Monday, July 21, 2008

Think before you make decisions on your children’s behalf

Just saw a documentary on channel 4 on the vaccine for cervical cancer. It has been tested for five years and this year will be given to 12 year olds I believe followed by all girls between 12 and 18. The documentary was pretty well rounded – asking pertinent questions about cost, etc. but what shocked the living daylights out of me was the incredibly stupid response of two Catholic mothers and a Muslim father. The father said he wouldn’t give his daughters the vaccine because it would encourage them to be promiscuous. The mothers said basically the same crap. But one of the mothers added the gem that she didn’t think it was appropriate to discuss STDs with her 12 year old daughter.

What a load of rubbish! Fist of all, do you really think a young person considers the possibility of getting cervical cancer when they decide to have sex or not? I am a Christian and this point of view mystifies me. Christians (and I would imagine Muslims too) work hard to instil their respective values into their kids which means no sex outside of marriage. This should be the major focus of teaching which you would imagine would have greater sway than the removal of the possibility of getting some strains of cervical cancer. And as for the mothers – a young girl of 12 should have had the facts of life explained to her by then – it is possible to begin menstruating at 10. There is no reason why STDs shouldn’t be explained to a 12 year old girl. These people are remiss and seemingly don’t have much faith in heir faiths if they think that being told about cervical cancer and how it comes about is gong to override years of upbringing and make their kids jump into bend with any and anyone.

It’s a crying shame parents who claim to have faith can’t do a whole lot better than this.

Giving kids the facts – and making sure the facts are age appropriate – helps equip kids for life. And by facts I don’t just mean he mechanics of sex, I mean the spiritual, emotional and health aspects. So many Christian parents forget, or weren’t told of all of these aspects. God is God and in charge of all things including sex; better you explain it to your kids within these parameters than leave it up to the devil to explain it – in practical and often tragic circumstances.

As to whether or not to give your daughter the vaccine? Get as much information you can and then make an informed decision. The programme mentioned the thousands of idiotic parents who didn’t give their kids their MMR vaccine because that doctor said there was a link with autism. What makes people arbitrarily believe one doctor without checking the facts and then put their kid at risk for measles? Some of the parents on the cervical vaccine programme were talking in the same way. If an expert makes a comment like this, check it out, get it corroborated, get background on that person and then weigh up all the facts and then make a decision. Damn, for all the free education available in the so called developed world there sure are a lot of dumb people – scary thing is they are reproducing.

1 comment:

Sharon McDaid said...

Hi, I've been reading bits of your blog and really like the way you write.

I totally agree with you about age appropriate sex-education from early childhood.

And I will certainly ensure my daughter has the HPV vaccine. It significantly lowers the risk of what can be a nasty cancer, it's the only cancer preventing therapy that's been made available. Heck yes she'll get it! (And a load of discussions about sex and relationships.)