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August 20, 2007
Mass Marketing 101 teaches that successful marketing campaigns sell
with promises of happiness. Thus, we end up with hamburgers in the
hands of Paris Hilton, scantily clad and writhing seductively in suds
washing over the ultimate in cars, a Bentley.
This 2005 television ad had it all…a famous pretty girl, a luxurious
car and sex…the ultimate symbols of human happiness. By all accounts,
Carl’s Junior executives were pleased.
This formula is repeated day in and out. And in modern America, the
formula has made its way from adult ad campaigns to those targeting
teens…and their younger brothers and sisters. Playboy bunnies are
appliquéd to tops for toddlers, and rhinestones spell out Hey Baby!
on the seat of velveteen pants riding low on the hips of
ten-year-olds.
Sex sells. This has become a truism in Mass Marketing 101. Have a
buxom beauty hold a widget while staring seductively through the
camera lens, and you’ll sell a million widgets. If we buy their
widget, we will be best friends with the buxom beauty and we will be
happy.
Everywhere, sex is connected with happiness. Entire prime time
television series serve up episode after episode where pretty people
spend all of their time thinking, talking and doing sex. And sex
educators take their cue.
Paid by Planned Parenthood, educators stand in front of teens and
remind them that “sex is natural…when you are ready, we can show you
how to do it ‘responsibly’…your parents don’t have to know…after all,
sex is your right…you have a right to be happy…and sex is the basic
human drive that leads to happiness.”
Consequences? Well, if you manage to encounter a consequence when
your saferrrrrrrrr sex practices fail to “protect you,” Planned
Parenthood has a tool kit of remedies. You can detect your
consequences through testing. You can treat your consequences with
drugs. And you can destroy your consequences with a “surgical
procedure.” After all, you have a right to be happy.
This is the world we have created for our teens…to make them happy.
Wrong! We are wrong. We have been wrong for years. And now a poll
by The Associated Press and MTV of 1,280 young people ages 13-24 lays
out for adults what our teens really want in order to be happy.
“What makes you happy?” Teens resoundingly reply, “spending time with
family.” Kristiana St. John, 17, from Queens, New York, says,
“They’re my foundation…My mom tells me that even if I do something
stupid, she’s still going to love me no matter what. Just knowing
that makes me feel very happy and blessed.”
Money? Almost no teens responded “money” when asked what makes them
happy.
Sex? In spite of the hard sell by television and the saferrrrrrrrr
promises of Planned Parenthood, “being sexually active actually leads
to less happiness among 13-17 year olds according to the survey. If
you’re 18 to 24, sex might lead to more happiness in the moment, but
not in general.”
Future Goals? Marriage. Ninety-two percent of these young people
either definitely or probably want to get married.
Religion? More than half of the young people said they believed in a
higher power that has an influence over their happiness…nearly half
said religion and spirituality are very important to them.
Reading through extended reports on the survey, the good news is that
teens seem to know more about happiness than we give them credit for.
If we wanted to help them move toward happiness,
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we would
affirm the value of religion and its role in their life and
decisions,
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we would help
them maintain a “general stress-free feeling” where they were “not
worried about anything”,
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we would teach
them skills needed to create successful relationships leading to
happy marriages,
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we would
strengthen the bonds between students and their parents, and
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we would link
the deepest desires of young people for education, family, marriage
and children into a meaningful life plan.
The best news for parents and adults is that we have educators who
have made it their goal to truly help teens reach happiness. This
latest survey and its results confirm what these educators find from
their work in the classrooms.
Who are these educators? Working with many different agencies and
programs around the country, they teach and encourage teens to abstain
from sex until marriage as a way to eliminate stress and negative
consequences from their life. They build bonds between parents and
teens. They support parental goals by giving teens medically-accurate
information. And they teach life-skills to help in developing healthy
relationships today and in building a foundation for healthy marriages
and parenting in the future.
These educators are leading the way to happiness for teens. Yet, they
struggle against the “wisdom” of a culture saturated with
“sex-will-make-you-happy” messages and promises that, if not “safe,”
sex can at least be “saferrrrrrrrrr.”
You can play a part in the effort to support teens in their quest for
happiness. Check out the National Abstinence Education Association at
www.abstinenceassociation.org. Review the research and reports
that tell the truth about abstinence education. And watch for
action alerts as Congress debates whether students should be able
to have abstinence education.
It is time for us to take hold of the messages sold to our teens by
the media and by “sex-will-make-you-happy” teachers. Our teens have
told us what they need in order to be happy. It is time for us to
listen.
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