Why do people think the problems of the world can be solved overnight?
There are many problems that I could talk about here but I will pick one that I know something about.
Teenage pregnancy - We are constantly being told in the UK that we are up there with the worst offenders and rising. It seems our teens are popping them out left right and center. If we really want to deal with this problem then first we are going to need a thorough investigation into the causes of the problem. Is it low self esteem? Is it lack of sex education? Is it young girls wanting council houses? To find this out would need a multi faceted investigations for which we have to be prepared to accept the conclusions. If we discover that the problem belongs to one particular social group and the solution will cost multi-million investment and 20 years, then we will need decide if the problem costs that much to society, if it does then we invest. To discover the root cause of the problem we should compare people in this country who get pregnant at an early age to those who don't (we should not concentrate on only the women either, comparing men who have a child and support it, to those who get someone pregnant and leave to men who do not have children until they and their partner are older) and we should compare England to countries who have worse rates and countries who have better rates. To do this we are going to have decide what statistics we care about? At what age do we stop counting, do we have some kind of weighting scheme for young parents who have already set up home together, have a regular income and have made a conscience decision to have a child compared to a one night stand that went wrong, do we count each child that a young woman has or is she already a statistic once she has had her first under age child? All this questions need to be answered before we investigate the problem.. If we want to be truly unbiased, we should also decide before the investigation what we consider the bottom line is for substantial investment.
When we have thoroughly investigated the problem I am going to guess that we find a multitude of interconnecting issues are the cause. These are going to be problems that themselves need time to solve. Quality sex education has to be multi faceted and start from an early age. Children who have already reached 14 without this education are unlikely to get the message overnight. The statistics will tell what kind of sex education works, we should not use wishful thinking. Does educating girls aged 10 cause them to have sex rather than prevent pregnancy? My guess is no but the figures will show us the way. The same goes for the type of education - we know from many countries that advocate abstinence only education that for them it does not work, what about here? We should not concentrate on pregnancy either. Introducing topics such as STIs and the emotion attached to sex and losing your virginity in a situation you later regret is important too. From personal experience thorough understanding of the biology and emotions involved plus plenty of education regarding contraception works, but we should not focus on personal experience as there is little comparison in it. As well as examining sex ed, we should look at issues such as availability of contraception. Take the emotion out of the subject, does offering the pill to young girls encourage sex? If it does, do we care if it also reduces the teen pregnancy rate? The program needs to supplemented with good quality PHSE lessons. Girls need to know what options there are for their future, that even if they do not see themselves as particularly academic there are plenty of careers available to them. They need to know the truth about what having a baby will do these options, if that truth is that it will have no negative impact this should be included in the education. Young people need to know the reality of caring for a child. This should not focus on how hard it is to raise a child alone because girls who have babies mainly assume the man will stand by her side. Instead, show how hard it is to raise a child if there is two of you. How much less sleep you will have, how much less money you will have, how you will have to pay for a baby sitter if you want to go out. Again positive sides should not be hidden. Having a child can bring love and joy to any family. Facts about children who are born to young parents should also be shared, do they have more or less chance of behavioral problems? What about getting jobs? ending up in jail? The statistics should be presented truthfully. The importance of taking the child welfare into account, that having a baby does not affect just you. This kind of education takes time, It requires a background in understanding statistics, social responsibility and self esteem. If we abandon any project to instill after 2 years because there are no immediate response we will be making a mistake.
Investigations can be made into other problems with society, crime unemployment etc. My guess ( though the investigations will show the truth) is that the kind of education I talk about above will help these issues too.
We must try our best to take emotion and the desire for a quick fix out of these decisions, let the experts take time deciding what we need to do and then give them time to do it.