Parents Need to Grow Up

I was amazed to read that the Glendale School Board voted not to advise that the use of condoms is a preventive measure against AIDS. Glendale’s reputation for excellent schools was one of the reasons my husband and I chose to invest in a house and in the community; decisions like that of the school board make us wonder if we made the right choice after all.

A program of sex education that fails to include all the available facts on disease control and family planning is, in my mind, like teaching driver’s education without letting the student into the car. Both are very dangerous situations.

We cannot expect teen-agers to have the maturity to make intelligent decisions about their social and intimate relationships if they are denied the necessary information on which they should base those decisions. Sheltering teen-agers from the cold, hard facts is a cruel act, not a favor.

Glendale, and all of the L.A. Basin, is a vastly different place from what it was even one generation ago. If we expect the teen-agers of today to mature into healthy, productive citizens dedicated to making this a better place to live, we have to give them every educational advantage. If the parents of Glendale want their children to grow up, then the parents are going to have to grow up themselves.

DONNA FUREY

Glendale