A Modest Proposal for Curtailing Promiscuous Behavior in the Youth of Today | Teen Ink

A Modest Proposal for Curtailing Promiscuous Behavior in the Youth of Today

May 18, 2009
By Anna Miles BRONZE, Valdosta, Georgia
Anna Miles BRONZE, Valdosta, Georgia
3 articles 0 photos 1 comment

One can walk down the hallway of any high school in the country and see one of them. They giggle and glow as they waddle their way to classes, people instinctively making way for the round figure, the swollen stomach, the unmistakable sway that comes with their burden. Marking their binders, backpacks and wallets are the badges of ultrasound photos and they carry in hand – like street-corner prophets with Bibles – baby-naming books, nonchalantly asking strangers to give their opinions on the title for their spawn. The shame that once melded into one and the same with even the thought of the premature act now shrinks back in submission to the tyranny of politically correctness. Like animals, the youth of today act upon their base, instinctual impulses without second-thought to the consequences of their actions and nine months later another mouth is born to be fed by tax dollars that could be going to education, cancer research or other such important endeavors.

In the face of the increasing turmoil of unashamed acts, a proposal must be made as to how the nation can contain such a – quite literally – growing problem in our society. The promiscuity in our youth must be ended with militant speed and precision and so, with haste in mind, we modestly propose immediate lockdown of all public schools until preparations for our improvements are made.

First of all students, both male and female, will be made to wear ill-fitting, unflattering, long-sleeved white jumpsuits with only their last name, first initial printed on a gray label as any sort of indicator as to their identity. They will all wear gray orthopedic shoes and all vestiges of vanity – cosmetics, cologne, flattering clothes, jewelry, hair products, and the like – will be forcibly purged from each and every household in our nation. Hair will be chopped into short buzz cuts and nails will be trimmed to a respectable length.

Of course just making all of them look nearly the same could not even begin to squelch these heathens’ wanton acts of self-indulgence. At puberty – when the first voice cracks and the first spots appear on a pair of government-sanctioned panties – contraceptives will be dealt out immediately. Birth-control pills will be taught to seem like a daily candy (no longer a burden, but a welcome necessity) and condoms like shoes that you cannot imagine leaving the house without. Each morning, after white school buses pick male and female students up separately for school, they will arrive and eat mandatory breakfast where each and every female student will have a Plan B pill placed in their food. Every Monday, mandatory pregnancy tests will be administered as well as classes for the males on alternative means to quench their sexual thirst that do not involve physical contact with any of the females.

If ever a girl were actually able to get pregnant, she would be sought out by dogs bred to sniff out the smells of conception and directly placed inside a cage where she will be paraded in front of the student body and town to a government facility to wait out the full time of her pregnancy. DNA tests will be done to determine the father of the child and he will be castrated straight away in an open arena. Upon the birth of the child, the father would be required to raise it and the mother would be sent to a convent where she would have no more contact with males for the rest of her life.

You may find our ideas to be a bit extreme but you cannot talk to us as though you have any ideas that are as effective as the many that we have proposed before this. Since no one seems to want to talk about this touchy subject and how we would not have any need to venture to such lengths if more were done every day to curtail the rampant promiscuity. You can say that maybe we could try to bring shame back with teachings of morality, the sanctity of virginity and marriage, of Godly fear of damnation and hellfire, but no one has yet to ever act on these ideas. We continue to flit around the subject and allow girls to walk around with their pregnant bellies as though they were something to be proud of rather than think of it as something they should hide for the shame it brings to their family and themselves. So just try to come up with a better solution than ours and we will see how far it can go in this politically correct nation.

Imagine a world where you walk into a Wal-Mart and instead of seeing the cute little tank tops you are used to in the juniors section, you find yourself facing rack after rack of maternity clothes. As if the congestion of our stores by their loose attire were not enough, all of their children will learn to ride piggy-back on the food stamps and welfare train. None of these children will receive the education they deserve as American citizens because they will be burdened by the history of their parents and their early childhood will be marred by absentee parents who go to school or work, leaving them at home with relatives or strangers day after day. This need for attention will translate into an overall behavior issue throughout their adolescence and eventually lead to juvenile delinquency or teen pregnancy just like their parents before them. If this endless cycle is not stopped, how soon will it be before we are overpopulated by malnourished, under-educated, government-dependent miscreants who taint society with their ever present tug on the wallets of the middle class. Our modest proposal must be taken into serious consideration as we face a growing population of complacency and promiscuity.

The author's comments:
Based on Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal

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This article has 10 comments.


tdot11 said...
on Mar. 7 2014 at 6:58 pm
You realize that this is satire, right?  They don't actually mean it.

staceywindow said...
on May. 4 2013 at 10:32 am
this was hilarious! exactly the way a modest proposal should be written: over the top and outrageous.  i also think its hilarious that some people are taking this seriously. 

on Aug. 15 2010 at 11:46 pm
earlybird_8 BRONZE, Roberts Creek, Other
4 articles 0 photos 115 comments

Favorite Quote:
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Very funny! I love reading "Modest Proposals" because they make you laugh and think, both of which this article did very well. Good job!

Reese said...
on Jun. 29 2009 at 11:19 pm
Reese, Laurel, Maryland
0 articles 0 photos 30 comments

Favorite Quote:
Mortimer Brewster: The name Brewster is code for Roosevelt.
Teddy Brewster: Code for Roosevelt?
Mortimer Brewster: Yes. Don't you see? Take the name Brewster, take away the B, and what have you got?
Teddy Brewster: Rooster!
Mortimer Brewster: Uh-huh. And what does a rooster do?
Teddy Brewster: Crows.
Mortimer Brewster:... It crows. And where do you hunt in Africa?
Teddy Brewster: On the veldt!
Mortimer Brewster: There you are: crows - veldt!
Teddy Brewster: Ingenious! My compliments to the boys in the code department.

Sorry I made everything I wrote sound so mean I just tend to get a bit carried away with my opinions.

dramamama said...
on Jun. 7 2009 at 2:39 am
Wow! I thought the thing said "constructive criticism", not the crazed rantings of someone who is very angry and desperate to justify her own sadly lacking social mores. While I realize this is a "SATIRE" (look it up Theresa), in the style of Jonathan Swift (kudos to you, Anna, for reading that type of literature) it does make several valid points. Namely, I have no problem with anyone having children (and they are a blessing, as long as they are not my BURDEN) who does not require ME AND MY TAX DOLLARS to fund it, both in and out of the delivery room. However, as a tax-paying citizen and someone who has NEVER had to be "on the dole" from the Feds (i.e. Food Stamps, WIC, etc.), no matter how bad things were (both me and my husband unemployed at the same time, fending off the mortgage and car payment wolves)I resent having to fund everyone else's "lapses in judgement". And yes, you can lose your virginity any time and with anyone (how many "special someone's" are really THAT special - the STDs are smiling and lurking just around the corner) - why would you want to? The young lady who wrote this article has quite a backbone to be able, even SATIRICALLY, to take a stand that may not be politically correct, but may be what many of us are feeling. I applaud you, Anna, the sarcasm and cynicism of this SATIRICAL piece is not lost on me as it obviously is with others! Bravo!

on Jun. 6 2009 at 9:22 pm
Anna Miles BRONZE, Valdosta, Georgia
3 articles 0 photos 1 comment
Theresa-

I by no means meant that birth and children are not a sacred and beautiful thing. In no way did my paper say anything about parents hating their children. My paper is a purely satirical piece which was meant to shed light on a growing problem in our society. I am very sorry that you do not believe in God and also saddened to hear that you do not view virginity as a gift that should be guarded for someone special. This was an essay for a class based on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. Thank you for reading it and I am sorry that it offended you so deeply.

brina SILVER said...
on Jun. 5 2009 at 5:39 pm
brina SILVER, Middletown, Indiana
9 articles 0 photos 15 comments
by the way Theresa S. if you are atheus that6 is ok i pray to god and he saved my dad from actaully dying when he tried to commit sucide. and you know what else i love the lord and the son chris and the holy spirit

brina SILVER said...
on Jun. 5 2009 at 5:32 pm
brina SILVER, Middletown, Indiana
9 articles 0 photos 15 comments
im a christian so personally i think this shouldn't be a problem in the first place. I think your viriinty is to be saved for that special person you marry.

Reese said...
on May. 31 2009 at 8:11 pm
Reese, Laurel, Maryland
0 articles 0 photos 30 comments

Favorite Quote:
Mortimer Brewster: The name Brewster is code for Roosevelt.
Teddy Brewster: Code for Roosevelt?
Mortimer Brewster: Yes. Don't you see? Take the name Brewster, take away the B, and what have you got?
Teddy Brewster: Rooster!
Mortimer Brewster: Uh-huh. And what does a rooster do?
Teddy Brewster: Crows.
Mortimer Brewster:... It crows. And where do you hunt in Africa?
Teddy Brewster: On the veldt!
Mortimer Brewster: There you are: crows - veldt!
Teddy Brewster: Ingenious! My compliments to the boys in the code department.

Ohhh yeah AND BEINMG "PREGNANT" IS NOT SOMETHING ANYONE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF.....IT IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF!!!!!!!!!! Having a baby is the greatest thing in this whole world, I mean do parents look at their kids and say I'm ashamed I ever had you???? No they do NOT cause having a child is the best thing someone could ever do in their life.....So don't make it sound like if your pregnant you should be shoot for it.......What you've written is why so many teen go and have abortions Cause they think to themselfs I should be "ASHAMED" of this life I'm carrying....

Reese said...
on May. 31 2009 at 8:01 pm
Reese, Laurel, Maryland
0 articles 0 photos 30 comments

Favorite Quote:
Mortimer Brewster: The name Brewster is code for Roosevelt.
Teddy Brewster: Code for Roosevelt?
Mortimer Brewster: Yes. Don't you see? Take the name Brewster, take away the B, and what have you got?
Teddy Brewster: Rooster!
Mortimer Brewster: Uh-huh. And what does a rooster do?
Teddy Brewster: Crows.
Mortimer Brewster:... It crows. And where do you hunt in Africa?
Teddy Brewster: On the veldt!
Mortimer Brewster: There you are: crows - veldt!
Teddy Brewster: Ingenious! My compliments to the boys in the code department.

Virginity is not something that has to be saved for anyone person in someone's life...If someone wants to give it to someone special no one can stop them it's their RIGHT to do so......Marriage, not everyone wants to be MARRIED some people want to be SINGLE and be able to live their life with out having to account to someone else.......Godly fear of damnation and hellfire...WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN????? GOD IS NOT REAL!!!!! If he were then everyone who "PRAYS" would be able to HEAR his answer to the pleas, or their thanks BUT HE"S NOT REAL THERE FOR HE CAN"T ANSWER ANYONE!!!!!!!