I got an email today that absolutely blew my mind.

Get this: According to a recent study published in the June issue of Contraception Magazine, the “Pull Out” method of birth control rivals the use of condoms!

This was a piece published by sex researcher Rachel K. Jones, that finds  “pulling out” before ejaculation is nearly effective as condoms in preventing pregnancy – calling the method “only slightly less effective” than condoms.

Wow.

This is not a good thing.

It’s like millions of college boys are suddenly going to feel validated to not wear condoms and spread disease far and wide.

Image: Sxc.hu

Bare with the title. My dad had always been a big NRA guy and he’s got one of those bumper stickers that says guns cause violence like flys cause garbage, so the title is kind of a play with words…or is it? Perhaps in these hard times, people are actually acting in a more responsible manner. Having children isn’t cheap. Pregnancy and childbirth are very expensive and after that it’s just a long, drawn out bill. It’s a bill always worth paying when you love your children.

Image: Newscom

Most men don’t get a vasectomy just so they can screw around without wearing a condom. Any dude that does that deserves an STD he contracts. Sadly he’ll pass it on to every women he has sex with. Even though there is no solid evidence that says that the economy has spurred a rise in vasectomies, a study by the NY Times is saying that there seems to have been a sharp increase since the economic downturn. Read more

Now that the shotgun has been lowered, it seems the possibility of the wedding between Bristol Palin and the father of her child, Levi Johnston, is off – at least for now. Levi, who says they broke up a week or two ago, says he’s not “mature enough” for marriage. Wow. What a shocker there.

This happened in my family when my sister was barely 19. My sister married the guy; They’re now divorced. Their youngest daughter Ashley, now 16, is hanging out with us this week for spring break and I’m getting a crash course in high-schooler-ology. Sure, teach abstinence, but we’re talking about a group of hormone-raging kids who think they know far more about life than us adults. She seems like a good kid – swears she’s a virgin. I just hope she uses her head.

Here is some encouraging news for parents (and aunts) of teenagers and young adults. A new provision in the proposed budget signed by President Obama last week could help significantly reduce the cost of birth control for young women by allowing pharmaceutical companies to reinstate discounts on contraceptives that they had previously offered to family planning clinics. Those discounts had been slashed because of a 2005 federal law, designed to save taxpayers money on Medicaid reimbursements for drugs. An unfortunate side effect of that law financially dissuaded pharmaceutical companies from selling their products to these pharmacies at reduced prices. So women began to see contraceptive pills and product costs rise from $5 to $10 a month to $30 to $50 a month. While there is no guarantee pharmaceutical companies will discount their birth control meds, at least now they are not discouraged to do so.

Sources:
New York Daily News
Associated Press
Photo, Sancya/AP

JWJourney

How did you know that you were/were not done adding to your family members? Did you have a set number to begin with? Was there some sort of strategic planning involved, or did you play it all by ear?

It seems as though the opinions on a perfect number vary greatly depending on religion, upbringing and pure personal preference. I have heard people bad mouth my husband and I for having so many kids. By the same token, I’ve been chastised for choosing to stop procreating. If we lived in China, we’d be almost quadruple our allowed number of children. It seems ludicrous that the government is allowed to make that kind of decision for an individual, but they are communists, after all.

Some couples are told that having only one child, deprives that child of the joys of siblings. Though if you ask my kids, they would gladly be an only child. I never thought that we’d have as many as we did, though the thought of a big family was so cool after I got to know my husband’s family of fifteen. As much as the kids may fight and drive us insane, I love that we had the number that we did. Seven is our magic number. What is yours?