Judge for yourself. You’re capable of reading both threads. If you have a problem with me start a pit thread.
What Algher posted would be my answer, as well. They presumed I was doing those things and were appropriately cautionary about it. They were not very knowledgable of the specifics, though. They weren’t judgemental about the moral aspect as much as concerned for my safety. I was a reasonably careful kid, and I never got in any trouble, made good grades, respected my elders, etc, so things were OK. That’s mostly concerning drinking and smoking pot. As far as sex goes, I was not anywhere near as sexually active as a typical teenage boy would like to be, haha!
I didn’t answer the poll, because none of the choices really seemed to fit.
My sexual activity was relatively limited (I think you guys would say I didn’t go past third base); my drinking was assumed and “directed” in the way that was common, accepted and legal back then. That is, I had gotten a first sip of beer when I was 7 from Dad’s glass (and opined it was “yuck”), I had tried champagne in family lunches (I liked brut but not the sweet kinds) as well as wine (needle wines and other dry whites are ok, red gives me a headache) and sangria (you’ve got to be careful with that one, specially if it’s sweet: that often means it’s got something stronger than bad red wine); then about age 13 I could start attending “junior dance clubs” and other parties where the only alcohol available was beer (and people didn’t bother bootleg harder liquor; pills, yes, liquor no); the culture among my peers despised drunkards and I hate being dizzy, which is my first symptom, so I never got drunk (getting drunk once because you didn’t know your limits was ok, maybe 1 in 4 of us did it; getting drunk more than once was considered a sign of stupidity and doing it on purpose was just not in our radar). My parents knew I drank, but they also knew I didn’t get drunk.
Drinking and driving wasn’t a possibility, I got my license at 22 and my first car at 25 (both of which are quite normal for Spain).
I wasn’t sure how to answer either. For my father, he didn’t officially know, but I think he did, and his intuition led him to meeting my friend’s parent. For my mother, she knew, but not because of any basic parenting skills; I told her because I knew she wouldn’t care.
My father passed away before I got serious about partying and girls. My mom did a wonderful job. I can’t say for sure if she knew or not. If she knew, she was kind enough not to let on.
Bri2k
I don’t start Pit threads. I try to avoid the Pit entirely. There’s a sacred story that explains why.
Returning to the thread topic: my mother, a wonderful woman, once testified* to her pride in the fact that my oldest brother was a virgin when he married, adding that she was certain her other children were following his example. While I cannot speak for the majority of my siblings, I am certain that my closest sister in age was far from virgin when we graduated high school; I frequently smuggled sexier clothes into and out of the house for her, and a few times acted as a reverse chaperone as well. I can think of other ways my other sisters pulled the wool over our parents’ eyes as well.
*I.e., publicly spoke about during a Pentecostal church service, as part of the ritual praising God for all the good He had done.
Never drank, didn’t get laid until college and I’m sure that my dad’s reaction when he figured it out was more of a “it’s about damned time, son” than anything negative.
Well, since my father walked in on me and my girlfriend in mid-debauch once, I figure they knew I was sexually active. The boozing was also rather blatant.
I was very boring and didn’t do any of that.
However, my younger brother drank plenty, had sex, and did drugs all the way through high school. He is through college now and my parents still don’t know about it.
I had no life, and my parents knew this.
I am (was?) simply pathetic.
Of course, I notice that that last response is currently the most-chosen, so I may have at long last found my crowd.
My parents didn’t know or didn’t care about my sexual activity till I told them I was gay at 18, it then became an issue and I was disowned.
I didn’t drink till I was 21.
I’ve never used illegal drugs.
I think it’s possible for good parents to be unaware of their child’s sexual activities. I think drinking is a bit harder for good parents to miss.
My mom may have suspected something since I was always taking “long walks” to relieve stress. Unfortunately, she would’ve been wrong. I never had sex until I was 20 with my gf, and when she asked I said yes and she pretty much just went “k… Use a condom!”
Drinking I also never did, still don’t. Most alcohol tastes like shit to me, what most people call “weak” I call “you seriously can’t think of a way to water this down more?” I also hate the feeling of being buzzed, I mostly just have trouble completing my thoughts which makes me very irritable. Trying it didn’t bother my mom in the least though, since 15 or so she’s freely offered to let me have small samples of alcohol, which I declined back then due to total lack of interest.
I guess my mom’s pretty cool, but then I guess this all makes me rather boring :p.
You don’t have an option for parents who incorrectly assume their teen is drinking and sexually active.
Wouldn’t that depend on the amount of drinking?
My older brother and a pair of our cousins (all of them about the same age) regaled me a few years back with tales of when one of them would get drunk and the other would would conspire to keep all the parents out of the loop. They were pretty good at it.
Out of control drinking might be hard to conceal, but planned intoxications, done with a reasonable amount of savvy, could easily be hidden.
I voted “parents knew but parenting skill had nothing to do with it”.
This had nothing to do with my parents’ skills, but rather the fact that it took no skill to tell that I had been drinking when my friends’ parents called them to let them know that they came home to find me in their backyard barely conscious and vomiting, still slurring the excuse I had told my parents when I went there.
A few years later, I videotaped it.
My parents knew about my teenage drinking because i regularly came home drunk. No idea what they knew about my sex life, i certainly didn’t tell them anything and don’t see why they would need to know anything.
My mom caught me with a girl in my bedroom when I was 15. Had she come in about 10 minutes later, things would have gotten really bad. As it was, we were simply starting with the kissy-face, huggy-body before we got interrupted.
My sole sex education lecture came from that: “I hope you’re being careful.”
I didn’t drink as a teen, but I’m fairly certain they didn’t know about any sex I had. I know for a fact they didn’t know I smoked for 3 years while living at home because I asked my mom about it.
Yes, this was the telling clue :p. First time I got drunk it was at home and I got REALLY drunk. The evidence could not have gone unnoticed by even the most clueless parent. Pot smoke, too, it turns out is harder to camouflage than one might think as a feckless teen.
Sex I was always much more discreet about.
Yes, the knew it was no big deal to them. They told me what to expect and what they expected out of me. When I didn’t do it, they said, they expected me not to.