Interesting...last semester I taught a class in which the students researched and discussed all sorts of issues about drugs, including the ones raised. All had had experience with DARE and almost all dismissed it as a "crock". The problem with scaring the bejesus out of kids about, say, pot is that it doesn't take long for the kids to realize that the "authority figure's" statements don't hold up. Then they don't believe ANYTHING they're told about drugs, including true stuff. One guy told me that his DARE officer told him that if he smoked pot, he'd become gay - talk about losing credibility! Almost everyone in the class had smoked pot and was still in school...some graduated in May cum laude and better. Almost all knew people whose lives were destroyed by drugs and we tried to figure out what made the difference between the occasional smoker and the "hooked" user.

It became clear as we slogged through data that most kids who smoke pot at a young age have already engaged in antisocial activity of some sort (an amazing similar finding was that pregant teen women were more likely to smoke cigarettes than non-pregnant teen women, obviously because similar forces contributed to smoking and early unprotected sex) This suggests that some pre-existing trait or condition led to the pot smoking, not vice versa. Another finding was that a huge "protective factor" was knowing that peers and your community in general were not in favor of drug use. A kid whose community and friends accepted drugs as the norm was almost destinied to use drugs. This suggests to me that lecturing to kids individually or in a small group about drugs is an exercise in wishful thinking if the community accepts drug use, especially if the kid has little supervision (another risk factor) A better technique would be aimed at improving the community...but that would be hard, complicated, and expensive and would not have immediate payoffs. Programs like DARE look and sound good, are relatively simple and have voter appeal. Add all this to the fact that adolescents think that nothing bad will happen to them and you can see that simply lecturing to them is futile.

It was a great class.

So anyway, scare tactics don't work very well. The idea that pot smokers end up as dirtbags is silly anyway. Successful people who do or did smoke pot don't advertise that fact, so you usually only know about those with little to lose. I personally know a LOT of those successful people, many much more successful than me.

I would definitely support a campaign to encourage women to give breastfeeding a try. I nursed two children and I found it relatively easy after the initial couple of weeks. There are benefits to the children, but it's not going to turn a IQ of 100 into an IQ of 140. It's a lot cheaper (my insurance covers lactation specialists and I was shocked that other insurance doesn't), it's easier to feed the baby in the middle of the night, it's easy to take on a trip or outing and it helps one return to those pre-maternity clothes more quickly. In fact, there are a lot of benefits to the mom (benefits that seem to be lacking in the ads described). I know that there are women who are scared into not even trying (older female relatives were amazed that I didn't limit my diet and that my babies gained weight quickly), and those people are the ones that should be reached through a campaign...but it should be a POSITIVE campaign.

But if nursing isn't going to work for you (and I think if women knew what the POSITIVE aspects were and had no counterindications, most would try it), then you know what? Your mental health is worth something. If nursing is making you very unhappy and you can't reasonably fix it (or you can't nurse from the outset), you should do something else because your ability to get through day after day without being terribly depressed is important too. YOU matter, not just the baby. And furthermore if YOU are very miserable, it will undercut your parenting ability. I've learned that my kids deserve a mom who is not constantly irritable and unpleasant. So I guess I'm making some people feel guilty about feeling guilty :)

The idea of a POSITIVE campaign (yeah I capitalized it three times, so sue me) is very appealing and there are so many things that such campaign might address. Making women feel guilty and unworthy is if anything going to detract from parenting ability. Also such a heavy-handed campaign could make women want to do just the opposite (they say I have to breastfeed? I'll show them!) Whoever developed a negative breastfeeding campaign must not have been a psychology major.

I'm hoping theglimmering didn't mean that as a two-option question. There is another option: you prepare for the birth of the baby and love him or her once born. That's what I did...and he lives a good life.

There are people who do adopt handicapped children; some neighbors of ours adopted a child with Down Syndrome and fell in love so hard they adopted a second child with Down Syndrome. Having said that I think handicaps are an even bigger obstacle than minority status. Some parents are actively discouraged from adopting a baby from a different ethnic group because it's "denying the child his/her identity". It's not all about not wanting an ethnically distinct baby.

I have misgivings about gender-selecting embryos because having another child of the same gender as the existing children seems a lot like having a child with Down Syndrome: it is a big deal before the child arrives but once the child arrives you fall in love and move on with your life.