Madam, - Irish society has really gone off the rails if it is suggested that all the responsibility for avoiding teenage and pre-teen pregnancies lies with girls as young as 11 and their parents. I have seen little or no mention of the young "studs" who are equally responsible for such crises. They have been fed on a diet of teenage magazines where "pulling birds" and "scoring" is the norm. Girls are encouraged to please boys and make themselves attractive by wearing the minimum of clothing to make them look sexy.
My granddaughter was invited recently by some of her school mates to visit a teenage haunt near a shopping complex in Rathfarnham. A young boy came along and wanted to know where the third-Year "slappers" were as he wanted to go in the bushes with one of them. Apparently he had notched up a success each evening during that week. It was now Friday and he was, reluctantly, having to face the shame of trading down to a second-year prospect. How could he face his peers?
This is the reality of young Ireland today where promiscuity is a word young people can neither spell nor understand. I have no doubt the rot set in when the religious pulled out of educating our children. We will, most assuredly, reap the whirlwind. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN M. REDMOND, Hazelbrook Road, Terenure, Dublin 6W.