Just as a mild hijack: I started the pill on the first day of my cycle, which should have protected me immediately, plus my new husband was out of the country for three weeks between our honeymoon and my moving over to his country, so I should have been REALLY protected. We made sweet love once without a condom in that cycle. The result (and I would like to add that we were open to the possibility of becoming parents, so it was a delightful surprise rather than a disaster) is now 14 and a half and extremely grumpy in the mornings when he’d rather sleep in than have to head out to school in the frost.
What I’m saying is, the pill is great, and so are barrier methods, and both together are way effective.
If you’ve never eaten a hamburger before, you would still know a bad one. Some people wait and do have good sex lives in marriage. Others don’t. And they’re stuck. It’s no wonder that divorce rates are so high.
If you know twenty five people who waited until marriage, we obviously live in somewhat different cultures. I don’t know anyone, male or female, who waited until marriage. Nor do I know anyone who wishes they had.
I don’t buy a car without test driving it, much less enter into a lifelong contract with another human being who has preferences and expectations that might not match my own. In terms of being a crapshoot, it’s a bare step above arranged marriage in my opinion.
Why does this matter? I know I did lots of stupid things as a kid/young man that I would not want my daughter to do. Just because i did something does not make it automatically OK that my kid does it. Nor does it make it any less of a bad decision. What is the point of learning a lessonif you do not pass that wisdom down?
When I was 10, I jumped off the roof of our house to “be a daredevil”, does that mean I should not stop my kid from doing the same thing?
There is nothing wrong with a parent wanting his child to make better and more thoughtful decisions then he might have.
Thanks for that link! That’s a very informative map. I grew up in Arizona, where the age of consent is 18. My mom made it very clear to me growing up and as I became a teen that if she ever found out that I was having sex, she’d prosecute the boy and make sure he did time in prison (in AZ statutory rape carried a minimum 5 year sentence back then, or so she told me–and she’s a lawyer so I believed her). Because of this I snuck around. I would sneak out of the house at 1am after she was asleep and go out with my boyfriend, and then sneak back in at 4am. I was never able to have any kind of discussion with my mom about sex or relationships. I never got the opportunity to get on the pill (I had one pregnancy scare even though we used condoms–my period was over a week late and I was freaking out!).
It’s good that your daughter feels comfortable enough with you to talk to you about being ready to start having sex. Don’t make it taboo, because she’ll do it anyway except you’ll force her to do it behind your back and lie to you. I really wish I could have had my mom’s support.
Both my girls got on the pill early for this reason, which had the nice side effect of no accidents or problems when they were ready for sex.
As for being uncomfortable, my older is 30 and married which doesn’t make it something I want to think about. But kids want to think about you having sex even less, so it is even.
While I appreciate that it might be tough as a parent to let yr kids go off and their own and do all sorts of grown-up stuff, I have found people’s reactions here (and in the thread that dealt with the parents of a lesbian teen who wanted to organize a sleepover) a little bit overblown. I suspect it has to do with a cultural difference between the way that North-Americans approach sex on the one hand and my own background on the other. I did not really know how to express this difference but I came across this article from Time magazine that describes Dutch approaches to teen sex that I submit to this thread as a plea for a slightly more open-minded and less puritanical approach to teen sex.
People also have an instinct to be parents; that doesn’t make them good parents without information.
A good marriage should not be based on “we’re horny but must be married before we’re allowed to have sex” cultural meme, but on a “we’ve discussed and talked, and fit together; we’ve played cards and argued and still fit together; we’ve moved together and argued about doing dishes and cleaning the bathroom sink and still love each other; we’ve had sex and gotten over the initial hang-ups, and used the akward but necessary talking to grow again, and are still a good fit; so now we know we’re ready for marriage”.
Well, sex is and marriage isn’t, so I don’t think that’s the arguement you want to be making.
Waiting until marriage for the first time so you’re “trapped” with that one person who may be extremely hideously incompatible with you isn’t fun. How do I know? I did it with my first marriage, and my mother did it as well. My mother ended up having an affair that was like a light going on as she suddenly realized there were people out there who COULD satisfy her sexually, it was just that my dad wasn’t one… and she’d been married to him for 25 years at that point (they got married young.) It was pretty awful. She did end up staying, but it was through a lot of counseling, including sexual counseling.
Sex with my first husband was AWFUL. It was PAINFUL. We were not in any way compatible in that fashion. And when our marriage (quickly) fell apart, influenced in no small way by the fact that I just could not have sex with the guy, my next boyfriend was a revelation. Wow, sex could be GREAT! Who knew?? Well, I wish I had BEFORE I tied the knot to the first guy.
I’m going to assume you’re in the States for brevity’s sake.
If the majority of Americans today were waiting until marriage to have sex, your logic would definitely be worth exploring. Considering the vast, VAST majority of Americans do not wait until marriage to have sex, your argument holds no water.
Divorce rates in the US are definitely too high, but it sure as hell isn’t because people aren’t hopping into bed before they tie the knot.
Just to add to the hedging ménage à trios discourse of** drastic_quench**, PandaBear77 and Budget Player Cadet, people have also married because the sex is so good; only to eventually divorce.
So I’m not sure what difference the argument either for, or against premarital sex makes in terms of lasting marriages.
This thread has rambled a bit, but I’ve gotta say: Bannedit, you are an awesome dad. You’re really looking at this from the perspective of wanting what’s best for your daughter and willing to consider other points of view. If only more people were as flexible and thoughtful as you!
I was my current partner’s first and despite the fact that she’s in her early twenties, her father still gives me the stink eye, as if I stole his baby away. When I visited her parents this summer (both of us in our twenties!) I had to sleep in a spare room off the garage, because apparently I was too much of a threat to even sleep on a couch in the same building. Funny, I’d thought my obvious non-straightness would’ve been more of an issue.
A parental bit of worry like you’ve displayed here, Bannedit, is normal and commendable. The fact that you haven’t overreacted or made your daughter’s love life entirely about you and your own wishes is wonderful.