#1: Bringing
Babies Back to Japan
Japanese
society is facing its most serious threat in recent years. Japan’s birthrate
keeps falling steadily. If this
continues, the population will get smaller and smaller. While the number of
babies is decreasing, the average Japanese life span is increasing. It is one
of the longest in the world. This is a national catastrophe because there are
fewer working-age people who pay into the social security system, and there
will eventually be too few workers. The Japanese can no longer delay addressing
the issue of its shrinking population. The only way to grow the population is
by bringing babies back to Japan. Japan’s entire social structure, including
families, businesses, and the government, must work together to encourage
families to have babies.
In the
past, many people thought raising children to be the only goal and responsibility
of women. Now, Japanese women no longer seem interested solely in raising
children and society needs to accept this. Japanese women want to work, either
for money or for their own interests. In fact, like many women in the world
today, they would like to both work and raise children. But Japanese society is
against this. Some companies, for example, even tell women to quit working when
they get married or have children. As a result, Japanese women are having fewer
children or no children at all. Society should help set up ways for them both
to work and to have children.
One major
force in society that has the power to enable women both to work and to raise
children is Japanese companies. Usually, people don’t think of a company as a
force in shaping families, but this attitude should be reconsidered. Japanese
companies need to recognize their role in shaping families and think more about
supporting them. First, they should offer affordable child care, and the
government should help them. This would allow women to have children and still
have a good career. According to my pen pal in Norway, for example, Norway has
a good system of child care, where working mothers can even visit their
children at lunchtime. Furthermore, in Norway, you can see a high rate of
working women and a stable birthrate. The Norwegian child-care system is an
appropriate example for Japan to follow.
Even
though the raising of children is not an easy job or a traditional job for
Japanese men, we must accept that it is partly men’s work, too. It is essential
that Japanese fathers help more in the home. After all, the children are theirs,
too. Also, the Japanese government and companies should set up a better system
of parental leave so that both parents can care for their families. My
brother-in-law, for example, didn’t take his parental leave because he thought
it would hurt his career. I have heard many similar stories. It is important
that fathers be able to take parental leave without threatening their jobs. In
Norway, for instance, men can and do take paternity leave without concern for
their careers. Perhaps Japanese companies should consider making paternity
leave a requirement so that there could be no question about its impact on
one’s career. Paternity leave is important because it helps families to
understand the father’s role sooner, when babies are young.
Some
Japanese couples think that parenting is too expensive. It is a pity that
couples have to abandon having children
for economic reasons. It is the government’s job to help make child raising
more affordable. Many countries’ governments are using different ways to help
parents financially. These may include tax breaks or one-time payments to new
parents. While it is true that many people don’t want to pay higher taxes to
support other people’s children, producing the next generation of Japan is a
question of our nation’s existence. Everyone, therefore, must help pay.
Increasing
the birthrate is a key defense against the shrinking of Japanese society. There
needs to be a balance between raising children and working. In order to find
this balance, all members of Japanese society should participate in raising and
paying for the cost of children. We had better take matters seriously for a
bright Japanese future. Imagine your own old age, without any children. What
would happen?
#2: The
Failure of Abstinence-Only Programs
Sex education is important, but many
students finish sex education classes with a distorted view of sexuality and
without a good understanding of contraception and safe-sex practices. Instead,
children only learn that they should not have sex until they are married.
Abstinence-only programs in public schools have become popular because of a law
giving millions of dollars to schools that teach the programs. These programs
have the good intention of persuading young people to wait until marriage
before having sex, but abstinence-only programs are not achieving this goal and
are flawed by the distorted and biased perspective that they promote.
In 1996, the United States government
passed a law giving funding to states that offered abstinence-only programs in
public schools. Since this time, over half of a billion dollars has been given
to states to promote abstinence-only programs (Brody). To receive the money,
schools must agree to follow a set of rules. The rules indicate that a school’s
abstinence-only program must have "as its exclusive purpose teaching the
social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from
sexual activity" ("Impacts"). Students must be taught that they
are likely to suffer harmful effects if they have sex before marriage. They
also must be taught that the "expected standard" is for school-age
children not to engage in sexual activity and for adults to engage in sexual
relations only within marriage ("Impacts"). Schools receiving the
funds must teach students that they should "just say no" to sex until
they are married. The schools are not allowed to teach students about safe sex
and "may not mention contraception except to point out the failure rates
of various methods" (Brody). Some states have refused the federal funds so
that their schools can determine their own ways to teach sex education, but 43
states participate in the program. With millions of dollars from the government
every year, many schools now promote abstinence. They offer abstinence-only
programs with encouraging titles such as "ReCapturing the Vision,"
"Teens in Control," and "My Choice, My Future!"
("Impacts"). They encourage students to sign virginity pledges vowing
not to have sex until marriage, to proudly wear their "purity rings,"
and to carry their ATM ("abstinence till marriage") cards (Kelly).
These programs encourage students to develop a strong sense of self and to
avoid the negative consequences that might result from sexual activity, but
there is a problem: abstinence-only programs do not work.
Studies show that abstinence-only
programs do not reduce sexual activity by young people. In 2007, the United
States Department of Health and Human Services released a study of abstinence
programs. This government-funded study involved more than 2000 students. The
authors discovered that "findings from this study provide no evidence that
abstinence programs implemented in upper elementary and middle schools are
effective in reducing the rate of teen sexual activity"
("Impacts"). The authors concluded that "findings indicate that
youth in the [abstinence-only] programs were no more likely" than students
not in the programs "to have abstained from sex" ("Impacts").
In addition, "among those who reported having had sex, they had similar
numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age"
("Impacts"). Apparently, students did not benefit from all of the
effort and the millions of dollars that have gone into these programs. Another
study by Peter Bearman of Columbia University shows that "88 percent of
middle and high schoolers who pledge to stay virgins until marriage end up
having premarital sex anyway" (Kelly). He adds that "the bad news is
that they are less likely to use contraception the first time they have
intercourse" (Kelly). Dr. S. Paige Hertweck, a doctor who contributed to
an American Academy of Pediatrics report on teen sexual activity, states that
"teaching abstinence but not birth control makes it more likely that once teenagers
initiate sexual activity they will have unsafe sex and contract sexually
transmitted diseases" ("Doctors Slam Abstinence"). In
abstinence-only programs, students are taught to "just say no" to
sex. They are not taught the information that they need to know about safe sex
and contraception if they later choose to say "yes," as many of them
are doing.
Abstinence-only programs also promote a
distorted and biased view of sexuality. To receive funding, schools must follow
the rules in the law for teaching abstinence-only programs. One of the rules is
that students must be taught that the "expected standard of sexual
activity" is a "monogamous relationship in the context of
marriage" ("Impacts"). An estimated 88 to 99 percent of
Americans have sex outside of marriage ("Many Who Pledge"), yet
students must be taught that having sex only within marriage is "the
expected standard." The rules also require that students be taught that
having sex outside of marriage "is likely to have harmful psychological
and physical effects" ("Impacts"). Approximately nine out of ten
Americans have sexual relations outside of marriage. Do most of them suffer
"harmful psychological and physical effects," as the government has
determined that students must be taught? The law presents a distorted view of
sexuality, along with a biased view. In 2006, the government updated the
funding guidelines to state that, in abstinence-only programs, "the term
'marriage' must be defined as 'only a legal union between one man and one woman
as husband and wife'" (Waxman 4). Promoting the government’s definition of
marriage should not be a requirement for schools to receive funding for sex
education programs. Senator Henry A. Waxman rightfully argues that "the
benefits of abstinence from teenage sex should be taught in a way that does not
further alienate gay and lesbian youth" (4). All students should benefit
from sex education programs. Student Hunter Kincaid suggests how
abstinence-only programs discriminate against gays and lesbians: "'As a
gay student, I thought [the abstinence-only class] was ridiculous,' he says.
'Abstinence until marriage for people who can’t even get married'"
(Kelly). A sex-education program should help all students make good decisions
about sexual activity. It should not promote an unrealistic standard of
behavior, should not promote a particular definition of marriage, and should
not discriminate against some students.
Sexual activity by young people is an
important concern. In an ideal world, maybe everyone would wait until marriage
before having sex and would then remain in a single, monogamous relationship.
But this is not the reality. It might be a good goal to try to convince young
people to wait until marriage before having sex, but taking this approach alone
to sex education is not working. After ten years and a half of a billion
dollars in federal funding, abstinence-only programs have not had a positive
impact on the sexual behavior of teenagers. The programs may even cause harm
because of the distorted and biased views that they promote and because of the
information about safe sex and contraception that they do not teach. It is time
to put an end to abstinence-only programs and to give students more
comprehensive sex-education programs that better prepare them for the future.
#3: Why People Shouldn't Watch Too Much Television
Watching
television is an experience shared by most adults and children. It is cheap,
appealing, and within the reach of the general public. In this way, TV has
become an important mass media around the world. Sadly, this resource isn’t
used in a way that people could get the best possible benefits from it. The
purpose of this essay is to persuade the reader that people shouldn’t watch too
much television because the content of many TV programs is not educational; it
makes people waste time that could be used in more beneficial activities; and
it negatively affects people’s mental development.
The
first reason why people shouldn’t watch too much television is because the
content of many TV programs is not educational. Nowadays, we can see movies,
series, and shows that present scenes of violence, sex, and drugs. This has
established wrong concepts among the audience that influence them into having a
negative behavior. Moreover, the impact this tendency has on children is worse
because they grow up with the idea of a world where women must be slender and
blonde to stand out, where problems can only be solved with money and violence,
and where wars are inevitable.
The
second reason why people shouldn’t watch too much television is because it
makes people waste time that could be used in more beneficial activities. The
time we spend watching TV could be applied to useful activities like exercise,
reading, interacting with friends and family, activities that are a crucial for
a healthy lifestyle.
The
third reason why people shouldn’t watch too much television is because it
negatively affects people’s mental development. According to several scientific
studies, watching TV for prolonged periods of time has a negative effect over
the intellectual development of children and leads to deterioration of the
mental capacity in older people by causing both attention and memory problems
in the long term.
In
conclusion, people shouldn’t watch too much television because the content of
many TV programs is not educational; it makes people waste time that could be
used in more beneficial activities; and it affects people’s mental development.
However, this doesn’t mean that we should ban TV, but if we are going to watch
it, we should do it with moderation. Television is a resource that we should
learn to use through the right selection of programs by taking an active and
critical attitude towards it.
Why are these essays good?
CATCHY HOOKS
ORGANIZED ARGUMENTS
NOT BIASE ( shows counter
arguments)
PERSONAL EXAMPLES
FORMAL EXAMPLES AND
SUGGESTIONS
FINAL CONCLUSION
