By Reggie J

CHILDHOOD, as my generation knew it, has all but disappeared.

Commercialism enters our lives so early now that children seem to be growing up equating happiness with material possessions.

Parents are often so busy that the only way to get to their kids is to indulge them - with the latest computers, iPods and iPhones, Wii and other gaming machines... the list goes on.

It is the price we are paying for rampant prosperity, the decline of parental influence and the 'me, me, me' culture which has taken its place.

I can't help thinking that those of us who grew up in hand-me-down clothes and considered ourselves indulged when visiting relatives gave us 50 cents were perfectly content. Pardon me if I am showing my age.

Children's television used to be preceded by a Sesame Street roundabout, not ads for the latest gadgets and unhealthy food. And who can deny that along with this, there has also been a loss of innocence?

Ever since sex education was taken out of the hands of parents, who ought to be best placed to teach it, and regarded as the duty of schools, there has been a slow but steady slide into pushing children towards activity which once would have left the adult world aghast.

It is not only the ads, the fashion industry and the television programmes which are responsible. Publications and literature are responsible too.

Forget Enid Blyton-style adventures, Lassie the dog, and even Harry Potter. What they get now is sex, or at least sexy-looking covers, especially on magazines.

Not so long ago, a school teacher had sex with a 15-year-old student six times in Singapore.

Then, a boy aged 14 at the time, was placed on a year-long supervised probation by the Juvenile Court after he pleaded guilty to two counts of carnal connection with a girl of the same age. A baby was born and later had to be given away for adoption.

This young teen mother joins a growing number of girls in Singapore who are having sex below the legal age of 16. Last year, there were 310 such girls caught engaging in consensual sex - nearly 45 per cent more than in 2007.

Provisional figures also showed that there were 10 babies born to mothers under 15 last year, and 798 babies born to mothers aged 15 to 19.

Let's face it. We are so busy making a living that we have forgotten how to protect childhood. 'Not in front of the children' has all but disappeared as a guiding principle in how adults behave.

And we wonder why we have a growing teen pregnancy rate in Singapore?

What needs to be done is to educate our teenagers better. And for this to be effective, parents have to be more involved. It is as simple as that.

The writer is a former Singaporean marketing professional.

This article was first published in The New Paper.