That’s just the thing, tho. That’s what we’re trying to tell you - kids/teens having sex IS a spur of the moment thing.
Kids/teens having sex is not very often a “decision.”
What we’re trying to convey to you is that *Decision =/= spur of the moment activity. *
Course, what do I know - I got told NOTHING other than “don’t do it” and I managed to stay a virgin until marriage. I’m still totally fucked up on the subject, and am amazingly uneducated about even the most basic facts, but hey - I didn’t have “sex” before I got married! (Don’t think too hard about all the other “not sex” stuff I DID do, and did unsafely, because no one told me about them so I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do them either… )
This is why I think comprehensive sex education should be mandatory. It does not encourage teen’s to have sex and it is information about your own body and health that everyone should know.
I don’t have kids, but this seems like a healthy way to teach your kids about sex while recognizing their autonomy.
My point is teaching that one should never be in a position to make an important decision in a spur of the moment (especially when they are young). It worked for me and my four siblings.
As I said, the message is never only “don’t do it”. I’ll answer any question they have (like explaining my 9-year old daughter what anal sex was), so they’ll always know.
When our maid ot pregnant without being married it wasn’t “cast her into the fierey pits of Gehenna” it was “how can we help you with your preganancy and after that”. and when the kids asked about her premarital sex, they had all the answers they wanted and basically no condemantion (except for “we don’t approve but it’s her life and we now help her and the kid”).
I would strongly prefer her to wait until marriage to have sex … so if she chose not to wait (full disclosure - I wasn’t a virgin when I married, either), I’d disapprove on moral grounds.
That said, I’d be MUCH more disappointed if she started having sex at, say, 14 than if she waited until she was 21.
I would much prefer that she did. However I’m well aware of how hard it is to wait regardless of how strongly one believes they should. If she were 28 and unmarried, while I’d PREFER for her to wait, I would not be surprised to find out that she didn’t/hadn’t/wasn’t going to. It wouldn’t change how I feel about her.
That said if someone is NOT going to wait – I’d rather see them postpone sex as long as possible. There’s a world of difference between having sex at 15 vs. 22.
A month later, and I feel obligated to point out that it’s only sex. Sexual play has been a standard part of adolescence since before we came down from the trees. We try to model proper eating habits and social norms for our children; why try to put a wall around sex?
Sexual attraction is part of life. It is very nice if it manifests in a mutually respectful relationship, but no one can count on that. Sometimes you are hungry and there is nothing but fast food available, sometimes you are horny and not in a committed relationship. We need to teach our children how to handle these situations.
(Disclaimer: both of my daughters are adults at 22 and 19-next-month-20. I don’t know if I would have said this when they were 8 and 6, but hindsight gives perspective.)
i have a 13 year old daughter and she has sex with her 12 year old boyfriend. he is in a wheelchair and is discriminated a lot by the other kids. my daughter is one of the few the that talks to him at school. when they statred dating i gave her condoms and told her of the dangers out there. she is very smart for her age and i trust her a lot.
Wow. This is one weird thread. It’s like the SDMB is this bastion of liberal-sciencey-progressiveness, and then once in a while you come across this little pocket of Decent Morality. FWIW, making abstinence the only option to teenagers is moronic and, no matter how pure the intentions, extremely dangerous. I agree with DMark completely - parents should just lay it all out with as little shaming or embarrassment as possible.
As for promoting no sex before marriage . . . seriously, I honestly believed no one outside the Amish actually thought that was a good idea anymore. Jesus Christ, people, it’s the 21st century.
ETA: Argh, zombie thread. It’s not from 500 years ago, though, so some of these posts are still bizarre.
One thing I know now that I didn’t know then is that Ají de Gallina is *very *strongly anti-choice. I do have to admit that if I was anti-choice, I’d be a whole lot more anti-sex-before-marriage than I am. Birth control fails. Birth control in the hands of teens fails more often.
While I hope neither my boyfriend’s girlfriend or my daughter need to have an abortion, I do know it’s an option I would support should they want one, which takes a bit of the terror out of unintended pregnancy. I only have to worry about them if they don’t want an abortion; Aji de Gallina has to worry about them if they don’t want an abortion and if they do. That’s a pretty big burden.
Heck no. The kid cannot remember his homework half the time you expect me to trust him to remember to use a condom correctly? Even adults have “accidents”.
But really the best thing is to watch your kids and keep them out of trouble. Keep them involved in sports, band, scouts, church and other activities. Encourage group activities. If he wants to study with his girlfriend thats fine but its going to be in a supervised place like our house or the library. If he wants to take her on a date it will be a chaperoned activity. For example when he was 13 he took a girl to the movie. I went with them and bought the tickets. Then I handed them the tickets and money for the concession stand, then let them go. They picked their own seats while I sat far away. He also took her bowling and I just gave them the money and let them have fun (I sat way in the back). One can chaperone without being overbearing.
Its funny because both times he took a shower without having to be told.
And sure I’ll tell him that sex is great and all. But its something to look forward to later on. But not while hes still under my roof. Now once he is out of the house and off to college he can do whatever the he wants.
Both of my kids married their only lover and have been happily married for over 20 years each. That being said my son started younger than I would have liked about 16 and I gave him implied permssion by approving of the relationship. My daughter was 21. My wife wanted to give her birth control at 14 and I disapproved so we had seperate talks with our kids on the subject. I stressed that love was an important element of sex and a gift she could save for her husband that he would appreciate for ever.
I live in a state where the age of consent is 18. I told my teens that if they loved their partner, they should wait until they were 18 and not subject anyone to that legal risk. They are now older than 18. I haven’t explicitly told them “go ahead”, but when the family went to a family camp event, I told the guy doing housing that it was okay with me and my husband if my 19 year old son shared a room with his 21 year old girl friend. And, as I expected, that got back to him. So I guess that counts.
That sounds creepy as hell to me. Sex should not be a gift from one to another. It should be something a person does because they want to, because it’s what they both want. And this makes it all about what her husband appreciates instead of what she wants. It’s cast completely in terms of her-to-him without regard to what she should want for her own sake instead of some hypothetical future husband’s (what if she doesn’t want to marry, ever?). And I don’t value virginity at all - it’s only the state of not having done something. And the reason you haven’t done it can range from “never had the opportunity” to “felt too guilty” to “didn’t feel that way about anyone” to whatever else. Her future husband might feel the same way and not care at all if he’s the first.