You Can't Trust Your Kids' Schools, But You Can Help Change Them
Sex Ed At the Cutting Edge
This week, we bring you some "sex-realism on the ground," from environmental sociologist Ashley Colby. After nearly a decade in Uruguay, she recently returned to her hometown of Chicago and enrolled her daughters in public schools. When she saw their sex ed curriculum, Colby knew she had to speak up.
Fairer Disputations
You Can't Trust Your Kids' Schools, But You Can Help Change Them
ASHLEY COLBY
At our meeting, the teacher began to go through the curriculum. She immediately indicated her own misgivings about some of the concepts, and her doubts about whether or not the children were ready to be exposed to some of the more explicit ideas.
As we went through the curriculum, it became clear that much of the most objectionable content—advocating for puberty blockers, the focus on intersex bodies, etc.—was new this year. This was the first time she was seeing some of it.
I thought: we are really at the cutting edge here, aren’t we? How many people even know the details of this curriculum, which will be taught to over 300,000 children this year? Who is pushing this curriculum that is so out of step with what educators and parents think kids should be learning?
The Weekly Round-up
Fairer Disputations
This Week: Homemakers & Breadwinners, Babysitters, and Judith Butler
THE EDITORS
Ivana Greco on the need for homemakers and supportive breadwinners, Nina Power on what Judith Butler has to answer for, the demise of the babysitter, the erasure of girlhood, the state of dating apps, a book recommendation from our editor, Serena Sigillito—and more!
From the Archives
ICYMI: Beatrice Scudeler with an important piece on valuing the astonishing things women's bodies can do—and seeing the beauty in suffering.
Fairer Disputations
Toward a Theology of Birth: Jennifer Banks, Julian of Norwich, and the Acceptance of Suffering
BEATRICE SCUDELER
We are accustomed to thinking of birth and death as separate events, but for Julian, Christ’s Passion connects them by reminding us that we must die to ourselves in order to be spiritually reborn. Although maternal mortality rates are much lower now than in the past—and should be far lower still—women still risk their lives and their health for the good of children being born. They endure protracted, lingering pain over which they have little control. If they choose to nurse their children, they freely surrender their bodily autonomy for the benefit and nourishment of their newborns, knowing that their bodies will be depleted, and that, for the first few months of their infants’ lives, they will have little sleep and little strength.
A Debate You Won't Want to Miss
Resolved: Feminism Necessarily Undermines Family Life
With Erika Bachiochi and Scott Yenor
April 3, 2024 • Sheraton Commander Hotel • Cambridge, MA
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