Interestingly, my wife and her 3 sisters were told “not until you are married” and they turned out fine. While my wife didnt wait until she was married, she did wait until well into her twenties. Conversely, her older cousin, who was far more permissive with her kids, became a grandmother at 30.
I think the best approach is to strive to have a good relationship with your kids and encourage them to wait until they are old enough to deal with the potential fiancial consequences of having children. While my wife’s mom was rather strict with her daughters, she was also honest and upfront with them, and,they have a great relationship. My wife, as a teen, held off on sex because she understood the potential consequences of it.
Would I give my child permission to have sex? No, it’s not mine to give. It is their body and they get to make that decision.
The only role I have in my kids’ sex lives is to give them the full and complete picture about what sex is (physically and emotionally) as well as the consequences (again physical and emotional) and hope they make the right decisions at the right time for themselves.
My hope is that if they do make a dumb decision (having sex too soon or pregnancy or disease) that they can come to me with it.
(My husband, however, is on the opposite side of this. He does not get involved in 'the Talk’s (we have had several about varying sexual type topics already and they are 8 & 9). He has decided that he doesn’t want them to have sex and that he knows they will anyway so he just buries his head in the sand.)
It’s a sad day in parenting when teaching can become a mistake. I’ll teach them that the throttle makes the car go faster at the same time that I’ll teach them to respect the speed limit. By teaching them that the throttle makes the car faster, am I teaching them how to circumvent the speed limit?
Not a parent, and my own parents and my husband’s parents screwed us over in the whole preparation for sex area.
So I have no clue what I’ll do. I personally feel like ANY people ought to be encouraged to not get emotionally and physically entangled with other people before their brains are done baking, but since that’s running somewhere around 25 years old, fat chance on that. I made it to around 21 before I even had a boyfriend, and was a technical virgin at marriage at 25, but I know that’s extremely unlikely as well.
I think I’ll just try really hard to inflict logic on them when they’re little, and make sure they know that I’ll love them whatever they do, but I really hope they listen to advice so they don’t get hurt as much by life. It’ll depend on whether the kid is the type that can take advice to heart, or the type that has to burn their own hand to be sure the lesson actually applies to them.
Mainly I just hope I can figure out how to deal with my own issues before it becomes necessary to help them along, so I don’t perpetuate the generational screwededness.
No, you’re not, which is why I’m totally unclear on what you mean when you say
Are you saying:
Good parenting: Don’t have sex until marriage! Condoms plus spermicidal foam are very effective at preventing pregnancy and most STDs.
Bad parenting: Don’t have sex until marriage! But if you do, condoms plus spermicidal foam are very effective at preventing pregnancy and most STDs.
If that’s not what you’re saying, I’m really not getting the distinction you’re drawing.
My daughter came to me when she was 14 and asked to go on the birth control pill. I obviously asked her why, she replied to regulate her period. Fairy nuff. Took her to the doctor, Doc had the chat with her, she was happy for me to stay there, doc asked her the same stuff I had about being sexually active, she wasn’t. So she went on the pill.
For her it apparently means she doesn’t get a period which she’s happy about and her hormones and moods are pretty level.
So when she was 15, she asked me if it was OK if she started “dating” for want of a better term a friend of her brothers who was 18. I knew the kid and gave my blessing for them to “date”, but had a little chat with him first.
The chat constituted me putting my arm around his shoulder and saying: “Mate, she is 15. Legal age of consent is 16. Anything happens before her 16th birthday I’ll break both your fucking legs. After she’s 16 it’s up to her”. this conversation was in her full earshot.
I have had the conversation with her in general terms how it’s always a good idea not to trust the pill completely and use a condom as well. I’ve heard her giving the same advice to girl friends.
So she’s now 21, employed, living with me and after being without a boyfriend for 2 years, has got a new one who sleeps over whenever she’s in the mood to put up with him.
Her 23 yr old brother (my unemployed son) also lives with me and his equally unemployed 19 yr old GF.
While my parents never directly gave me the “talk” about sex they assumed I knew about it and certainly didn’t object when we had Sex Ed in 5th and 7th Grade. While I haven’t talked on this exactly much I think they’re fairly certain that I won’t be having sex anytime soon for various reasons.
I find this astonishing, first because there’s almost no difference between the two, and second because the difference that does exist is only likely to increase the risk of teen pregnancy. Remember, the research shows that kids who receive a very strong no-sex message are less likely to prepare for sex, but not less likely to have sex. The preparation, done with a cool head, looks acceptable to some kids (the kids who receive comprehensive education), but unacceptable to others (the kids who receive a sex=sin message). But the actual decision to have sex is often made in the heat of the moment, and at that point, you’ve either prepared yourself with contraceptives or you haven’t. That moment is not strongly influenced by a no-sex message.
It seems this issue is made more complex by the fact that relatively few parents would totally step out if their underage kid fathered or gave birth to a child. That adds a whole new layer of responsibility and burden to them as well as the kids that mucks things up even further.
Plus, giving permission does not necessarily mean one was asked for it to begin with. Unless you’re planning to never talk about sex until it comes up organically.
I didn’t give my kids permission to have sex. I didn’t forbid them from having sex. They know my moral beliefs and why I hold them. They know I will love them in any case. They also know the emotional, financial and emotional aspects of sex, because their mother and I told them. None of my kids are married, and I honestly don’t know if the 2 older ones are virgins or not. I do know I’m not yet a grandparent (unless you count their dogs), and that is a very good thing.
To MY kids, yes: the moral lesson and the scientific facts.
I explain them all sorts of things, like how cyanide kills, I don’t think this in any way lessens my don’t-kill-people message.
I hope I’ll prepare my kids not to make the decision to have sex in a spur of the moment.
Well, anyway, that’s my message.
