that in STD increases in 2017 were the FOURTH consecutive year for record-setting cases of Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis reported to the CDC in 2017.  Nearly 2.3 million, surpassing the previous record set in 2016 by more than 200,000 cases.  This is linked to more bad news, the number of sexually active students using condoms has decreased, again. 

Of sexually active students, only 53.8% used a condom during last sex.  This represents a major failure since the primary strategy promoted by the CDC, educators and clinicians to avoid infection is the use of condoms.  There are more messages than ever about using “protection,” but not only do teens fail to use them, the condoms fail to do the protecting those educators expect.  The truth is they provide little or no help for the STDs that have the steep and sustained increases (Chlamydia, Gonorrhea and Syphilis) reported in the YBRS. 

Even the CDC’s message is “The correct use of condoms helps to prevent the transmission of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and 15-24 year-olds account for half of all new STD infections in the U.S.” (emphasis mine.)

Helps to prevent?!  How much help?  They provide little to no help against STDs passed by contact with infected skin (those STDs do not have to be reported to the CDC annually.) 

Let’s be real, the increase in the number of STDs is directly related to the predominant sex education strategy of risk REDUCTION instead of risk ELIMINATION. 

Please remind your children, the only 100% effective strategy is to AVOID having sex with uninfected partners or have sex only with a faithful uninfected partner.  That means, the best protection is MAKE SMART CHOICES!

On June 25, 2018, Science magazine published an article announcing “There Is No Biological Difference Between Male And Female Brains.”  Awkward!  Just one month later, (7/17/18) Boston Globe published new research outlining MORE differences between the sexes. 

In particular, the before and after anatomical magnetic resonance imaging on women pre- and post-pregnancy, compared to women who had never been pregnant and men.  This research discovered a dramatic difference in the volume of gray matter in post-natal female brains, particularly in the organ's social regions.

Jodi Pawluski, a researcher at University of Rennes 1 in France, was surprised at how much women's brains actually transform after having children.  Motherhood is one of the most significant biological events a woman has in her life.

If you have received this newsletter for any length of time, you know that a regular feature is the “Coach’s Corner” on the back.  We try to offer conversation starters or exercises for parents to help with adolescent brain development. 

In order to connect behaviors to their predictable consequences, a teen needs reward and repetition.  Repetition to build a solid neural network and reward to make it a pleasant experience they will want to repeat.

Since that has been a regular feature for several years, we finally put them all together into an FREE ebook.  You can download your copy here, www.PositivelyWaiting.com — go to “Book-N-Stuff” enter some info and get a link.

The objective is to get you and your teens regularly engaged in conversations that will help with brain maturation and self-control.  Please don’t put it off, thinking there will be time later, 

​Sex education today is not about biology, it’s about advocacy.  Meet the people who created modern Sex Ed.

​Mary Calderone, a former medical director at Planned Parenthood, founded the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in 1964 with seed money provided by Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy. 

Like her hero sexual sadist and porn addict, Alfred Kinsey,

ORANGE COUNTY, California, April 19, 2018: California enacted the California Healthy Youth Act in 2015, but only now are its controversial provisions starting to take effect in classrooms.  Under the auspices of “health,” the law says it will equip students to develop “healthy attitudes” on “gender [and] sexual orientation,” among other things.  It also says it will inform students about the “effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods,” and facilitate “objective discussion” about “parenting, adoption, and abortion.”

Among the teaching materials approved for use under this law are a study guide for the transgender children’s book I Am Jazz, as well as a “sexual health toolkit.”  The toolkit outlines the views and “approved discussion guidelines” for teachers, healthcare providers, counselors AND parents.  Of course, they only allow ONE perspective.

In a 3/29/18 memo to the Orange County Board of Education, Orange County Department of Education general counsel Ronald Wenkart says that the law’s opt-out provision “does not apply to instruction, materials, or programming that discusses gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family and does not discuss human reproductive organs.”

Planned Parenthood now offers hormone therapy to MINORS.  Their reasoning is gender confused youth may have difficulty getting sex “change” hormones because “a lot of doctors can be judgmental.”  PP says it’s important to give children “medications that affect the changes they’re looking for.”

While other transgender hormone dispensing clinics require a therapist’s letter before giving out the body-altering drugs, Planned Parenthood does not.  The organization’s policy is to simply inform gender dysphoric youth of the risks of treatment.  When the patient acknowledges having been told the risks, 

Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are a group of more than 200 related viruses. HPV infections are the most common sexually transmitted infections in the United States.  About 14 million new genital HPV infections occur each year.  According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it is estimated that more than 90% of sexually active men and 80%, sexually active women will be infected with at least one type of HPV at some point in their lives. 

​More than 40 HPV types can be easily spread by contact with infected skin or mucous membranes, through vaginal, anal, and oral sex.  The other HPV types are responsible for non-genital warts, but are not sexually transmitted.
​

Last month’s newsletter asked PW supporters to mail a postcard to the Executive Director/Principal of Granada Hills Charter High.  The card expressed thanks for standing up to bullies who wanted to keep our message out of school.

This is how the meeting with his staff went They had 3 main misconceptions which needed to be addressed.

Their misconception: This was an “abstinence only” curriculum.
Our clarification:  We never even use the word "abstinence." In truth,  we are not offering a curriculum at all, but rather, we use our personal story to help teens process the material the curriculum covered.

Their misconception: Since girls were told they could say one thing (to receive the pin) and boys were told another, students thought we were “gender-typing.”
Our clarification:  We chose to divide the girls and the boys to be sure some of the students would receive a pin from Jim - 

COPENHAGEN 1/15/18– According Reuters, Danish police charged 1,004 children and young people for sharing video clips of two 15-year-olds having sex, following a tip-off from Facebook.

They said it could constitute distribution of child pornography, although the age of consent in Denmark is 15.

The two video clips were shared through Facebook's Messenger chat-platform in the Fall of 2017.  Facebook is obligated to advise the U.S. authorities about it, which they did.  The tip-off was then passed on to Denmark via Interpol.  Most of the young people who were charged shared the videos only a few times, but some others shared the clip several hundred times, police said.

Don’t let the fact that it was the police in Denmark who charged the FB users throw you off.  Think about that last statement… Most of the young people who were charged shared the videos only a few times, but some others shared the clip several hundred times.

Think about the “stars” of these two clips.  They are 15 year olds whose intimate acts have been shared “several hundred times.”  With facial recognition software ever-present, these children may have a mark against them for every job or college application that does a background check.  Imagine not being offered a position/promotion because what you did as a teen has the potential to embarrass the institution.

Consider this as well, if the 1004 young people were convicted of distributing child pornography in the US, they would have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.  Adolescent brains aren’t even CAPABLE of imagining such a scenario in the time it takes to “like and share” a video.

Parents, this is worthy of a discussion, don’t you think?

This video came out in 2016, and has been variously debated, attacked, and exalted. While it pertains primarily to satisfaction or dissatisfaction of Millennials (people born after 1984), there is a helpful perspective on the hardwiring of adolescent brains through technology.

It is worth 15 minutes to consider the impact of phones, Facebook, social media and the lack of actual SKILLS. 

My two cents: everyone gets dealt a "bad hand" in some way -- not just millennials.  The Greatest Generation went to war.  Others grew up during the Depression.  Boomers lost entire life-savings on in 1984.  People who lost friends and family on 9/11 will have a profound impact on others.  EVERYONE gets a band hand sometime, somewhere or somehow. 

That means EVERYONE needs to know how to cope with stress -- because it IS coming into your world.

Today (January 15th) is the commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr’s birth. Seven days from now (January 22) is the 45th anniversary of legalized abortion in the United States.  I once again reflect on the stunning irony of those two events falling within days of each other every year.
I was a very little girl during the 1960s, so I wasn't exposed to whole lot of racial tension.  Except in the 5th grade at Superior Street Elementary School, I had a black classmate who could run track like the wind!  I heard someone say, “the Willis boy” ought to be with his own kind, but I didn’t know it was a racist remark.  I thought they meant he ought to be with people who could run track as fast as he could, because our school team wasn't very good.
I admit my middle-class white family was unusual.  After all, for a while, my twice-divorced Grandma dated a very tall black man I only remember as “Mr. Harrison.”  He sounded like James Earl Jones, drove a Porsche, and hid boxes of Nabisco Snap Cookies in his suits pockets for us to find. 
So it wasn’t until I was in junior high school that I learned that some white people didn’t want black people to drink from the same water fountain, or go to the same schools.  I remember thinking, “Sometimes grownups are really stupid.”
Funny, that’s the same reaction I get now from teenagers as they try to figure out abortion laws that don’t make sense.

In 2016, there were only FOUR children born in Denmark with Down’s syndrome after prenatal diagnosis and only 20 children born with Down’s syndrome diagnosed after birth.

In 2014, the Danish government reported 98% of unborn babies who tested positive for Down's syndrome were aborted.

In the neighboring country of Iceland, the eradication of Down syndrome babies has reached near 100%.

In France 97% of diagnosed DS babies are aborted.  So many that the country banned a television commercial featuring Down syndrome children because it upset the mothers who previously aborted them.

While countries like Iceland are praised for their state-funded health care, the struggle to keep costs down creates an environment in which those who choose to give birth to a Down syndrome child are considered selfish for using up precious resources.  The Dutch Ministry of Health published a list of the 10 most expensive diseases, with Down syndrome at the top.

But as pro-life actress Patricia Heaton clearly points out, “The country is not, in fact, eliminating Down syndrome.  They are just killing everyone who has it.”

Participating in sex education can be very discouraging.  Most of the time the adults who should be looking out for the best interest of children are instead pushing them toward behavior and attitudes which will ultimately decrease their chance of success or happiness.  And attacking those of us who are saying, "Wait.  Hold up there.  There are NO BENEFITS to adolescence sexual activity and potentially life-long disadvantages!"

But at a parent workshop last night, a mom who has voluntarily sat through my talks before (more than once) came to me with this encouraging story.

She was on the phone with her 21 year old daughter currently studying abroad.  She said, "You remember the couple who came to talk to you from Positively Waiting?"  Without any further prompting her daughter said, "You mean the one who told the story about the table to show me I am worth waiting for?  The one who who gave me the pin and talked to me about the sticky tape?" (If you have never seen our talk, just know "the table," "the tape" and "I am worth waiting for" are the message essentials.)

This young adult had heard us, exactly one time, SEVEN years ago when she was 14.  And what she heard from us made a difference in how she saw herself and the decisions she made as she moved forward.

Its so nice to be reminded that the Truth has its own way of getting through the minefield of lies.  

The riskiest thing we do at Positively Waiting is provide teens a description of the differences in male/female sexuality.  The fact is our wiring is physiologically different.  Not just the reproductive parts, but the way each system behaves.

For more than a decade, we have been explaining this.  It’s alarming the increasing number of teens and adults who fail to understand it. 

A 100% guarantee of relational disappointments for anyone is to assume everyone else’s operating system works exactly like yours.

Before our explanation, we do make this required disclaimer, “If you are a male attracted to males or a female attracted to females, this particular relational challenge might not apply.  But if you are a male attracted to females or a female attracted to males, and you assume your crush thinks about sex the same way you do, someone is going to get hurt.”

Teen brains need help to understand what the unintended consequences of behavior being promoted actually LEAD to on Earth.  That means adults need to help adolescents process what they see and hear. As it happens, Glamor magazine produced a great opportunity to do exactly that.

Excerpt from One-Night Stands, and Other Love Advice We Wish We Had Growing Up by “Feminist” Amanda De Cadenet (Glamor, 9/12/17):
Know this: A one-night stand is not a bad thing.  Although my story isn’t that unusual, the first time I had sex, there was no orgasm for me—just an agitated vagina, damp underwear, and the overwhelming question of why I’d ever want to do that again. Sex got more exciting in my twenties, when I discovered the joy of the one-night stand. Some of my favorite sexual experiences have been with people I never wanted to see again but whom I’m very pleased I spent the night with. We’re raised to believe love and sex are connected, but most people don’t have sex because they’re in love; they do it because it feels really good. Sex is the most personal choice we make, and it should be ours to make freely; just make sure you’re safe and don’t leave with more than you arrived with.

1) “Some of my favorite sexual experiences have been with people I never wanted to see again.“  Ms. De Cadenet promotes the very thing that the Women’s Movement originally opposed: treating women (or men) as sexual objects to be used and discarded like litter.  Objectification devalues both the individual and their contributions or achievements.  Will society really benefit by producing more people with the self-absorbed attitude reflected in this author?

Wait, what?

OkCupid (a dating site) offered people who want Planned Parenthood to keep getting taxpayer money a "badge" for their profile so that other people who also support PP could easily match up with them.

Am I getting this right?  This is a dating site. Doesn't that mean that any female-attracted-to-males who accepts the badge is (unintentionally or not) saying, "Date me -- if I get pregnant unexpectedly, you are off the hook"? 

And isn't any male-attracted-to-females who accepts the badge also (unintentionally or not) telegraphing his expectation that she would abort if she got pregnant unexpectedly?

Maybe that's the point.  It reminds me of something from years ago when I worked as a volunteer on a pregnancy hotline. A woman called imploring me to help her find the magic words that would make her boyfriend want to keep their baby.

Here’s the thing. This guy had told her before they moved in together that he did not want kids.  He was already paying child support to TWO other women he walked out on when they got pregnant.  He specifically told her, when she moved in, if she got pregnant he expected her to abort.  And she agreed to it. But now that she was pregnant, she was trying to find a way to change his mind. Got to give the guy credit, at least he was upfront about his expectations.

Back to the PP Badge... you can sugarcoat it any way you like, but anyone on a dating site who has an "I support Planned Parenthood" badge is saying "I want to use people for sex."  (Oh, yeah, gotta get me some of that.)

Maybe the badge isn't such a bad idea... it could make it harder for people who think like that to reproduce. 

Can you relate to this experience? 

“There’s nothing to eat in the fridge.”
 
“Well, forgive ME!  I’ve been a little busy working and taking care of every other need in this family to ask what would please Your Majesty?!  You could offer to go to the market yourself, you know!”

Overreact, much?

Let’s face it, sometimes, people have “selective listening.”  Teenagers have it more than others, because

Let me say upfront, unequivocally, I don't think teenage girls should be encouraged to engage in ANY type of sexual behavior because their bodies are at higher risk for infection, and teen brains are less able to process the long-term consequences.  Sex isn't tennis -- it impacts the WHOLE person.

Having stated my position, I want to address the recent controversial "How to" article on anal sex in Teen Vogue. The publishers are defending the article and calling their critics "homophobic." This obscures the real issues which parents and concerned adults have.

The article includes the following statements:

Recently, a high school teacher told me about a discussion that took place at the Sex Education Training course he was required to take this year.

He told me several teachers were debating whether high school students were even able to process the material they would be given as a result of this training class.  They were concerned about the intensity of the units on sexual assault and human sex trafficking as examples.  All of them thought 9th grade/14 yrs old was too young for such explicit material.  (I’ve seen it.  The material is intense.) 

What’s ironic however, is that all the instructors and program developers believe children as young as middle school are capable of making a “responsible” decision to BE sexually active!

If they can’t handle the intensity of the information, how can they possibly handle the consequences of the decision?

As adolescents are given more autonomy over their bodies and health, it is common for doctors to arrange a private chat away from Mom at annual checkups.  Recently, Dr. Freda Bush from the Medical Institute related a conversation she had with a 15 year old girl who was still a virgin.  The doctor praised her choice, and then asked how she was managing peer-pressure and a sexualized youth culture.

The teenager said she had been approached by many male friends who first wanted to know her “body count.”

[Author’s note: Body count??  As in, “How many bodies have you had sex with.”]

She told Dr. Bush, when she says, “Zero,” they ask her, “What’s wrong with you?”

So she asks them, “What’s YOUR body count?”  Evidently the answer is usually “in the teens,” but, some claim their Body Count is in the 20’s and 30’s.

Her response is to say, “What’s wrong with YOU?” 

Smart girl.  She doesn’t want that much traffic going through her body or her mind.
***
Its hard NOT to be asking…

• What will be the cost and consequences of a generation who assesses the most intimate of human experiences based on how many people you used for sex ?
• How will someone who has spent perhaps all of their formative years using people for sex EVER have a healthy relationship?
  
• With sexually transmitted infections at epidemic levels, often spread while visually undetectable, who will to have intimate contact with someone whose “body count” was already in the 20s and 30s when they were a teenager?
  

And… didn’t anyone learn ANYTHING from the 1960’s?!

Some time ago, a friend told us his ex-wife didn’t want to allow their dog to be part of a movie he was filming.  One of the men in our group said, “She obviously just wants to stick it to you.  There’s no reason not to let you use the dog!”

I remember I said, “That’s not true.  It’s possible she’s already overwhelmed by memories and doesn’t want to add any more.  Maybe she wants to avoid the stress of handing off the dog, since you two haven’t seen each other since the split.  The dog is old and sickly, so maybe she thinks its too much for him.  There ARE reasons to object, whether you think those are legitimate objection or not.”

The men in the group all (grudgingly) agreed there could be reasons they had not considered. 

I remembered that experience when I read the March 2017 Forbes article by Susannah Breslin, “Wonder Woman Doesn’t Have Armpit Hair Because Women’s Bodies Freak Men Out.”  It wasn’t a particularly compelling argument.  Anyone who assumes a preference for smooth armpits to furry ones is because women’s bodies freak men out obviously doesn’t know much about men.

Teens are very accustomed to having adults provide solutions.  For instance, they will often ask us, “How can you tell if someone is infected with an STD?”  They are expecting a quick-fix, and the answer they get from most adults is, “Get tested.”  But it’s not an ACCURATE answer. 

Does getting tested mean you KNOW if you or your partner are infected?  Not exactly. 

• What if they are infected with Herpes, but they weren’t tested for Herpes?
• What if they ARE infected, but the marker the test is looking for takes a period of time to develop and they were tested too soon?
• What if they had sex with someone AFTER the test, but before they got their results?

In each case, someone could be infected and a test wouldn’t show it.  This unknown can be paralyzing for teens, so adults can help them process by comparing their risk to something else, such as avoiding the flu.

“How can you tell if someone has the flu?”

(Excerpt from an article in the L.A. Times 12/4/16) Sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise across the nation, but the problem is particularly acute in Los Angeles County.  Not only does the county have the most cases, it also has some of the highest rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in California and the nation.
Rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in the U.S. had been fluctuating for several years, but all surged in 2014.  In California, the per-capita incidence of the three diseases is higher and has been climbing since 2010.
***
The article did not address the question, why did STDs rates start climbing in 2010 and surge in 2014?
Could a contributing factor be that in 2010, LAUSD dropped Health as a high school graduation requirement, and substituted classes on global warming? 

And could the surge in 2014 be a result of normalizing use of “hook up for sex” apps such as Tinder and Grinder?

Just asking.