EDIT: The original post is preserved in its entirety below. Due to Liam’s reaction to my statements below, I have taken steps to clarify my opinion.

It saddens me to say that this entire brainstorm of thought was brought on by an article in the University of Waterloo’s Imprint newspaper. For the most part, I consider Imprint to be a soiled rag that is uninformative and unentertaining. However, I read an article written by [unknown author] concerning the birth control pill being offered to middle school students in Oregon.

For those who need to be brought up-to-date on the issue, let me delve into it briefly. Apparently, a school board in Portland, Oregon voted 7-2 in favour of providing birth control pills to middle school children (ages 10 - 15). The school boards medical facility will be able to offer students the birth control pill and provide related counselling if requested. And this is all done without the parents knowledge.

Now, granted, the parents do have to sign a waiver to allow their child to be treated at this school clinic. However, this appears to be a ‘universal treatment waiver’. To put it differently, the parents sign the waiver if they want their child treated for anything. Your child gets food poisoning or has a migraine and needs some medication to get through the day. If the waiver is not signed, the clinic cannot help the students. So it appears the choice for these Portland parents is an all-or-nothing choice. They can run the risk of their child getting the birth control pill if they do not want it. Or, they can run the risk of their child getting no treatment in the event of an injury/ailment.

Moreover, these children get to enjoy the priviledge of doctor-patient confidentiality. If Sally Fifteen-Year-Old wants the pill to have sex with Jimmy Fifteen-Year-Old or (God forbid) Hank “The Guy She Befriended From The Chatroom” Sex Offender, she can get the pill and their parents will have no idea.

Normally, I have no objection to making the birth control pill available to women. However, I think it should be made available to women who have some sort of clue about what choices they are making. While I acknowledge that there are some teenagers who engage in sexual activity at that age, I am not entirely convinced that it is always sex (you do not get pregnant from making out or a handjob, just fyi). Furthermore, I acknowledge that it is necessary to have protection when participating in these acts…but I have to wonder if this doesn’t undermine a good parents effort to raise their child.

And now I have reached the point where the “Playing Video Games” portion of the title comes in to play. In the debate concerning violent video games, everyone says that the parents need to be more responsible for their children’s actions and that government regulation is unnecessary.

How can we make the parents responsible in one situation, yet we say the kids are responsible in another? And how can we prioritize them in that order? A child can choose for themselves whether they want to have sex or not but they have to get a fucking permission slip to play Prey or Dead Rising. I just don’t understand why society feels that they can legislate issues that should boil down to parenting. But society tends to frustrate me more and more these days. If there is a God, I bet he is seriously regretting his promise to Noah that he’d never do anything to wipe everyone out again…because that would look pretty appealing right now. Wipe the slate clean. Start fresh.

Good grief. It’s ridiculous really. And how can people argue that parents should be left in the dark about this? Allowing children to work outside of the control of their parents makes it EVEN MORE DIFFICULT for parents to open up a dialogue with their children about anything. If you give children the ability to do something without the approval of their parents, they will take it. I mean, think about it. In their teenage years, a parent is an unfair aggressor who seeks to destroy their childhood. They would do anything to defy or escape that. Similarly, if you gave a person the opportunity to “acquire” millions of dollars against the wishes of the state (say, through theft) with no fear of prosecution whatsoever, I bet anyone would jump on board with that scheme. Become exceedingly wealthy without dealing with punishment? Hell ya. Become sexually active at fifteen without my parents knowing a goddamn thing? Hell ya. I am all over that.

I get numerous calls at the office from parents looking to see into their childs university records. We cannot tell them anything. Its illegal. They can talk to their child. But they wont.

How did this happen? How did we get to a point where no one is ever willing to sit and talk about anything? Everything has to be secretive. Hushed whispers behind closed doors. Everyone is walking around with blindfolds on and grinning because we think things are okay.

It is so goddamn frustrating…