I wouldn’t mind my son or daughter doing it (with a partnet of either sex), but I admit I’d prefer in the stongest possible terms to know nothing about if it were my daughter. :o If she wanted a wedding though I’d beg, borrow, and steal to give the one of her dreams.
I can think of plenty of situations where a 17 year old would be mature enough to handle sex. But I can’t think of any situation where a teen would be better off getting married.
Wait, are you assuming that people are waiting until their terminally-ill child is 17 before discussing sex with them? Because based on the heads we’ve had here about talking to your kids about sex, I think most responsible parents start having “mini-Talks” earlier than that. Hell, my son is three weeks old, and I’ve already told him not to stick his dick in the crazy (grandma watches a lot of Judge Judy while she’s here babysitting, and that rule would solve at least half the cases before hey got started).
So when I say that I’m fine with my son, healthy or otherwise, having sex at 17 as long as he’s safe about it, I don’t mean I’m going to hide under he bed and offer up a condom at the right time. I mean that we’re going to be talking about sex, and it’s joys and consequences, for the next 17 years. I’ll do the best I can to raise a thoughtful,responsible human being, and then at some point I’ll have to trust him to make good decisions.
I’d be supportive, yes, with the caveats above. If my kid, either gender, had sex without a condom and I found out about it, then hell no, I wouldn’t support that!
If by “encourage” you mean politely look the other way and allow her to close her bedroom door and turn the radio up so we can all pretend Mom is clueless, then yeah, I’d probably go so far. If you mean would I be perusing the adult portions of Craigslist and hiring her/him an escort, probably not.
My gender bias is the opposite of most people’s, it seems. I’m far more worried about my son’s sexual activity than my daughter’s. Part of this is who they are as people - my son is sweet and a people pleaser, and I’ve seen him get bulldozed by powerful teenaged girls with big personalities. I’ve always been afraid he’s going to get pressured into relationships/activities when he’s not entirely willing. My daughter, on the other hand, is going to be one of those powerful teenaged girls with a big personality, and I don’t worry one little bit about her ever giving in to peer pressure or personal pressure. Ever.
But also, with my daughter, I’ve got 15 years or so to instill my pro-choice values in her and fill her ears with talk of career and financial independence and dreams of backpacking through Europe unencumbered by a bambino before she’s ready. I can take her to the doctor when she’s ready and help her get access to contraceptives. I can teach her how to track her fertility cycles once they’re regular, and to get or not get pregnant as she wishes.
My son’s girlfriends? Pffft. Entirely out of my hands. And legally, they get to say whether or not they keep a fetus should they get pregnant, and he’ll have no power to terminate, just a court order to open his wallet, whether he’s ready to be a father or not. That scares the shit out of me.
I was a teenaged mother myself, by the way. I did a private little happy dance when my son got to the age I was when I had him and he’d produced no offspring!
Did you have terminal cancer at the time? That’s a bit of a game changer.
She’s terminal. It’s not so much the wedding as the pretty party with no reality at the end. I would be a little cautious about a legal marriage ceremony even for a kid that wanted it however. The last thing you want is another angsty 17 yr old being the legal medical decision maker.
Back to the OP - Terminal or not, most 17 yr olds are having sex. Burying your head in the sand is fine as long as you’ve made sure (for years before this) that your kids is equipt with the information to make safe choices. I would say for an immune compromised kid that another talk about safe sex and the consequences that are specific to them is a good idea.
No, but my answer applies to teenagers whether they have terminal cancer at the time or not. Sorry I didn’t make that clear. I don’t think parents should be expending all that much energy trying to prevent their 17 year old from having sex, whether or not they’re dying. The energy should be expended in the 17 years before that, when you can actually mold minds and transmit your values.
In other words, I question the unspoken assumption inherent in the OP: that parental involvement in a terminal teen’s sex life should be different than parental involvement in a non-terminal teen’s sex life.
Well, sure if you are completely open minded about it already. If you are a wait til marriage type, I would think terminal cancer would soften your view a little.
I guess I was thinking along these lines.
I assume most parents want their children to wait until they (the children) are emotionally ready for a sexual relationship before they have sex. I also assume that most kids think they are ready for sex before they actually are, at least emotionally. This is just a way of saying that, usually, kids will want to have sex before their parents think they are ready, emotionally, to have a sexual relationship.
So, given that a kid who is likely not emotionally ready to have sex, and given that that kid won’t survive long enough to become emotionally ready to have sex, and given that that kid will probably want to have sex anyway, would you let it slide and be allowing (if not encouraging) so that the kid can at least experience sex before they die?
I’m reminded of the morning one of our cats was to be put to sleep. She always loved cheese, but we rarely gave it to her because she was overweight. That morning though, as my wife was feeding the cats, I said, “Why not just give Isabella a chunk of cheese?” She did, and that chunk of cheese was probably the highlight of that cat’s day (especially in light of her suffering), though it was something we wouldn’t’ve done if she was expected to live a a few more years, rather than a few more hours. My friend had done something similar a few years earlier, taking his beloved St. Bernard to Dairy Queen and buying him like three ice cream cones before taking him to the vet.
Why not give the cat the cheese, or the dog the three ice cream cones? It’d be bad for them normally, but they’d like it and they’re gonna die.
So, why not let the 13 year-old have sex? It’d be bad for her normally, but she’d like it and she’s gonna die.
You think a 13-year-old girl is going to ENJOY sex, and with another 13-year-old who probably doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing? I don’t care about any anecdotes to the contrary, but that is EXTREMELY unlikely.
Unless you’re psycho overprotective though, you don’t “let” teenagers have sex. They can have sex with your permission or not, and parental permission to have sex is creepy. You can make it more convenient for them, of course, but for me I don’t think that would be affected by their health status. I wouldn’t do it with any 13-year-old, and maybe I would with a 17-year-old.
Sure, “let” is probably the wrong word here. I also realize I might be coming off creepy or something, and I’m really not trying to. I’ll try to spell it out in a less weird (though more verbose) fashion.
Situation A: Imagine you have a really good relationship with your 13 year-old kid, the kind where they’ll come to you and talk about things. And this kid has had cancer since they were 10 and, barring the invention of a miracle drug, will be dead by 17. Now imagine that your kid talks to you about their friend they met at some cancer support group and how much s/he likes them and how they’ve talked about going “all the way” (or “hooking up” or whatever euphemism is appropriate), and now your kid is coming to you for your advice or thoughts or whatever.
Situation B: Imagine you have a really good relationship with your 13 year-old kid, the kind where they’ll come to you and talk about things. This kid is perfectly healthy and you’ve no reason to believe they won’t live to adulthood. Now imagine that your kid talks to you about their friend they met at some school function and how much s/he likes them and how they’ve talked about going “all the way” (or “hooking up” or whatever euphemism is appropriate), and now your kid is coming to you for your advice or thoughts or whatever.
Are your advice or thoughts or whatever different in Situation A as compared to Situation B? And if so, why?
(Incidentally, and not to change the subject (and at the risk of making myself sound even more creepy), but I suspect despite the cluelessness of their partner, that plenty–probably not all, but plenty–of 13 year-old girls do enjoy sex to some degree, or that, at the very least, sex at 13 isn’t so absolutely terrible in all respects such that they avoid sex at all costs thereafter.)
Agreed, Blackberry. There’s a very small chance that a 13 year old would find much pleasure - physical or emotional - in sex. 17 is far more likely to experience at least the physical pleasure, and be more emotionally/mentally ready to deal with the nearly inevitable fallout and demise of the relationship later.
There are some ways in which I’d spoil the heck out of a terminal kid in ways - or with greater frequency - than I would spoil a non-terminal one. Extra ice cream? Heck yeah. Want a hamster and a guinea pig and a puppy? Sure. Stay up for just one more movie and a snuggle with Mom on the couch? Why not?
But I don’t want to spoil them in ways that will cause them harm while they’re still living, and sex at 13 is just too likely to cause physical and emotional distress. Not to mention what sort of distress it’s likely to cause their partner. At 13, the door stays open, Mom makes frequent visits to offer lemonade and cookies and did-you-see-that-video-on-YouTube? and is generally a pest enough that sexiness is not likely going to happen.
I think we have a different opinion of maturation rates, though. 17 is a *lot *older than 13. By 17, I got my son a double bed (we moved when I divorced and he needed all new furniture anyhow) just because if he did end up with a girlfriend he felt sexiness with, I’d rather they be here at home than sneaking around the way I did. Sneaking around means condoms may not be convenient or safely stored - at home, they’re always in the hall closet.
On Preview: In either case, I’d be thinking about the other kid, too. My 13 year old *may *be mature beyond his/her years and ready for sex. The other 13 year old probably isn’t. So I would encourage her to have a good strong friendship and buy her a vibrator. But yeah, like **Blackberry **says, if they really want to have sex, they’re going to, terminal or not. But if they want to know my opinion, it’s that sex at 13 is a bad idea, and cancer doesn’t change that opinion.
I don’t think that emotionally healthy kids who have such an open and great relationship with their parents have sex at 13 anyway, so I think this situation would be really rare. But in any case, my advice would be about the same in either situation (but I couldn’t tell the terminal kid that she had plenty of time to have sex later). And either way I wouldn’t expect that my kid would probably listen. Maybe delay it for a little while longer, but that’s about it. Teenagers love to ask for advice, but they hate to actually take it.
Well, I think you’re wrong. Yeah, she’ll probably keep having sex. for whatever reason motivated her in the first place. No, she probably won’t get any pleasure out of it. You may not fully realize that a lot of women really don’t get **any **pleasure at all from missionary-style intercourse with no extra stimulation or anything, especially with little or no foreplay. And that’s probably going to be the case with two 13-year-olds.
Noo, we are in complete agreement about that. I wouldn’t even try to discourage a 17-year-old from having sex. I would try to discourage unhealthy relationships, but that would be regardless of sex.
Sorry, bad communication on my part. I meant “we” as in whc.03grady on the one hand and you and I on the other. I agree that you and I seem to be in about the same place. 
This is just going to vary too much to generalize. At that age, I’m fairly certain that I was nowhere near ready for intercourse (but then again, I had no reason to be), but I certainly knew my way around my body from solo exploration and if for some bizarre reason I was having intercourse with a supportive and appropriate partner, I’m fairly certain I would connected the dots and had a pleasurable time.
Not to derail, but that’s weird to me.
Ok, as the stepfather of a teenage girl, I’d be fine with her having appropriate sex at 17, terminal illness or no. I don’t want to be privy to the details, but I don’t look at it as something I have to prevent.
If she’s happy, I have no strong feelings on the subject; if she’s not happy, I have strong feelings about that, but not related to sex per se.
Okay, but how often does a 13-year-old have a supportive and appropriate sex partner? Never, I would say, because I don’t think it’s appropriate for 13-year-olds to have sex, and of course it would be inappropriate if the guy was much older. And realistically, how many 13-year-olds are going to speak up about what they want, even if they do know, which I doubt is usually the case? A lot of grown women even have trouble doing that.
Of course there are some 13-year-old girls who would enjoy sex, but the OP said she would like it, like that was a given, when really it would be the exception.
Heck, even an unusually mature 13 year old might very well find the experience of having sex (presumably for the first time) with a terminally ill partner to be emotionally difficult, even traumatic.