ThreeSixty -

By Rebekah Cornish, a senior at Hopkins High School

I made the decision that I am going to be abstinent in high school because I had the choice and because my family expectations are high. I do feel that I made the right decision and I am not picked on by my peers for it.

It would be more difficult to remain abstinent if there were a teen clinic in the school because to get to class you would have to walk by it and the peer pressure would increase.

As a teenage woman, I feel that it should be unnecessary for our communities to put teen clinics in schools.

Allowing a teen clinic to operate inside a school only promotes sex to teenagers, and it becomes almost expected that women in school will be sexually active.

Now, there will always be students that choose to have sex, but to have parents and communities permit a clinic in a school is condoning the belief that students will have sex anyway, so they want to promote protected sex.

This creates a low expectation for the students in the way they are expected to behave. The presence of a clinic in school would communicate that parents assume teens are incapable of making good decisions.

The problem with this theory is that teens have to learn about their social lives from someone.

Most of the time teens have sex it is to make their parents angry when they feel like their parents do not care. Preventing pregnancies and keeping teens safe is a family process that a clinic cannot do.

Teaching students to remain abstinent or protected is supposed to happen in a health-education classroom or in the home.

Most parents do not want their daughter to come home saying that she is pregnant, but any father or mother would most likely be just as upset if they found out their child was sexually active.

A better solution is to hold students to a higher standard. It is easier to disappoint someone when you know that they expect you to disappoint them, but it is harder to disappoint someone who expects the most out of you.

There are girls that I know who are abstinent and there are girls that I know who are pregnant. The most painful thing for me to remember is that these girls all started high school as young women with promising futures.

Previously, teens having sex was an act that was shunned. As the years have gone by it has become accepted more in the public’s eye. As of today, there are a few famous stars that do not condone teens having sex. The country song “Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful” promotes the innocence of young women.

“The Secret Life of the American Teenager” is a television show that depicts the hardships of being pregnant or sexually active in high school. Many people say they wish they would have remained abstinent because that innocence is lost and missed by those who give it up.

A teen clinic cannot protect a persons’ innocence, it only protects people once innocence is lost or when the intention to have sex forms.

Teens do not wake up one day and decide to become pregnant. Being a father or a mother to a child as a teenager is complicated. Teen mothers may be more apparent because of their physical appearance, but teen fathers experience hardship too.

Father’s are expected to care for the mother of their child and their child. This includes financial aspects and the security of the family. Father’s tend to worry more about being a “good dad.” This pressure is stressful and can be unbearable at times, so even though the physical signs of being pregnant do not show on a boy, the pressures are still there.

Teens start high school with hopes and dreams for college and jobs. Some keep those high expectations and goals, and some fall into the stereotype of teenagers disappointing their parents and other adults.

Stop expecting teenagers to make mistakes and help them set higher standards for themselves.