- Posted by David on August 14, 2008
By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer
Like many parents, Mary Donaldson dreaded having “the talk” with her teenage daughter, Brooke.
That’s why Donaldson turned to the True Love Waits program at Tulip Grove Baptist Church in Old Hickory. The program promotes abstinence before marriage and urges parents to talk with their kids about sex.
“We felt like Brooke was going to hear about it from somebody — we’d rather it be from us,” Donaldson said. Her daughter made a purity pledge three years ago.
Those pledges can be surprisingly effective, according to a new study from the RAND Corp. Students ages 12 to 17 who made purity pledges were 21 percent less likely to have sex within three years of making a pledge than were teens who wanted to avoid sex before marriage but did not make a pledge, according to RAND’s research, published online by the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The RAND study focused specifically on teens who said they wanted to delay having sex, and who had parents and peers supporting that decision. The study excluded teens who were not trying to abstain from premarital sex.
About a quarter of the 2,000 teens surveyed had made a virginity pledge of some kind. Without a pledge, 42.4 percent of that group would have sex within three years. With a pledge, that figure dropped to 33.6 percent.
Purity pledges have been made popular since the 1990s by groups like Nashville-based True Love Waits. The program, run by Southern Baptist publisher LifeWay, claims that more than 1 million teens have signed purity commitment cards.
Those cards read: “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.”
Peers enforce pledges
RAND researcher Steven Martino says purity pledges work a little bit like Weight Watchers.
“It’s public accountability,” he said. “They declare their intentions and have peer support to hold them accountable.”
But he warned that pledges won’t work for everyone.
“Virginity pledges cannot substitute for a comprehensive program of sex education,” Martino said. “Most teens do have sex, and those teens need to know how to protect themselves against unwanted consequences.”
Martino said pledgers were just as likely as nonpledgers to use condoms when they have sex.
“Some people say that taking a pledge makes kids less likely to use a condom when they break the pledge,” he said. “We found that wasn’t the case in our sample.”
Richard Ross, professor of student ministry at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, co-founded True Love Waits in 1993 while he was youth pastor at Tulip Grove Baptist.
Ross believes the program works because of its holistic approach. Before making a pledge, he said, students go through a series of classes, and talk with their parents. After making a pledge in front of their churches, students meet in ongoing support groups to sustain their commitment.
Without that support, Ross said, the pledges are ineffective.
“Students are not making a pledge to a program,” he said. “They are making a promise to God. The reason so many students are making it to the altar, having kept their pledge, is that they made their promise to God.”
Pledges don’t work for all
Frank Boehm, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a critic of abstinence-only approaches to sex education, says purity pledges have a place.
“There are benefits to not having sexual intercourse when you are 15, 16 or 17,” he said.
Along with risking disease and pregnancy, Boehm said, many teens are not emotionally prepared for sex. Still, he said, purity pledges won’t work for every teenager.
At Tulip Grove Baptist, about a dozen students take a purity pledge each year, says Alec Cort, the church’s youth pastor. The church holds an event around Valentine’s Day each year. After the child makes a pledge, parents give them a silver ring.
Brooke Jefcoat, Mary Donaldson’s daughter, said that her parents supported her decision to make a pledge but didn’t push her.
“I don’t have any pressure,” she said. “I know what my parents expect of me, and I try to do the best I can. If I fail, I’m not going to be kicked out of the house or anything.”
Brooke’s parents, Bill and Mary, say they’ve also had to abide by True Love Waits ideals. They were married 3½ years ago, after Mary had been a single parent for a decade. Brooke went along on most of their dates before the wedding.
Now her parents want to return the favor. Any young man who wants to date Brooke has to go on a double date with them first.
So far, she hasn’t found any suitable candidates.
“I’ve had offers,’’ she said, “but nobody I want to date.”