Community Inquiry Project Topic

So what has been coming to my attention recently, and I acknowledge that sometimes I do seem to have my head stuck in the sand, has been what seems to be a growing trend of kids beginning sexual activity at increasingly young ages.  This came to my attention when I was mentoring a student in an urban Middle School, only an eighth grader, who was referencing losing his virginity as an event in the distant past.  What’s more, by his own admission, his mother didn’t seem to find anything wrong with this (or had resigned herself to the fact that she couldn’t prevent her 13 year old son from having sex), as evidenced by her telling her son that she didn’t care what he did, so long as he didn’t bring home grandchildren.  This blows my mind!  I’m old-fashioned (or naive) enough to believe that high school is too young to be able to make rational calculated decisions about sexuality, let alone middle school.  So I thought I would investigate this trend for my community inquiry project, to find out what the true stats are in this area.  I would also like to know whether or not the “experts” in the field of study believe this to be an epidemic, or simply an acceptable social and cultural shift in attitudes.  I gotta tell you, though, I can’t help but feel that no matter what I discover from this porject and beyond, it will probably be pretty depressing to me.  I just hope that it will at the same time better equip me to handle any such issues as they come up in the course of my teaching career.