They ain't been shootin' straight

There is an article in the Times today about all of the confusion over the quiet decline in the teenage birthrate. It's a long piece, but interesting reading.

The analysis in the story is confusing and never really does anything useful, but the stories about the kids, and the questions that the author asks are the good stuff.

I think that kids are figuring out that sexual "freedom" is not all it's cracked up to be. It's such a product of the fast-fading modern mind that anyone would think about sex outside of a more substantive relationship. Yet that's exactly the public discussion - whether in the sex-ed classes, at the lockers, on the silver screen or in the ghettoblaster - that has been taking place ever since I was a wee-tyke. Most of the kids in the story sound like they have been worn out by life and the sexual misconduct of their friends and families. They're all saying "maybe we should take a look at why we are so burdened in our early teens."

There are some really amazing and powerful quotes from these kids who are just looking for real love and realizing they've been lied to.

"No one loves me, I'm going to have a child who will love me"

"They want to get away from the clinical aspect of sexuality," she said. "They all want to learn more about relationships, intimacy, talking to your partners, love."

"I think there's something very profound going on. I don't think anybody understands in depth this change in teen culture"

"Every other movie on that channel is, like, a teenage mother crying or a woman getting beat," he explained. "And my older sister, who is sexually active, we'd just be watching TV and she'd be, like, `You do know how that happens, don't you?'"

Yet it is still amazing to me that nobody is talking about families. It is almost a taboo - why can't folks just say that people need each other and that blood is thicker than water. Are they scared of something? What's up?