To the editor:
This letter is in response to Robert Bliss and his complaint that the Gloucester schools failed by not informing parents of pregnancy tests on students who requested them. (The Times, Monday, Aug, 18).
Being a parent, I do not disagree with Mr. Bliss. I find it unfair that teachers and school administrators, most also parents themselves, might know something very important about my child that I don't know.
If my child were talking about depression, suicide, shooting up the classroom, truant, bullying, or taking drugs, you can bet I'd be the first person called by the school. Parents are legally responsible for their children.
If a child hits another car while driving, parents are often liable. If a child vandalizes a building, a parent might be charged all damages and fines. Why is teen pregnancy the one area where my rights and responsibility as a parent are decided by teen-agers, school committees, and politicians?
Unfortunately, Mr. Bliss doesn't stop with his original statement. According to Mr. Bliss, the problems with young people at Gloucester High can be traced back to (a) television, (b) media, (c) music, (d) delinquent parenting, (e) delinquent teachers and school administrators, (f) Democrats, and finally, (g) Barack Obama.
I am a writer. (This is the part where I type in a whisper...) I write for television. I also teach screenwriting at Boston University. Placing blame for teenage pregnancy on the media makes those of us in the industry parental scapegoats.
On the other hand, if the boys and girls at Gloucester High who engaged in enough sexual activity to warrant a request for a pregnancy test had been watching television instead of having sex, we wouldn't be having this discussion. They certainly didn't create the babies in a movie theater. Or, on a dance floor — or in a voting booth.
Back in the day, I was afraid to get pregnant. There would be hell to pay from both of my parents (one Democrat, one Republican). Blame the Democrats? Mr. Bliss, with all due respect, when these pregnant teens from Gloucester High were last led by a Democrat — they were six to eight years old. During their most formative, impressionable years, pre-teen, and teen, they've had a Republican, right-to-life, born-again president.
In my youth, the big, scary, "outside influence" lecture was: "If you do LSD, sometime in the future, when you least expect it, you will have serious, debilitating, flashbacks."
Well, it's 40 years later and I've yet to sit in a conference with anyone having a flashback. Frankly, in the meetings I attend, the flashback guy would be the most interesting person in the room.
Whatever your generation, there have been "outside influences." Before drugs and rap music, there was rock music, the Vietnam war, Hippies and "Hair" (the musical), gang activity, the Beatles, Elvis the Pelvis, Skin Heads, the Black Panthers, Lenny Bruce, alcohol, bikers, Communists, Bobby Soxers, the Great Depression, the two World Wars, the Charleston, the Occult, Ouiji Boards, cocaine (very available in the 1920s and '30s...), brothels, saloons... public hangings and people standing face-to-face in the middle of Main Street with weapons drawn (the Old West).
This is not a political issue, Mr. Bliss. This is life. During the past 27 years, only eight were governed by a Democratic President. Before you insist on blaming one political party for this downward spiral of decency ... do the math.
Kimberly Costello
Rockport
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