My sons refused to discuss their sex lives with us, and asked that we not discuss our sex life with them. That was a decade or more ago. More recently, over convivial beers out on the patio, my sons and I traded the regulation “first time” tales; they were not surprised that neither their mother nor I were virgins on our wedding day, and I got an all-too-detailed recounting of my sons’ loss of innocence. It pretty much matched what we were being told way back then. Bottom line: Do all you can do and hope for the best.
Didn’t have to – Mom noted my arrival home at 5 a.m., and asked “Is she nice?” I was 19.
Thanks for all the replies; it seems the approval rate for the daughter is high. I think maybe my friend the grandmother just doesn’t want to see her sweet little grandson getting old enough for sex; she wants to keep him young and innocent for a while longer. I know she isn’t a prude and I know she isn’t unrealistic about kids and sex; she once confided in me that she herself had become sexually active before she was really “old enough.”
I agree with Sunrazor’s comment: “Do all you can do and hope for the best.” This is the approach my mom took with my sister and I.
I’ll add my voice to the chorus that think the parents talking to their 13yo child about condoms and sex, even to the point of “here’s a condom”, is commendable. I think parents talking to teens about sex opens up the door to that same teen being able to talk openly and comfortably with a partner or potential partner about those same issues. If he’s going to have sex, at least it’ll be safe sex.
Not only was I up-to-date about this stuff, but also, when I was 14, we were given as a homework assignment that we had to go purchase a box of condoms and bring it to school, to prove that we weren’t too embarrassed to buy them. Possibly the only sensible thing that the administrators of that school ever came up with.
Four of our six children exist as a result of lack of a pregnancy prevention plan on the part of their bio moms and two of those four kids joined our family with unplanned pregnancies themselves (two adopted at birth; two through pregnant teen gals in foster care).
pausing a moment to let that statement truly sink in
Yes, we talk to our kids very openly about the physical mechanics, the emotional impact, and the personal responsibility involved in choosing to have sex.
Yes, we’ve bought them condoms.
In my generation (God - that makes me sound so old!) the risk of unprotected sex was only an unplanned pregnancy and a small chance of a quickly curable STD. In todays world, unprotected sex can equal pregnancy, STDs that left untreated will render you infertile for the rest of your life, or even eventual death.
Yes, we will continue to buy AdoptaTeens condoms.
I have been trying and trying to sort this out and I keep getting lost somewhere around the parenthetical comment. Which two adopted at birth? The two babies that were still in utero? The two that were pregnant were adopted at birth but got pregnant as teens? Who are the pregnant teen girls in foster care and how do they relate to the pregnancies and/or whoever was adopted at birth? 
I do imagine that being a foster parent puts one strongly in the “educate 'em early and thoroughly” camp, and (although I know you don’t need me or anyone else to say it) many, many kudos on you for doing what you do as an Adoptamom.
Our two teenagers were adopted through private adoption agencies at their respective births. Later, two teenage foster daughters came to us, each pregnant at the time they joined our family.
A total of six unplanned pregnancies, four of which I parent and the two babies born to the foster daughters were each placed for adoptions with other adoptive families.
Sorry for the confusion … I knew when I was typing it that I hadn’t done a good job of clarifying but couldn’t think of another way to word it in my original post.
The more I think about this topic, the madder I get at parents who bury their heads in the sand about not discussing or buying contraceptives for their kids because they don’t wish to appear to condone their kids having sex. Yes, we’d all prefer for our kids to wait for a variety of reasons including religious, moral, physical … but realistically how many wait? A good friend of mine who knew her daughter was sexually active refused to discuss birth control, much less sex, with her daughter and then kicked her out when she got pregnant. I’ve often wondered if she would have kicked her out if her daughter had contracted HIV. She (my friend) feels no responsibility for her daughter or her grandchild and instead sits high, mighty, and alone on her white horse of morality.
I still stand by my belief that it’s my responsibility and privilege to educate my children about the beauty of sex in a loving (hopefully married) relationship, to give them to tools to protect themselves if they chose not to wait, and the emotional support for whatever they decide because either choice is hard when you’re a young adult in love.
That’s about the saddest (and yet rage-producing) thing I’ve heard. Just out of curiosity, was your friend that person whose kids wreak havoc all over the neighborhood because she only cares what they’re doing when it inconveniences her?
You know, I’ve talked to my daughter about what would happen if she got pregnant. She knows plenty of girls who have, and we’ve seen their parents reactions all across the spectrum, from banishment to parents taking complete responsibility for the baby.
So basically I said “Should you decide to have and keep a baby, you can live here for as long as you need to. And I’ll babysit when you really *need * me, which does *not * include when you’d like to go to a kegger. And I’ll help you out as much as I can financially, but you may have noticed that won’t be all that much. Ultimately, you won’t be on your own, but you also won’t be skipping around carefree while I raise your kid. If I wanted more children, I’d have had them. So think long and hard on it, kiddo.”
And then I handed her a box of condoms. 