Yeah, granting my permission is a bit too weird in this context.
I have an 11 year old daughter. Kids have sex, it’s a fact of life - and thinking anything other would make me a fool. I haven’t had The Talk with with my daughter, rather I strive for ongoing conversation (as well as an ongoing literary event) - I drop details into conversations whenever there is an opportunity - all factual with a generally neutral attitude.
I’ve taken the “body is ready before the brain” angle with her - physiologic and neuroscientific reasoning of which I’ve been raising her to respect. Bonding, emotions, the pain of heartbreak - all things to consider. I ask of her to respect herself and to not be in a hurry. We’ve got a good back-and-forth going on with the topic.
She understands the basics of birth control and that I will certainly make sure she has access to it if she wants it. I told her about Planned Parenthood and other clinics in case she wants to bypass me. Less neutral, I stress the absolute importance of not getting pregnant and to protect from disease. Basically, I try to not make sex out to be a mystery or something we don’t talk about. Knowledge is power (protection), or so I hope.
Oh - adding one thought - what is with the ‘saving it for marriage’? IMHO, I doubt there is going to be much new marriage taking place in 10 or 15 more years - it is not gaining in popularity - among heterosexuals right now, anyway. So ‘save it’ for what in that case?
The argument that “kids have sex anyways” is silly from both an empirical and logical perspective. Probably the majority of my high school acquaintances are yet virgins due in large part to teen sex being less of a cultural norm amongst Asian-Americans. Additionally, this goes against the fundamental liberal idea that human nature even if not perfectible it at least modifiable through education, anymore than bullying or schoolyard racism is “kids just being kids”.
I’m not sure what statistical trends in marriage have to do with anything. Presumably the people telling their kids this would want them to get married and thus break the trend. Its not as if marriage is dead as an institution and we are turning to breeding like cavemen.
My basic rules for my two daughters are
a) Not while you’re still living in my house - once you’re mature enough to have moved out of home, be earning your own money and running your own life, then you’re mature enough for sex
b) We can talk about whatever you want to know about sex
c) No overnight guests until the above - once you have “left home” you are welcome to have your boyfriend share your room - married or not.
d) I will not give you “endorsement” to have sex, and I don’t want to know the details, but I will “close one eye” and pretend not to know
e) Any problems you are having - you come and talk to me, and I will ALWAYS help without judging
In general yes, kids have sex. But does it have to be your kid? Sure they might WANT to. But should you just endorse it because “kids will be kids”?
There is nothing wrong with setting boundaries and rules for living under your roof. I’ve seen too many teen pregnancies and a kid who cannot remember his homework cannot be trusted to use birth control correctly.
Besides around here teen dating is much different from when I was growing up in the 80’s. Most kids dont even have a “steady” bf or gf and they certainly dont car date like we did. You dont see parents allowing house parties where they let all these kids have the run of their house to drink and do whatever. “Dates” are usually group events like they all show up at the movie theater together.
The times I do hear of kids having sex is when they are home after school and before their parents return from work.
No, it does not have to be my kid - returning to my point, though - it probably will be my kid and most everyone else’s, too. The “not my kid” line of thinking is what I think sends a lot of kids out there unprepared for what is often inevitable. My strategy is not to endorse the behavior; it is to educate her with factual information that she can apply if or when she is faced with making such a decision. My hope is that it will be more effective than the alternative which seems to be ‘just don’t do it’.
But, like I said back when this thread was new, at what point **do **you endorse the behavior? There’s a huge difference between “I don’t really want you having sex, but if you must, here’s how to be safe” and “Sex can be a beautiful, powerful, amazing experience, and once you are [whatever age] it’s a pretty normal part of human relationships/the human experience. But you have to be safe.”
I have told my children that I want them to wait until they are married. We have discussed (and continue to discuss) the reasons. Yes, some are religious, but some are physical and emotional, as well. Like tuesdayweld, I consider the “sex talk” to be an ongoing discussion rather than a one-time event, so my kids and I have a rather open dialogue that pleases me.
However, I take the stance that I want my children to be “wise as serpents yet innocent as doves”. They know about the beauty of sex, many forms of birth control, STDs, adoption, abortion, the Gardasil vaccine, etc. They know that I will answer their questions, that I will talk to them about anything at all, no matter how much it may embarrass me, because I want them to have real answers.
Now, do I expect them to be 30 and virgins if they are still unmarried? Well, in my ideal world, yes, I do. Realistically, once they are adults, I know (and, more importantly, they know) that they will be responsible for their lives and the decisions they make, so whether they are or aren’t won’t be my business. Everything I teach them is with that end goal of self-responsibility in mind.
I agree, but the issue I have with your focus on age is, like all freedoms/responsibilities, it just depends. It depends not only on my kid, but on their prospective partner and their relationship. I’ve known (only a couple of) 16 year olds who were mature, thoughtful and realistic enough about sex to have what I would consider responsible, rewarding, awesome sex lives. And I know (more than a few) 50 year olds who still can’t manage it.
Oh, I agree that age is a lousy proxy–it’s just the standard in the OP. My point is just that up until about 20 years ago, maybe 10, the default was “It’s never ever okay, it’s just an unfortunate inevitability” or maybe “it’s okay as long as we all agree to pretend it’s not happening”. The change there has been so rapid I think a lot of people didn’t notice it happened–it just seamlessly became the new normal. Which, actually, now that I think about it, is exactly what the conservatives were worried would happen if we started talking to kids about sex and protection. So they were right about that, but I disagree that it’s a bad thing.
Yes and no. I think what they feared was that this “permissive” culture would lead to more teens having sex sooner. Which has absolutely not happened. In fact, the reverse is true:
I get what you are saying and I don’t disagree, but I also think that for a lot of people normalizing extramarital sex is every bit as bad as the frequency of it. The worry was/is as much about the culture as a whole degenerating as it was about the fate of individual souls.
What I find odd about persons my age is although we grew up in a permissive culture and most of us had some pretty wild sexual lives, we are still scared to death of having “the talk” to our kids about sex. I mean we grew up in the 80’s, not the 50’s, in the age of movies like “Last American Virgin”. but we are still so nervous about talking about sex.
Actually that brings up another point. They don’t make teen sex movies much anymore.
When Dweezil went off to college, we made him buy a package of condoms at the drugstore. We didn’t seriously expect him to use them, as he’s socially VERY awkward (high functioning autism). It was more to demystify the process than anything else. As far as I know, he has never used them - certainly hasn’t been on a date or any other kind of social outing since he returned from college.
Moon Unit is finishing high school this year. The discussion we’ve had with her basically boils down to my thought that there is no good reason for a high schooler to have sex. ‘I Wanna’ is not a good reason, at that age. Too many issues at play, and I think most kids in that age group are NOT mature enough to deal with the precautions and potential repercussions. A similar discussion was not needed with Dweezil at that age, because he had even less of a social life than Moon Unit does.
But I also stressed to her that if she does, she had DAMN well better make sure precautions are taken, and consider what might happen (she’s flat out said that if she turned up pregnant, she’d probably give the baby up for adoption).
In fact she is on oral contraceptives, though for skin and menstrual issues. She says (and I actually believe her, as there simply haven’t been opportunities) that she is not having sex with anyone. The doctor and I have reminded her that if she does, she has to make sure that she is taking the pill reliably - and use condoms anyway.
The ex, who was more of a stickler when it came to sex, had the talk with our daughter. When she was 16 or so, she went with her to the doctors office, they discussed everything including options with the doctor, and opted for the pill.
We had discussed it long before this, the ex and I, and she suggested that she would rather our daughter had all the facts up front, understood the facts and had safe sex. I couldn’t argue with her position, and it worked just fine for our daughter.
Being the father of a daughter is a delicate position. As every father knows, no man is good enough for his daughter. That said, I really don’t want to know she is having sex, but knowing she could be safely, makes me feel ok about it.
She is 22 now, and is quite responsible with her relationships. So what we did worked out well for all of us.
While it’s profoundly uncomfortable to contemplate, I think parents of daughters also need to keep in mind that rape happens. Your little girl might be raped, and get pregnant through absolutely no fault of her own. So if you’re putting off the contraception discussion because she’s not ready to have sex yet, remember that it may not be her choice.
How likely do you think it is that they will disobey you? As kids get older, their reasoning skills begin to develop, and they may eventually decide that religion is not a very good framework to base your life on (a view which I very strongly share). Furthermore, they will inevitably discover that emotional reasons are even less universally valid. They may make a lot of sense to you, personally, because, after all, they stem from your own emotions. But your children’s emotions will be shaped by entirely different events, making your emotional arguments inapplicable to them.
Do you have any plans to enforce your wish in other ways, if they decide that they want to have sex anyway, permission or not?
