Bravo MTV for Telling Pedro Zamora's Story - Parent's Turn on the TV for This One and Watch it With Your Kids

Thank you MTV for creating and broadcasting Pedro's story, he put a face on the disease when he was alive, and now, he will continue to help raise awareness. As parents, we need to be aware of our children's choices and make sure they are making informed decisions in their lives. Pedro's story needs to be heard. If discussing sexuality with your older children is too hard a topic for you, perhaps using MTV's "Pedro" as a catalyst will help you. Watching it together could be a wonderful way to approach the whole topic. Whether we want to admit it or not our children, at one time or another, will become sexually active. We can't control when it happens.

We can influence our children's perspective.

We can inform our children about the facts.

We can make sure they are aware of all the repercussions of their choices and actions.

I do hope my children will have the self restraint to resist the overt sexual messages that surround them each day. Realistically I know they face tough choices all the time. So, what I can do is share everything I can while they are with me.

Becoming sexually active without the knowledge of how to protect yourself, is like jumping into a pool not knowing how to swim, essentially putting themselves at great risk.

Hopefully, my husband and I will have instilled our family values in our children's thought process while they are home with us. We have tried to always be honest with the facts surrounding their potential actions and choices.

HIV AIDS hasn't gone away, and it won't go away until we face it head on and be above board about the facts surrounding the issue.

My brother was diagnosed with, lived with, and eventually died from AIDS. Like Pedro, he didn't run away from it, he faced it. He helped raise awareness, he went against the establishment, went public and worked to have a law that changed that was preventing him (and many other HIV Positive/AIDS patients) from receiving social security.

Hiding from things that scare us is never a solution, it never makes what your facing easier, it never accomplishes anything but delaying the inevitable.

When it's the right time, and your kids are the appropriate age, don't run away and hide from what needs to be said. Face your fears, then face your children and tell them the facts.

From my perspective, sharing information that helps our children make wise and responsible choices is one more way of telling them we love them. Whether our children are straight or gay, they all deserve to live a long and happy life, filled with love. Love your children enough to inform them.

Photo Credit: http://www.mtv.com/