RA: Analyzizizizing my own Rhetoricalness

So, seeing as this paper is due and we don't technically have a topic for our RA, I'm going to think out loud and do it for my own paper.

Many people who read my enthymeme said my audience was too broad, and I think I agree. Someone said it best when they pointed out that parents would be more swayed by pathos, and lawmakers and teachers by logos and some ethos, so your arguments will be different. That made quite a lot of sense to me, so I'm wanting to narrow the field to parents of pre-pubescent children. I say pre-pubescent, because my argument is that you need to at least consider, if not actually do so, teaching your children about sex ed yourself before they get too old, otherwise they'll get it from elsewhere.... meaning peers and the media and the like.

I also say parents, because ultimately I think it is their job to teach their own children how they think is best, in age, approach, detail, etc. The school can teach the kids, yes, but that will be some other adult's idea of what morals (or lack thereof) they should be hearing, and what your kid needs. It's also problematic to say that one approach should work for every kid in the classroom, because the kids (all 42 of them, if you're in a typical Utah classroom) are all going to be at different maturity and understanding levels.

I think I took particular interest in the topic of teaching kids early because I never had it-- "the talk". I'm sure I had snippets here and there, but I never actually knew what sex WAS until I went and looked it up myself.... when I was in college. Sure, I knew the biological names of anatomy, and I knew that it created children and was pleasurable, and a general idea, but I did not know the first thing about what it all entailed. In fact, I probably still know less than I should, but everything I knew about sex I learned from the media and other kids, and assumptions I made. That can't be healthy, or wise. I think the only reason I didn't get duped into anything was my religious upbringing, which stressed VERY strongly that sex was reserved strictly for the expression of love within marriage, and to bring children into the world. Thus, anything to do with sex or pornography or dirty jokes was pointedly shunned and ignored. Otherwise, I probably would have been a LOT more involved. So. That's my spiel. Parents need to be more responsible about making their children responsible.