Sex ed -- or family life?

I wrote my Senator this morning.

Dr. Coburn,

With all the national angst over sex education, where is the complementary discussion of the social and cultural imperative of raising a healthy and well-nurtured next generation?

Where are the social studies classes that express a national consensus on *why* young people and adults should have children?

We have focused on sex. It hasn't demonstrably improved America, or Americans.

I believe that a well-raised child will mature into an adult that respects his or her upbringing. That such a healthy and balanced adult will emulate their parents, form a family with a similarly responsible adult, and raise children in a similarly healthy manner.

We hear all manner of observations that child abuse perpetuates in following generations. Where is the attending emphasis that the purpose of a citizen must include forming a family and raising children to serve family, community, and nation (in that order)? If we are to decry child abuse, why isn't "patriotism" defined as "how many children did you raise to serve their nation?"

If children from the elementary grades are instructed that forming a family is important, we can define the importance of building that family. Of choosing a healthy life style, of insisting that we mate with someone of healthy background and lifestyle.

We can make the preservation or blurring of cultural divides a conscious choice, for them, rather than mere adolescent rebellion, flirting with family taboos, or echoing racial biases.

I suggest that America's founding fathers adopted certain Biblical strictures limiting sexual conduct outside marriage for the same reason they are in the Bible -- that raising sons for the army to fight the next generation's wars. America is rich enough in people today that such strictures on sex need not be continued -- but the need to raise children in the culture of the family, the community, and the nation of the parents remains.

It is *not* the government's place to raise "good" citizens. But I believe it *is* the place of compulsory education to expect all children in America to form families if they can, selecting mates well suited to making a family, and raising children in the culture of family, community, and nation. Teaching the culture of family and community, and even of the nation, is a matter of the home. The schools should inform about healthy nurturing, teaching values, the difference between disciplinary action to remediate problems and actual discipline, the will to complete a task.

In this context, I consider a family as a life-long joining of some number of adults to raise children. The children might be of natural birth, or adopted, the genders of the adults is entirely unstated. And, yes, I would prefer the IRS to adopt this model of family for tax purposes.

A social studies program emphasizing living to form a family instead of personal service or even personal gratification without regard for consequences, I believe, is the correct response to questions on abortion and divorce, and divided families.

This kind of flies in the face of the Sexual Revolution (STDs, broken homes, unwed mothers, etc.). I don't think it affects women's liberation, or racial concerns.