Premarital Education?

[Charisma]

oh I love topics like this!

Number 1: people having children when they aren't ready emotionally, financially or intellectually doesn't fall into the marital catergory: it falls in sex, or sex education.

Number 2: and while Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is an enlightening book, it is for couples-mainly married or long term ones- that are both commited to working things out.

When I had my sex education class at primary school everyone was nervous. We all knew what sex was(hopefully not from experience! More like from rumours and tv and stuff like that), so when we actually got told about it, it was so basic and left out so much. Really it was just the bodies of a woman and a man, and what happens to a man's certain body part at the time, and that it can make a baby, that's all the lecture was about! This was primary 7(so I was age 10), and they didn't even mention periods, contraception, or how to tell you were pregnant(except the obvious that everyone knew- your belly got fat).

When we were in highschool, year 2 I think, so I'd have been 12, we were told about periods. Suddenly we were told all this information about them in an afternoon, and it was pretty shocking how much wasn't told to a bunch of girls who would soon be sexually mature-yet still underage. There was no class about relationships, about life, about how you should deal with things and when to plan having a baby. It was almost taboo, like they wouldn't even have the teachers talk about it-they'd get some lecturers to come in one afternoon to talk about it just like the sex talk in primary school.

Did I know of anyone in highschool who was dating someone who thought about marriage and making things *work*? Nope, they were thinking of how cute they were, and flirting with them, and how far they were going. I recall some rumours of some girls apparently being pregnant by the time I was 14- though I have no idea if they were true or not. But it didn't surprise me that people were more interested in sex than love, or anything else about a relationship. Would it have helped having a premarital/marital class? I think only if it was organised 50 times more effectively than any other class coming close to that topic, it would be brilliant. A class that lasts more than a day, that allows for the information to sink in and be processed and then questions to come up and be asked. For advice to be asked by people and to not be judged or feel stupid about it, I think is what people need on a topic like this. I also think this is why a website/forum like this is so popular, because no one got told about this sort of stuff at school or by someone older. My parents haven't ever spoken to me about sex. Ever.

I remember hearing an older woman(like 50+) talk about how kids are having babies when they are too young because they *know too much about sex* and I believe it's the exact opposite! If you knew what the consequences of having sex was, surely that would make you MORE careful about it, not less!!!

I think the same thing should apply to drugs, alchohol and smoking, and the effect those things can have on your health, judgement and control. Especially if girls think that the only way they can be taken advantage of is by having their drink spiked, and not from actually willingly getting drunk and/or from taking drugs.

Of course, this is all just my opinion.

[bluesummer]

oh I love topics like this!

Number 1: people having children when they aren't ready emotionally, financially or intellectually doesn't fall into the marital catergory: it falls in sex, or sex education

Thanks for the tip.

I was just saying that people getting married isn't the biggest issue in society, and you certainly can't 'educate' people about it. Adding children to the mix is what makes it ugly. I say, let people marry and divorce as much as they want. Who cares. I got into a crappy marriage, and it was my own stupid fault. I learned from it, and I was smart enough at least not to procreate.

[Charisma]

Thanks for the tip.

I was just saying that people getting married isn't the biggest issue in society, and you certainly can't 'educate' people about it. Adding children to the mix is what makes it ugly. I say, let people marry and divorce as much as they want. Who cares. I got into a crappy marriage, and it was my own stupid fault. I learned from it, and I was smart enough at least not to procreate.

Sorry about that bit you quoted, it wasn't til I got near the end of my post that you were saying Premarital Education, and I forgot to change this part of my post to be relevant. And I have sort of twisted my post into being more about sex education than Premarital Education in general.

I'm glad that you didn't get stuck in your marriage with kids, but I'm also glad you learned from it too.

I sometimes forget that some people stay together for the kids and end up married, only to become unhappy. Marriage doesn't happen much where I live, but there's a hell of a lot of young women pregnant or with kids here.