Children and Sex

On the subject of children and sex this is a one discussion I never hear.

Throughout most of the 19th century, the minimum age of consent for sexual intercourse in many of the states was 10 years old. In Delaware it was seven; as late as 1930 twelve states allowed boys as young as 14 and girls as young as 12 to marry with parental consent.

Our laws say a girl under the age of 16 cannot consent to sex but if she becomes pregnant she can consent to aborting her parents' grandchild.

The transition between childhood and adulthood is much longer today than it was less than one hundred years ago. By the time a boy was a seasoned seventeen or eighteen, he was ready to start his own family. A girl became a woman by the time she reached childbearing age; twelve, thirteen, fourteen or fifteen and was often considered old enough to marry. The transition from childhood to adulthood was so short that adolescence---at least as the distinct stage of life we now consider it---hardly existed.

Today the traditional determinations of adulthood---the establishment of occupation and family---are routinely postponed until after college. With the period of childhood innocence seeming shorter and shorter, we've created a new ten-or-twelve-or-more-years-long designation, a no-man's land (or no-woman's land) we term adolescence.

We have stretched adolescence further than any time in history. We are fighting, nature and hormones. We are not going to win so what are we going to do?