Sorry? What are you talking about? Her father would come to my door to collect his child and sometimes have coffee. Are you thinking he was an imposter? :dubious:
I was kind of wondering that, too. If the dad is dropping off his daughter and returning for her in the morning, where is the lying?
Er…how do you know they are all virgins, if your daughters are on the pill “for acne”? And am I the only one who sees that line about your daughter needing to loosen up as being kind of creepy?
You’re kind of hard on your kids, no? Or has your kid herself declared that she’s too lazy/self-centered?
Can I suggest one teeny tiny addendum to The Talk? Tell her it’s not nice to cocktease. I mean, make it sound all nicey nice and all, but as I’ve been observing my son and the girls around him, some of the girls are just brutal. They’ve thoroughly integrated the self esteem we’ve been trying to give them, and they know that they can say no and guys are horndogs and all that - but they don’t seem to quite grok that *they *have a lot of power over young men, as well. It’s not always the boys that are trying to get the girls all worked up! 
My community has been het up about this a lot this summer: our teens are in the 14-16 year old range, and suddenly the little friends they’ve grown up with have curves and muscles and they’re all sorts of confuddled. To make things more confusing, we’re neopagans - we’re *into *positive sexuality and all that shit, but when it’s our kids involved, we adults are hitting a lot of walls regarding our previous Puritanical programming. Positive sexuality sounds lovely and fantastic in theory, but when you’re envisioning 18 years of child support for your kid’s kids, it’s a little more scary than sacred. And as the mom of a boy, I feel more vulnerable than the mothers of the girls, because there’s not much I can do - there is no male pill. All I can do is ask his uncles to hand him some condoms and hope to the gods he uses them correctly and there are no failures.
In general, we’ve accepted that Teens will be Teens, and we’re pushing the Safety angle: safe physically, safe emotionally and safe communally. That means use protection, make sure everyone’s consenting, and be discrete so no one’s feelings or reputation is hurt. There are some parents taking the “keep the tent doors open!” approach, but I don’t really see much use in that. There is always a way, and a pair of adolescent hormones will find somewhere, sometime to express themselves.
Gah. You think they don’t already get that? AFAIK, the slut/prude dichotomy is alive and well, and both are just a rejected suitor away from being cockteases.
Perhaps I should be more explicit. It’s not nice to literally shake your ass in front of a man’s face, giggle, toss your hair, sit on his lap, kiss his neck, and then act all affronted when he tries to gently touch your tit.
Yeah, I’ve watched my nieces do this. It’s not nice, and it has nothing to do with being a prude or a slut. It’s about underestimating the impact you have on other people and giving them thoroughly mixed signals. It’s also about not assuming that it’s always the boys who are the aggressors.
Well, you’re the one with teenage kids; I’m not. But if I had teenage kids, especially ones still in high school who are not in a position to deal with the results of getting pregnant, I’d want to make DAMN sure they understood the level of responsibility that should come with being sexually active. By the time I was in high school, I had jobs and bought lots of personal items for myself; to me, condoms should fall in the category of things that responsible adults acquire for themselves if they are going to be needed.
The consequences of failing to use a condom properly, even once, are very different than the consequences of failing to use soap properly. Small children can use soap properly, but plenty of adults don’t use condoms properly.
If it were my kid, I’d make sure they knew where to get condoms and how to use them correctly, but no, I can’t picture buying my teenage kid condoms.
This is your argument *against * providing them with condoms?
The “where to get them and how to use them” was covered long ago. I don’t see how that mitigates having a box of them in the medicine cabinet. Granted, my situation probably differs slightly from most parents. I’m single, so I’m buying them anyway. No reason not to share. Also, we’re both allergic to latex, and polyurethane condoms are friggin’ expensive.
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[QUOTE=DianaG]
This is your argument *against * providing them with condoms?
[quote]
Yep. If I had a kid under 18, I wouldn’t be crazy about the idea of them being sexually active, period (and I wasn’t until I was 18, so no hypocrisy there). So this is my way of saying “if you’re old enough to have sex, you ought to be old enough to handle the personal responsibility aspects of it.”
Good - every kid should get that lesson, because even if they don’t use it until later, they will use it at some point. And I do recognize that chances are good that they will use that lesson before age 18.
My mom has also been single since I was 10 or so, and dated quite actively while I was in high school. I’m sure she bought condoms, but she never discussed the particulars with me. I think one’s sexual behavior is a private matter - I generally knew who she was dating at any given time, but to this day I don’t know for sure who she had sex with, and I don’t care to. Mom probably isn’t sure whether I had sex with at least one of the guys I dated as a teenager (I had 1 semi-serious boyfriend in HS when I was too young for the idea of actually having sex with him even to have crossed my mind, and another with whom it almost happened, but didn’t quite, thank God, because he was a loser), but I’m glad she recognized that I was old enough and responsible enough that she could trust my judgment about how much of my sex life to share.
Well, it’s certainly something where mileage varies, but if I had teenage kids, my preference would just be to make sure that they had enough cash to acquire condoms if needed, but the actual acquisition should be up to them. To me, that says “you are responsible for anything relating to being sexually active.”
Yep. If I had a kid under 18, I wouldn’t be crazy about the idea of them being sexually active, period (and I wasn’t until I was 18, so no hypocrisy there). So this is my way of saying “if you’re old enough to have sex, you ought to be old enough to handle the personal responsibility aspects of it.”
Good - every kid should get that lesson, because even if they don’t use it until later, they will use it at some point. And I do recognize that chances are good that they will use that lesson before age 18.
My mom has also been single since I was 10 or so, and dated quite actively while I was in high school. I’m sure she bought condoms, but she never discussed the particulars with me. I think one’s sexual behavior is a private matter - I generally knew who she was dating at any given time, but to this day I don’t know for sure who she had sex with, and I don’t care to. Mom probably isn’t sure whether I had sex with at least one of the guys I dated as a teenager (I had 1 semi-serious boyfriend in HS when I was too young for the idea of actually having sex with him even to have crossed my mind, and another with whom it almost happened, but didn’t quite, thank God, because he was a loser), but I’m glad she recognized that I was old enough and responsible enough that she could trust my judgment about how much of my sex life to share.
Well, it’s certainly something where mileage varies, but if I had teenage kids, my preference would just be to make sure that they had enough cash to acquire condoms if needed, but the actual acquisition should be up to them. To me, that says “you are responsible for anything relating to being sexually active.”
After we had The Talk (more a series of talks, but uncomfortable for all involved) I made it clear that when they were ready for sex, they needed to take the responsibility for sex, too, including contraception. The main thing I urged them to do was to consider delaying sexual activity until they got out of high school. I found out later that my son went to the local Health Department and got their free condoms frequently. I never kept condoms because I didn’t use them.
When my daughter had a serious boyfriend, she just quietly told me she was staying at his house during bad weather rather than drive home after her college classes. I acknowledged the information and left it at that. She knew where to go to get contraception because I had carefully explained that the Health department would provide it to her for free and they would not tell me about it. She even took a few of her friends there.
Both are now married, and mostly we ignore each other’s sex lives, other than the obvious results of sex: grandbabies!
Freudian Slit in order:
Er…how do you know they are all virgins, if your daughters are on the pill “for acne”?
-I only know what they tell me, and I think we are generally pretty honest with each other. And we talk about pretty much anything and everything. I think it is the result from a conscious decision my wife and I made when they were first beginning to speak, that we would try to openly and honestly answer any question they asked us. As a result it always sorta surprises me when people talk about difficulty talking with their kids about sex, drugs, whatever. In our family, if someone wants to discuss something, they bring it up - often around the dinner table. I like it that way.
-Their mom is more intimate with their medical treatment than I. My understanding is that both have been on the pill for several years due to pretty severe acne (as well as other treatments) and also to regulate their periods. I don’t now if you are a guy with teen daughters, but I tend not to perfectly retain what I am told about my daughters’ “female” issues. We openly discussed the dangers of cervical cancer - one of their cousins got it from her husband. Their shots just ended this summer, so that is another reason the topic of their sexuality was raised.
-My son, well, he’s only had a few dates. We recently talked about sex, drugs, and drinking as he headed off to college. He said he “wasn’t interested in one night stands.” I told him recreational sex was not a bad thing, and said compared to college he would likely never be in a situation where more women were willing to have sex.
-So yeah, they could all be lying to me, and have in fact been the town’s biggest hosemonsters since they middle school, but I think not.
And am I the only one who sees that line about your daughter needing to loosen up as being kind of creepy?
-Don’t know why you consider it creepy. Don’t really give a flying fuck either. Hell, I think she could use a drink now and then as well. I’ve only lived with her most of these past 20 years, and I have countless reasons for thinking she would benefit from loosening up and not being as uptight about many things. I think she would be happier. If that makes me a creep, I can live with that.
-Her mom and I were having sex, drinking, and doing drugs when younger than her. Is it creepy for me to think she should experience something I’ve enjoyed so much?
You’re kind of hard on your kids, no? Or has your kid herself declared that she’s too lazy/self-centered?
Since I’m so creepy, I’m reluctant to use the words “hard on” in the same sentence with “my kids.” But yeah, I am. When she had a BF for a couple of weeks a couple of years back, she volunteered that she was ending it because she simply didn’t care to put in the effort involved in having a SO. And I don’t see things having changed greatly over the past couple of years. She is VERY MUCh a creature of comfort. But she is reasonably pleasant (most of the time), gets stellar grades, and helps out as requested around the house - so I’m not complaining.
Whenever I post something like this, it always surprises me that folks are doubtful that I could have pretty honest and open and trusting relationships with my kids. But I’ve become accustomed to that reaction by now.
Sorry, I guess it’s just super different from how I relate to my parents, y’know?
I pretty much never tell them about my dating/sex life. They figured out I had an SO when I went on the pill “for my periods” but then again, I don’t think they assumed that I broke up with SO to just have random sex that last year I was on it…anyways.
I guess I’d just about shit a brick if my dad ever said I needed to get laid and loosen up a bit. I mean, I’m kind of uptight about some things and was way more when I was younger, but still. It would just sound SO WRONG coming from my dad…
She has learned not to do that from watching her friends do it and get hurt. Daughter is a bit more mature than her friends (in some ways) and tends to roll her eyes are their more ridiculous antics. It is a fine line to walk, between not being a cocktease and being a prude (especially since the definitions vary from person to person).
Dinsdale, you’re not alone. Certainly there are boundaries (I don’t discuss my sex life with them by any means and I would never say to any of my kids that I thought they needed to get laid), but at least with my daughter, we are open about this stuff (for the most part). We watch Talk Sex with Susan Whateverhernameis from Canada and comment on stuff. I don’t want to be the person who buys her her first vibrator, but I hope she gets one. They don’t do shit for me, but who am I to impose my likes and dislikes on her? I don’t ever want her to be like me in that sex became both a weapon and a way to please my BF. I had some very fucked up sexual things (no rape or anything) happen in my youth. If being open and discretely honest about some of that helps her, I’ll do it. YMMV.
#1 son will most likely (when he does get a GF) go the whole knight worshipping fair lady bit. It’d be sweet to see that, but I worry about him getting manipulated and used, too. Better that than some skanky teen male who just wants to add notches to his belt.
#2 son assures me that he is going to get a job and stay home with (ie live with) me and help me when I’m old. He’s 10 and a daily blessing. 