I’m not a parent, so take this with a grain of salt.
MHO is that any attempt at preventing teenagers from having sex with each other is, at best, foolhardy. My parents’ approach (mid 80’s) was “Don’t have sex until you’re married, but if you’re going to do it, don’t let me catch you*, and make sure you’re using protection.”
Had Mrs. Homie and I had kids, we’d have told them about protection, making sure they’re emotionally ready, etc., but I wouldn’t discourage them from it in any way at all. If we’d had a daughter she’d have gotten on the pill shortly after her first period.
*Mammahomie walked in on me and my gf at the time in various stages of undress. She told her, in no uncertain times, that it was time for her to go home. Then she lectured me for a little while.
You just tell them, “You can have sex when you’re in college.” It postpones them from having sex now and it encourages them to get good grades. Win win.
If I had children, I would give them permission to have sex unless they were preteens or they were in an obviously dangerous situation. However, I wouldn’t bring it up myself unless asked until they were 16, or 15 if they were dating. I’m not sure what type of dating I’d be okay with for a 13 or 14 year old so I can’t really answer w/r/t that.
I would say, until you know you are capable of minimizing the probability of / dealing with any potential adverse consequences. This would include a) emotional ramifications (the women in my family in particular seem to have problems with equating sex with emotional intimacy, even when they were clear about the difference before sex!), b) accidental pregnancy, and c) STDs. (I’m not saying you need to have a detailed plan, just that you are mature enough that you know you could deal with it, if you needed to.)
If your plan for accidental pregnancy is “have Mom and Dad deal with it,” you are not ready for sex.
By this definition, I knew kids in high school who were ready for sex. I also have known adults who weren’t ready for sex. (I personally wasn’t (emotionally) ready for sex until I was almost thirty – long story about parental control and lack of emotional independence – but I’m not planning on telling my kid that unless she really wants to know, which I’m betting she doesn’t.)
(This is, of course, orthogonal to Immunity. I would like to teach my kid that if she really needs help for whatever reason, she can ask for it and it will be fine. If she really did get pregnant in high school or whatever, we’d deal with it. And also I intend to show her how to use condoms, because just because one is not emotionally mature enough for sex doesn’t mean that one is not going to have sex.)
That being said, the Kid is 3, so we’ll see how well this works in practice…
ETA: All that is to say, of course, that I’m going to bookmark WhyNot’s post and refer to it obsessively over the next fifteen years
First of all, thanks for the politeness.
Second I firmly believe that any message that is not “not until you’re married” simply kills the message. Hoewever, we’re pretty scientifi-minded so any and all questions regarding how contraception works will be fully answered, inlcuding of course, our moral position on them.
Third, it’s not something that will be the most important worry of my life thinking if my teens are having sex. They know wahat we’ve taught them and, as with anything else, they’ll make their own choices.
If I teach something is wrong, I can’t teach how to circumvent my teachings ("Don’t drink and drive, but drive slowly and wear a safety belt if you do).
The no-farting-on-the-table rule will remain in effect forever. Once they stop living in my house (which in my country means usually late 20s). Anyway, any rule depends on the kids every time they go out of the house.
In a way, yes. I (statistically) expect that they will and I would not change our relationship. They will never have my permission (even when they no longer need my permission or heed it)
If the only message about sex is “don’t”, then you’re a stupid parent.
If you say “don’t” and give them all the information they could need, then don’t worry.
So you don’t feel it’s appropriate for teens to have sex, or at least not until they are close to 19, or do you simply feel it’s not appropriate for parents to explicitly endorse sex before that point?
I *would *want her to come to me and talk to me about birth control but I would make my disapproval and disappointment clear. And the boy’s parents would know what was going on, too.
For some (lucky) people, the pill is basically a side-effect free miracle drug. If you are one of those people, or if you believe that experience to be typical, then putting a girl on some sort of hormonal contraceptive as soon as she is fertile is a logical choice. If, on the other hand, you are one of the people for whom any hormonal birth control is a nightmare of mood swings, depression, weight gain, irritability, and complete loss of libido, and even any interest in life, then this advice seems asinine.
I would fully support my kid to have sex. In fact, I would be creepily enthused about it, to the point where it turns them off to sex. Reverse psychology
This is part of the ‘compromise’ style that parents use more and more.
It parallels the similar approach of “You can drink alcohol, but you have to do it here at the house when we’re around.”
What that translates to it is, ‘we can’t trust you, so we’ll meet you half way.’
Or for some parents it also means ‘we don’t know how to stop you or discipline you, so we’ll give in to your demands out of fear of what you might do next.’
Parenting is not a democracy, it’s an absolute. Either your kids do as their told or you knock some sense into them.
Any parent who open allows minority sexual relations should be imprisoned. The fact they suggest a condom just shows how utterly vapid they are to think that’s somehow a safety measure - for the real damage is that it increasingly encourages children to engage in risky behavior which will ultimately lead to irrevocable mistakes.
