I didn’t give my boys permission, I gave them condoms.
I don’t have kids myself (yet) but there is no “giving them permission” as I see it. You educate them, you try to protect them from unintended consequences that they aren’t smart enough to deal with, and you support them. Sometimes support is stern discipline and sometimes it is tacit understanding.
Yeah I am in the “don’t have kids” camp but I could see me leaving a box of condoms in their nightstand with a post-it saying “I am not giving you permission but YOU DO NOT BRING A BABY INTO THIS HOUSE!”
I realize we’re coming from very different places, but here’s the deal from my perspective:
A lot of people believe, usually as part of their religious belief system, that sex with people you’re not married to is wrong. I understand that POV; that was how I used to feel about it myself. I’m less sure about it now, but it’s a moot point: I’ve been married 22 years, and I’m not going to do anything that would undermine the integrity of our marriage, which would include infidelity.
So I’m OK with people buying into what most Dopers would consider the old-fashioned notion of no sex before marriage. The question to me is, once you believe that, how important is it relative to other things?
The reality is, having a baby at a young age can really mess up your life. (And those who believe in abstaining from sex before marriage as part of their religious beliefs also tend to be against terminating pregnancies as part of that same belief system, so I’m assuming that’s out.) It throws a major monkey-wrench into three lives: the boy and girl who have to become a man and a woman before their time, and of course the child they conceive, unless they give it up for adoption.
So as a parent, I have to ask which is more important in God’s eyes: that I teach my son not to have sex before marriage, or to do my best to ensure that he doesn’t screw up his own and two other lives by becoming a father before he’s ready.
I long ago came down on the side of the second option. YMMV, and probably does, but I did want to try to explain why I came to a different choice, from a perspective that’s at least somewhat closer to yours than most Dopers.
How can you have a rule about what they can do once they’re adults?
I agree with the comments that “permission” seems strange in this context. I always stressed PRIC - personal responsibility, informed consent - with my sons.
You would be disappointed if you had a 30-year old child and discovered they were having premaritial sex?
It seems to me, then, that if you told, say, your 14-year old “Hey, I would really advise you to not have sex at this age”, then you’d have to withdraw that objection at some point, or you are right back at “You’re ready to have sex when you are willing to disobey”. And withdrawing an objection is pretty close to giving permission.
We are not raising children. We are raising adults. A big part of this is giving them the tools they need to make decisions on their own.
As in my exchange with Little Nemo, I think that for a lot of people “Not actively forbid” is the same as “Give permission”. For example, years ago, “safe sex” advocates often would encourage people to have this conversation with their kids 'I don’t want you having sex as a teenager, I think it’s a bad idea, but if you do, here is the information you need to be safe". The sea-change that has happened in the last ten years involves that first line: should a parent discourage a teen from having sex? Is it generally desirable that teens wait until marriage or, at least, graduation, to have sex? I think that’s what the OP is asking, not if a parent would go to a kid and be like “Ok, you and Jenny have been going steady for six months, and she’s a nice enough girl. We let you start going to third base two months ago, and you mom and I have decided you’re allowed a home run now”. That would just be creepy.
Whereas “don’t do it” means, “don’t prepare for it, but if it happens in the heat of passion, that’s understandable.” Kids who get the abstinence-until-marriage message have more unprotected sex resulting in more disease and more pregnancies than kids who get the “use protection” message. If you’re cool with that, you’re cool with that, but if you’re not, you may want to rethink.
To use your example, would you consider it disobedience if your child was 30? At some point, you’re no longer in charge of your child’s life.
If I tell my fourteen year old kids I don’t want them to have sex at their age that doesn’t mean I have to withdraw that objection at some future point. When they’re twenty years old, my no sex when you’re only fourteen rule will still be in effect. It just won’t apply to them anymore so they wouldn’t be disobeying it if they have sex.
I’d hope as a parent, I’d have the sense to not make a rule like you can never have sex ever. That’s a rule that almost certainly would lead to disobedience.
LHOD, can you provide a cite? Not being snarky; I’m genuinely interested. To answer the OP, I have five kids, four girls and a boy. Their step-mother and I explain that waiting until adulthood is the only right thing to do, but they also get information about safe sex; no permission given. The bio-mom encourages the girls to have sex. She and I do not get along.
HA! Yes, exactly. The year it looked to be imminent, I had a couple of trusted male friends he considers Uncles give him condoms and offer their tips and advice on how to put the damn things on properly in the fumbling virginal heat of the moment. And I intentionally supplied an abundance of condoms, which I found trash bin evidence that he did indeed practice with before the big event.
And two or three years before that, I gave him my perspective on dating and Girls Can Be Confusing (and so can boys) and how getting to know how relationships work is hard enough without bringing sex into it, so I highly recommend waiting for sex until you feel like maybe you’re getting a grasp on dating.
We’ve had many casual, theoretical conversations about consent around the dining room table (or rather, the living room couch, ‘cause we don’t usually eat at the table 
). Not just sexual consent, but medical and financial. Not just the people having sex, but the consent of the people around them - sharing the apartment or in the next tent over. It’s not fair or to subject others to your sexual shenanigans without their consent, so learn how to be discrete, respectful of your partners’ reputation, etc.
He’s heard me express my frustration about the attempts to legislate abortion out of existence, the erratic availability of Emergency Contraception, and the impotence of men in the “do we keep it?” decision making process if a woman does end up pregnant. She wants to “keep it,” you have zero input and you *will *open your wallet and your schedule and be a Daddy, whether you’re ready to or not, and whether your peers are doing the same or not. This Mama won’t cotton to a deadbeat dad living under her roof.
When he was 17, we moved and needed to get him a new bed. I suggested a queen instead of a twin, and did indeed mention that if he had overnight guests, it just made sense for everyone to be comfortable. He hasn’t had any overnight guests, but I think that’s pretty tacit approval on my part. Permission, like enthusiastic consent, need not always be explicit to be communicated.
Raising responsible sexual adults is a whole lot more involved than Tab A goes in Slot B. I can’t manage that in The Talk; we’ve had dozens of Talks. At no time did I ever say, “Son, you’ve finished the curriculum…go forth and get laid!” But he knows my values, he’s been given plenty of opportunities to discuss and develop his own values, and he knows where the bucket of condoms is in the closet.
It’s been years since I’ve heard the research, but here’s a quick cite:
Someone who understands stats better than I do will need to unpack that, but I believe it supports what I said.
The news reports I heard many years ago said that abstinence-only education tended to discourage kids from keeping contraception around, but was not very effective at actually discouraging sex. The decision to obtain contraception is made rationally and can be effectively influenced by a kid’s education; but the decision to have sex is more often made emotionally or hormonally and is less susceptible to educational programs.
My point is that if you tell your fourteen year old, “I think you should wait to have sex.” what do you answer when he says “How long?”, I don’t think it’s enough to say “You’ll know”, because the fact that he’s asking suggests that he doesn’t know, and wants guidance. If you don’t want to answer “Until you get married”, which I agree is a stupid answer, then what DO you answer? “Until you are in love” is bad, because it encourages kids to convince themselves they are in love to justify sex, and then to stay in that relationship because it keeps the sex ok: if they break up with someone after having sex, then they didn’t love them, and if they didn’t love them, they are a slut. (Teen logic is odd). “Until you are prepared to deal with the consequences” is a bad answer because they don’t understand what that means, and frankly I don’t think you are prepared to deal with all the consequences pretty much ever. “Until you graduate from high school” is actually not a bad answer, although arbitrary. But it at least gets you to a point where it’s not the worst idea ever to have sex.
I guess what I am saying is that you can’t just always kick the can down the road and say “You’ll know when you’re ready, but I’m never going to say it’s ok. After a while I will just quit saying it’s not ok, and look the other way”. To me, that’s the approach of a parent who is uncomfortable with their child having sex, and would rather pretend that it isn’t/won’t happen. That leaves the kid with the idea that there is something wrong/shameful/off about having sexual relationships, and I don’t think that’s healthy.
I like WhyNot’s “Until you have this dating thing down”, and I also think it’s important to have her on-going conversation about consent: to my mind, the two most important things about sex are safety and a lack of exploitation on either side: both exploiting and being exploited are damaging, and you can take on either role out of thoughtlessness, not malice. That, more than anything, is what would concern me as a parent.
It’s all pretty simple. Teenagers don’t wait for permission to do things. So you just ask yourself, what do your children need more, permission or condoms?
Boom!
I won’t tell my daughters it’s OK but I’m sure as hell gonna make sure they have condoms and whatever other method of birth control they want.
Wouldn’t a more realistic question be “Teens: Do you/would you give your parents permission to have sex?”
My parents didnt want me to have sex when I was a teen. They were annoyed on laundry day with my having wet dreams, too. They were angry about me pooping in my diapers when I was an infant, and I was given stern disapproval for having been a fertilized egg and thereby screwing up their young happy plans. So I confess I see parental anti-sexuality through that lens.
I don’t have kids, and never will.
However, I am somewhat perplexed at some of the answers here.
You give 16 year old kids weeks/months of driver’s training and go over all of the safety factors: speed limit, no texting while driving; never drink and drive; be very careful in bad weather; check for oil and air in the tires and gas; be home at a decent hour; call if there is an emergency. All of that to save their lives and protect the $ investment in the car. That kid know the ins and outs of car safety and responsibility and has trust that if anything goes wrong, they can and should call you immediately!
Yet when it comes to sex, you give them perhaps a 5 minute chat, maybe some rubbers for the boys and birth control for the girls and then hope all works out well. And then you are surprised when you find out you might suddenly become grandparents or your kids have STD’s or worse.
If parents spent half the time preparing kids to go out and have safe, sane, protected sex as they do teaching them to bring home the family car in one piece, perhaps a lot of those issues would go away?
I think that, based on the way a lot of the comments are framed, you’re probably assuming that talking about sex is something that happens once in a kid’s lifetime, then once the box is checked, the parents move on to something else. You might be surprised to know that The Talk isn’t necessarily something that happens in 5 minutes. In my opinion, it’s something that happens over the course of many years, starting whenever they first become curious enough to ask about it in the first place. You start with age appropriate answers to things like, “Where do babies come from?” all the way to “If you’re gonna do, it use birth control,” which is generally stated a heck of a lot more than once.
A lot of it is about developing trust. Your kids need to know you’ll be honest with them and won’t flip out if they have a question. My mom talked to me regularly about sex from well before the moment I first started dating, laying out for me the consequences of getting too intimate too fast on many occasions - not just once. She was also very explicit about what would happen when I got pregnant. That, coupled with very detailed and graphic sexual education in school, made me well aware of the risks involved.
I think the biggest difference between when I learned about sex (80s-90s) is that girls especially were made to feel very ashamed about their bodies and touching themselves. I try not to do that with my kids (i.e., if I see them do it, tell them to do it in private, not state, “That’s filthy.”). Other than that, my mom always gave me honest, factual answers about sex in a way I could understand.