photo brady kids school yesterday eight-year-old decided spend part dutiful writer's child churning poetry wrote poems total including made laugh serve perfect intro post write today kids helpful knowing rules made broken mother play bears pickled skunk race hares play monkeys bunk invite elephant drink cups coffee opposite what's funny poem poet's mother girls bound rules she's cautious careful eager older sisters write poem speaks quirky sense humor love poetry written likes shel silverstein deviousness desire break rules inherent true assessment human nature deep inside feel rules made broken bent creatively kids feel promises earth decided pressuring kids make definitive public promises good idea setting kids presenting varieties forbidden fruit politics religion psychology promising essentially part post politics religion wrote reading yorker article blue evangelical teen-agers pregnant chew resist writing post fascinating issues addressed article clear gulf sexual belief sexual behavior christian teens gulf apparent teens participated abstinence-pledge movements aware personally made public promise remaining abstinent shocked read half million people pledged remain celibate marriage surprised read half make pledge marriage rate communities high rates promising interesting macro psychology promising level schools teens pledge effort basically collapses pledgers apparently gather strength sense embattled minority numbers exceed thirty cent proclaimed chastity norm special identity lost fragile formula hard imagine educators self-proclaimed virgin clique hits thirty-one-per-cent mark suddenly sodom gomorrah tells adolescents adolescents they're carefully thinking promise they're make reasonable helpful long-run they're making choices based complex system social rules create push-and-pull teenagerdom formula forget adults learned math wears cool people wear cool formula good apply promise-making -keeping search good alternatives kids jason talking quite night glad girls situation church school asked make pledge remembered school year fourth grade made pledge tobacco drugs home parents discuss children ultimately give proper weight kids listened signed mass certificates understand concept promises they're important figure highly-public peer-pressure-affected stern-adult-induced form promising teaches children highest moral achievements society making promise keeping kids asked make promises fully understand good strategies setting lives chronic disappointment distrust guilt nasty g-word thinking loud urging kids make promises churches schools teaching respect concept promise grandeur muster closely promising oath-making heart shakespearean dramas ancient greek tragedies drama tragedy ensues wake finally give permission promises made speak make promises intention promise good truthful 