At the Moonridge Housing Complex, the roles have been reversed — the teenagers are the ones initiating the frank sit-down with their parents. And that makes some parents very uncomfortable.
Young residents at Moonridge last week organized a moderated discussion on sex education as a way to broach a topic that is mostly taboo at the affordable housing community, predominately home to Hispanic migrants.
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“We decided to have this topic because of the amount of teen pregnancies in our community … (Young people) feel like other kids are doing it, and they want to fit in,” said a 15-year-old organizer of the event. The Review agreed to let teenage Moonridge residents discuss the sensitive topic anonymously. “It’s always better when the mom talks to her daughter and the dad to their sons. But this can’t always happen.”
About 10 teenage mothers currently live at Moonridge, which includes about 800 residents. Those numbers would indicate Moonridge has a significantly higher teen pregnancy rate than the larger population on the Coastside, which has about one teen birth each year for every 1,000 residents, according to data provided by the San Mateo County Health Department for 2007.
For the youth organizers, building sex awareness was the most pressing concern facing the Moonridge community, more important than drugs, alcohol, gangs or other issues.
The Youth Leadership Institute awarded a $500 grant to the young leaders to organize the July 14 event. That money went toward preparing a questionnaire to survey the neighborhood families and to pay for complimentary pizza and various raffle prizes to try and entice parents to attend.
Getting uncertain parents to attend the talk wasn’t easy. Many migrant parents had been brought up in a Catholic tradition that steered families away from discussing sex and its dangers, explained Norma Miramontes, a manager and mother at the housing complex.
“At home, we’re not raised to bring up this topic,” she said. “And I’m not different. It’s not an easy topic for me to talk about.”
At the discussion, about 20 parents were urged to take the first step and inform their children about sex, contraceptives and the various sexually transmitted diseases.
“As a Hispanic community, we’re the ones with a bigger percentage of the teen pregnancies,” said Katya Enriquez, a guest speaker from the Pyramid Alternatives, a nonprofit youth counseling service. “Children are going to learn about sex from their friends if you don’t teach them.”
Statewide, Hispanics lead all other ethnic groups in teen pregnancy rates, with about 60 births per 1,000 teenage girls each year. Comparatively, average California teen birth rates hover around 35 per 1,000 teenage girls. As a whole, that amounts to about 50,000 teenage births, which are estimated to cost the state approximately $1.1 billion annually, according to a 2010 report by the Public Health Institute.
The small group of parents attending the discussion politely listened and asked questions. But many parents dodged the talk, Miramontes said.
“Some people took offense,” she said. “They think we’re trying to get their kids pregnant.”
Oscar Rodriguez, the only father who attended the meeting, said the meeting reaffirmed his commitment to tell his four children everything they needed to know about sex, especially about contraceptives.
“A condom is a lifesaver, it can prevent many bad things,” he said in Spanish. “Kids need to know: without balloons, it’s not a party.”
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