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AFAMILVPL NNING EXPERT
SPEAKSOUT
The P/ain Truth talked to Elizabeth B. Calleton, associate director of
Pasadena Planned Parenthood. She is currently involved in educatlng both
children and adults, lecturlng and presentlng material on health and fam–
ily planning to high school classes and other interested groups.
P
LAIN TRUTH: We understand
you have a sex-education pro–
gram for parents.
CALLETON:
Y
es, we get a lot of calls
for information on how parents can
work with their kids. Only one out
of five kids gets any kind of family–
life education in schools, and since
schools don' t necessarily seem to be
moving in the direction of more pro–
grams, 1 think parents are particu–
larly concerned that they be able to
provide that education at home. We
try to run two
~r
three sessions of
five- or six-class courses a year'with–
out tuitioo. We' ve been fortunate to
get a teacher who is an expert in
family commuoications, so that in
addition to information, parents get
a lot of technlques they can use to
initiate discussion with their fam–
ilies. It's been a very successful pro–
gram.
a.
You also speak In schools.
A.Most of our school presentations
are to people in the tenth through
twelfth grades, so they're between
fifteen and seventeen generally.
And by that time it's a little late if
they haven't ever had any informa–
tion at all beforehand. 1deally, this
kind of program would start early in
elementary school and just be a nat-
18
ural part of the cu rriculum. And
that's what school administrators
and teachers and PTA people would
very much like to see eventually.
But it hasn't developed. So most of
what we do
I·
feel is a one-shot ap–
proach- 1 think it does sorne good,
but it may be too late.
a .
Do you encourage parent ln–
volvement?
A. lf you're doing a program in a
school, it's just tremendous if you
can have parent invo1vement. For
example, you can present the mate–
rial to a PTA meeting beforeband,
so that when the kids come borne
from the program at scbool tbe par–
ents
will
have the same information
and can start a family discussion.
This is one of the super ideal ways
of doing it- to get the parents inter–
ested.
a.
Why do parents have such diHI–
culty talklng to thefr kids about sex?
A. 1 think many of the problems
parents have in communicating with
their kids about sex are only partly a
lack of information. They also have
a great deal of trouble bringing the
subject up and discussing it at all,
because very few of us bad role
models in our families for this.
a.
Back In the slxties there was a lot
of oppositlon to sex education pro–
grams in the schools. Do you stlll
get statlc from some groups?
A. Traditionally there have been
sorne problems from the Roman
Catholic Church, which have les–
sened. The problems are still there–
the Catholic Church is still ada–
mantly opposed to abortion; it is,
officially at least, not in favor of
birth control. But 1 think the atti–
tude in many parishes about sex
education has become much more
realistic.
a.
What about the Right-to-Life
League?
A. Unfortunately, the Right-to-Life
League is trapped in a position
where they' re opposed to abortion,
opposed to birth control, and also
opposed to sex education. Now
that's wbere a major part of the
problem comes from, and to me it's
an indefensible position, because
the only way to avoid tbe problems
that necessitate abortion is to get
people sorne information before–
hand on exactly how one gets preg–
nant so they can make responsible
decisions.
a.
Do you have many problems wlth
irate parents?
A. A lot of static comes from parents
The
PLAIN TRUTH August-September 1977