Article: What We ("Americans") Can Learn From the Dutch About Teen Sex, Abortion, and Drugs

MindGate

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/14/mind-reading-what-we-can-learn-from-the-dutch-about-teen-sex/

compassionate_warrior

There are many factors involved with this topic that didn't get discussed in the article. One they mentioned is important in showing how conditions in the US and Holland are different: poverty. Holland is a much more homogeneous society both ethnically and economically. There's a breakdown of the family in the US, which adversely affects children and teens. I wonder what the divorce rate in Holland is, and whether there are services to help single parents?

The US Republican administrations since Reagan have been against providing contraceptive information to teens. Conservatives in Congress recently tried to pass a bill that would slash funding to Planned Parenthood, an important information and medical resource for teens and university students.

Teens are unfairly stereotyped in US culture in ways that don't do them any favors. It's rare that they're treated like responsible young adults.

I'm not sure it's fair to compare a European "welfare state", for lack of a better term, with a broken down democracy dominated by corporate interests, with a failing economy and a medical system that's inaccessible to many citizens. Even so, some good points were made on the Dutch side.

What do you think, MG?

zombiegirl

i think this works perfectly!

Dakini

I don't think you can generalize about a whole nation of people, like the Dutch. People used to say that Scandinavians were really liberal with their teens, but I met families in Sweden who were strict with their girls. And enforced birthdays?? Do we really want to be required to attend our own birthday party year after year, not to mention everyone else's? For all their supposed chummyness, the Dutch tend to be a fairly reserved people. They are interesting, for all their social experimentation, though.