the baby's daddy...

[Kaytee]

<r>This was in the newsfeed and I found it quite intersting. What do you all think?<br/>
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<URL url="</s>Brenham Banner-Press Online Edition<e></e></URL><br/>

<QUOTE><s>

</s>How to prove who your baby’s father is and how to get child support from a parent who won’t pay are some of what high school students will be learning in their health classes next year.<br/>
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Those and other lessons are part of a new curriculum called Parenting and Paternity Awareness (PAPA) that is being incorporated into all Texas health classes throughout the state as a result of House Bill 2176, which was passed during the 80th Legislature.<br/>
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PAPA was developed by the child support division of the attorney general’s office in 1995, but its inclusion into health curriculums by school districts has been voluntary up to this point.<br/>
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According to Jon Forsythe, director of student services for the Brenham school district, “basically, we’re required by law through HB 2176 to integrate this into health classes, which is what we will be doing.”<br/>
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In addition to paternity and child support issues, which are two of five elements the curriculum stresses, Forsythe said the other three are lessons on the benefits of legal fatherhood, single parenting and relationship violence.<br/>
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He said he’s aware that there is a possibility of some concern on the part of parents, but added that much of what the PAPA curriculum teaches is not really new.<br/>
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“Teen pregnancy has been around for quite a while, so most school districts have had parenting classes. We’ve just never gone into stuff like child support,” he said.<br/>
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He said that as a rule, schools in the district try to anticipate if material that parents might find objectionable is set to be presented to students, so that they can opt to not have their child in the room when the lesson is taught.<br/>
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Rod Viebig, who teaches health at the high school, agrees that most of PAPA is old hat, and should not cause much of a stir, if there is any at all.<br/>
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“The controversial part (of the course) is usually when we teach about sex, and this isn’t about sex,” he said.<br/>
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The PAPA curriculum consists of 14 one-hour sessions, which comes out to about half of a six-week period, so its full implementation would necessitate dropping quite a bit of what is currently being taught in health, but Viebig said a trainer from the attorney general’s office told him that it could be winnowed down to five if he stuck to PAPA’s main ideas.<br/>
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Overall, Forsythe thinks that PAPA will be beneficial to students.<br/>
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“When young adults have children and are not prepared for parental responsibilities, this supplemental curriculum actually helps them know some things they’ll need to know as a single parent,” he said.
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[Ari2]

<r><COLOR color="Navy"><s></s>How to prove who your baby’s father is and how to get child support from a parent who won’t pay are some of what high school students will be learning in their health classes next year.<e></e></COLOR><br/>
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It makes me very sad that this is a perceived need in a high school curriculum, and I don't agree with making it mandatory to all students.<br/>
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However, I spent half a summer volunteering at a small county's District Attorney's office. My main duty was working in the Child Support Enforcement Division, which helped parents (theoretically mothers &lt;I&gt;&lt;s&gt;<I>&lt;/s&gt;and&lt;e&gt;</I>&lt;/e&gt;&lt;/I&gt; fathers, but in reality it was 100% single mothers) receive owed child support. Anyone, regardless of income, could use the power of the DA's office to enforce support requirements, but they had to establish paternity first. &lt;br/&gt;
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It was mind-boggling how difficult this was for some very young women. In some cases, they came in with a list of up to 10 possible fathers for their children. Most had children from multiple men and were needing assistance as none of the men made payments. The women (really, some of these were just girls) had no understanding of the law or legal process. And many had gotten pregnant while in high school.&lt;br/&gt;
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Many of the men (and again, many were really boys, although nearly all were several years older than their partners) had some serious problem that prevented them staying employed for more than a few months at a time: they used drugs, stole, got in fights, cussed out their bosses, or repeatedly failed to show up for work or were late. Some were at least borderline mentally retarded. Ultimately, a lot of these men owed over $20,000 in back child support at an interest rate of 21%, and the interest continued to accrue until the principal was paid off. As a practical matter, this meant that the man would be in debt his entire life. They also lacked any understanding of the situation they were in, and many ended up doing multiple one-year stints in prison for failure to pay support, which didn't make them more employable.&lt;br/&gt;
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It was an incredibly depressing situation. And I'm certain nearly all of the men and women involved had no idea how difficult and complicated their lives would become when they had sex.&lt;br/&gt;
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I'm not arguing against premarital sex as this would make me a hypocrite, but I think some family's fail at instructing their children on the tremendous difficulties that young, single parents can face. I'm sure many of the people I encountered would have abstained or at least used protection had them been able to use foresight and knowledge as to the possible consequences.&lt;/r&gt;