[bethanysmith]

Wow! What a great, thought-provoking question.

I don't know the right answer here. I know that if I had kids, I would want to talk to them about sex when I felt like they were ready to hear it... and I would want to talk through safety, respect, emotional health, consequences, pleasure, experimenting, and basically everything with them.

This is just me... but I would rather talk to them myself than to have a teacher educate them. I feel like that's my privilege as a guardian of a child, and it's such an important topic that I don't want it anyone else's hands.

I feel like there should be levels of sex-ed in schools, maybe. Like... a parent can review their sex-ed curriculum as part of the general school material and that helps make their decision.

I don't want my kid to go to a Christian school, because I feel that spirituality is again something I want to talk thoroughly through with my child... but that doesn't mean that I want them to hear about all things considered "non-religious" at school.

So what about all the parents out there who DON'T want to talk about sex? Well... this is where I fumble a bit.

I still believe in the parent's right to raise their child how they want to... for the most part. If a parent's beliefs - whether faith based or simply health based - is to teach abstinence, that right of theirs to parent their child should be protected at school.

Which leads me back to different levels of education. I would love to see parents being able to "approve" many different levels of sex-ed, and choose the appropriate class for their child. Wishful thinking, I'm sure, but most of the way I feel about our public school system is wishful thinking.

But as for honesty, which is the root question... yes. I think all sex-ed should be honest. Whatever the level of disclosure, it should be honest.

And while I think abstinence should always be included as an option, I think it is definitely an injustice to not go into the details of what happens should you decide to have sex.

I feel like I'm going in circles. I'm protective of my rights as a future parent... and yet so aware that some kids don't have parents who care about this area of parenting.

Bethany