What are Americans taught in school/life about fertility?

Sinkip · 2015-07-27T10:02:09+00:00

Fertility was never mentioned in school that I recall.

through_a_ways · 2015-07-27T11:16:17+00:00

[permanently deleted]

YakCat · 2015-07-27T23:12:42+00:00

Nothing in school.

My mother had me at 43. Her mother had her at 52 (!) during WW2. My aunt had her last at 45. My sister at 40. I have yet to have kids though we are starting next month. I'm honestly not worried (34F and he's 27).

I hate to play this card but a lot of is genetics and how well you take care of yourself. I think a lot of the infertility is from woman who are overweight and not a normal BMI or body fat %. I think our health education needs to take that into consideration in addition to better sex ed.

littleteafox · 2015-07-27T14:08:11+00:00

It was not discussed when I was in middle school. It was pretty basic, sperm + egg, period stuff, tampons and pads, "your body is changing" etc. Also, HERPES and AIDS.

MrsLabRat · 2015-07-27T12:27:31+00:00

I went to Catholic school so..... Everything is a sin, marriage causes babies. Menopause and infertility are never mentioned. IVF is bad, birth control is bad. Both were either not explained or explained inaccurately. According to what I was taught growing up, all my PCOS treatments are gonna get me in trouble. Doesn't matter that its treatment. Can't take those pills unless hubby and I are abstinent just in case I get pregnant because HBC "causes abortion."

Outside of that rhetoric/trainwreck, the general message is "don't get pregnant" from puberty til end of university, then the "why don't you have kids yet" starts up mid/late 20s on. And of course, we gotta have a ton of misinformation about both how to get there and how to avoid it. I'd say I got 95%+ of my sex ed info from textbooks at the public library because I was a bookworm and skeptical of the urban legends + yahoo answers method of self education that was popular among a frightening amount if peers. The stuff I was told in the classroom was vague at best and blatant misinformation at worst. (Microscopic holes in all condoms that are there to let through viruses to punish people with death or infertility, pregnancy and miscarriage/abortion occurring monthly with birth control pills, 100% of abortions leading to suicidal level regret and permanent infertility - ok, so maybe infertility was mentioned. In these cases.) I could rant for ten years about this stuff, and have in the past to the priest and bishop overseeing the school(s) in question. Presenting info in line with the church is one thing, but medically or factually incorrect statements have no place. There are plenty of ways to walk that line.

Sorry this turned into a rant...

FleetingWish · 2015-07-27T15:11:25+00:00

This is not something that is taught in school in the US. Really we get one "sex" class in school called "health ed" where you basically learn about stds and condoms.

2015-07-27T13:03:45+00:00

Up until about 5 years ago there was zero resources explaining you couldn't easily conceive and carry to term at 40 and many women had no idea. I was one of them til after my miscarriage, at 40. I spent hours Googling conceiving after 40 only to be directed to hopeful, feel good forums and sites. Its better now.

No one taught me this in 40 years of life, it hadn't been an issue til huge numbers of women started trying to have their 1st baby after 35.

jocrue · 2015-07-27T16:19:01+00:00

Canadian here, and I went to school in an isolated, rural community.

I remember my teacher saying that women were born with all of the eggs we would ever produce and that they would become less and less viable as we aged.

It must have resonated, because 80% of the young women around my age started having kids before 25. I'm 26 and I am hyper aware of the ticking of my biological clock.

Thanks for instilling me with fertiliterror, Teach! (Not totally joking... babies are happening within the next year, hopefully)

2015-07-27T12:37:03+00:00

Other than how women get pregnant, and how to avoid it using condoms, nothing. I can't recall whether menopause was mentioned or not.

LisatheGnome · 2015-07-29T15:28:56+00:00

Generally speaking only ways to prevent or end pregnancy were spoken of. I come from a mormon background so having babies was always viewed as something positive, but outside my small LDS enclave all my friends parents pretty much threatened them with banishment If they had kids before 30. Young mom's are always pity cases. Like, oh that poor girl threw her life away.

2015-07-27T12:29:27+00:00

Literally nothing other than sex will lead to pregnancy and disease. I grew up in a very small, conservative town though, things like this were not talked about.

windlabyrinth · 2015-07-27T14:00:57+00:00

I don't remember that really being the issue. We more just learned about body functions, diseases, and an unmarried pregnant woman came in with her other two children in two and said "don't be me".

I can't really imagine menopause/infertility being brought up to a bunch of young kids because they would barely to be able to comprehend life at 40.

I just knew my mom was born after her parents were over 40 and she said it was miserable so I said if I ever had kids it would be younger than that.

freebumblebee · 2015-07-27T14:44:00+00:00

I've learned from reddit that my sex ed was much more comprehensive than most Americans' was. We learned about IVF, miscarriages, how pregnancy occurs, all the ways to prevent it (including abstinence), menopause, and infertility. We learned how it could be difficult to conceive, that many women miscarry without even knowing they were pregnant, and the window of time fertility was highest. We knew when women hypothetically could have children from menarche to menopause but that it was healthiest from physical maturity to about 35.

As far as life, the first pregnancy scare in my school was a girl in 8th grade (~13 years old), and generally girls who got pregnant in high school had an abortion or dropped out or changed schools. It was uncommon. We also all knew at least one person who got pregnant in their late 30s or early 40s, so we knew it was possible.

2015-07-27T15:47:12+00:00

Nothing about fertility that I can recall. I graduated from high school in 2005 so maybe it's different now? My female friends (none are RPW) don't seem to believe that fertility decreases as young as it does. They all seem to plan on having kids in their late 30s as if that will be just as easy as doing it at 20.

coffee__ · 2015-07-27T16:48:43+00:00

Nothing about it in school. I agree the misinformation is widespread. When i was discussing possible career plans, my dad said I could have kids at 40 after working on my career.

2015-07-27T19:23:07+00:00

I got a bit in college (a Bio class) about fertility. We only talked a little bit about the age thresholds at which birth defects and troubles carrying to term became more likely as opposed to the younger years.

I also got pieces in Evolutionary Psychology about the attraction portions of women's fertility, mainly that the most fertile women are more often sought after as opposed to their less fertile counterparts (in other words, younger > older).

2015-07-28T01:22:56+00:00

Well, we were taught about safe sex growing up and that it's harder to have a baby when you get older in health class in high school.

I don't think fertility was a primary focus. Safe sex was more emphasized.

anitapk · 2015-07-28T15:23:22+00:00

I wish schools explained more the biologic side of it such as fertility and STDs and left the technicalities/morals of sex to parents

2015-07-28T21:50:36+00:00

I live in a very large city on the west coast.

The sex education taught to me at public school was very extensive, starting in 5th grade and again in 8th grade. Absolutely no mention of fertility or a positive view of reproduction except for some anecdotes about how our sex drive will peak in our mid-thirties. We did have to watch a video of a woman giving birth which shocked me out of wanting children until I turned 24.

I read somewhere this curriculum helped dramatically reduce inner city teen pregnancy rates, so I understand why it was taught.

Unfortunately, I'm now 26 and a startling number of my girlfriends are infertile. Too many cysts. They are now giving out the HPV vaccine so hopefully the generations after me won't have such a problem with this. But for all the sex education we were taught, pictures we had to see of STDs, I was never taught that an asymptomatic STD could cause infertility.

You're right about the denial--I know a girl who is trying to start a family with her first cousin, and her argument that the children won't be screwed up, is that the rate of disorders between children of first cousins is the same as the rate for the babies of women giving birth above age 45.

i_am_annie_edison · 2015-07-29T17:11:55+00:00

What I learned about fertility amounted to fertility decreases as a woman gets older (decrease increases around 30) and becomes nearly impossible around 40. Also, the chances of genetic disorders, mental handicaps, pregnancy complications increases with age. I did not learn this in health class, I learned this in AP Biology.

mrp3anut · 2015-08-06T04:40:19+00:00

My sex ed class was in the 5th grade(10years old ish). Was gender segregated but each gender got a cursory glance of what the other looked like.

As guys we learned mostly about how pregnancy happens, and AIDS is like super death that is transmitted by sex and possibly jsut dirty thoughts etc.

We were shown a diagram of a vagina and like how babies grew in a uterus and such buts thats about all.

From what i was told the girls got a bunch of stuff about how babies are scary, sex hurts the first time, how to use a tampon/pad etc then were shown a diagram of a penis and were given an explantation of ejaculation. Also AIDS is super deadly and can be spread by sex or possibly dirty thoughts.

Im from the south/midwest so it is was a very heavy abstinence/sex is bad themed shock show that lasted one day in school and half the class didn't attend because parents didn't sign the permission form.

Luckily for me and my sister we both got a pretty in depth explanation from our parents. We were heavily encouraged to remain abstinent until marriage but didn't get the fire and brimstone speech either. My parents had the mentality that they would show us the way but wouldn't try to lord over our lives too much either.

Title	What are Americans taught in school/life about fertility?
Author	Simpsondimsum
Upvotes	8
Comments	32
Date	July 27, 2015 9:11 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RedPillWomen
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RedPillWomen/comments/3er41m/what_are_americans_taught_in_schoollife_about/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RedPillWomen/what-are-americans-taught-in-schoollife-about.85496 https://theredarchive.com/post/85496

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