Mero's utopia | The Salt Lake Tribune

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Re "Sex ed, government and 'our better selves'" (Opinion, March 18):

If all of Utah's 2.8 million citizens thought and acted the way Paul Mero and the Sutherland Institute hoped we would, I'm sure we would indeed live in their utopia, where government (including public schools) had its appropriate limited role.

But wake up! We don't. In spite of our best parenting and governing efforts, teens are developmentally programmed to behave in impulsive, risky, even dangerous ways, and many will have sex, use drugs, drink alcohol, ski down the most avalanche-prone hills and drive fast. They will ignore parents in an effort to exert their independence .

As a parent, I wanted my children's schools to help me do everything necessary to help them learn not just not to behave that way, but how to live through the experiences when they do.

Chris Stock

Salt Lake City