(Dad, don’t read this post.)
First some facts: I find the Guttmacher Institute’s reporting about American teens’ sexual activity very reassuring. In the wake of all the hullabaloo about Plan B (the contraceptive pill) and all the 13-year-old girls running out to get it so they could have sex — which REALLY conservative pundits? We’re going right there?? — some fact-based reality is nice to grasp.
Just to throw some stuff out there:
“Only 6% of teens have had sex by age 15.”
“On average, young people have sex for the first time at about age 17.”
“Among sexually experienced teens, 70% of females and 56% of males report that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner.”
“Teen sex is increasingly likely to be described as voluntary.”
So, okay. Why is this stuff important when you’re talking to your kids about sex?
1. Not EVERYONE IS DOING IT. Even among seniors in high school, despite the bragging, not even half of the teens are regularly engaging in sex. This should help take the pressure off our kids to fit into the perceived culture.
2. It’s not inevitable that all of our kids are going to be sexually active before they reach adulthood. So treating teen sex like something that’s just going to happen may not be the go-to strategy to adopt.
These facts help me to breathe a little easier when I think about my children making decisions about sex. Talking to children about the importance of “saving sex for marriage” is not to say “only bad people have sex outside of marriage”. That is certainly not the message I intend to send (because HELLO), but to give my children some strategies for delaying sex until adulthood if possible (after 18) and for making it part of a longer term relationship (something else their mom didn’t bother with for the most part).
My buddy Carpetbagger pretty much addressed a lot of the questions I am constantly asking myself about talking to my kids about sex as they get older. I’m just reproducing some of his comment here.
“…Do we tell kids ‘do as I say, not as I do (did)’ because…
a) it’s a religious teaching that most of us ignored, but nevertheless, it’s still a religious teaching?
b) premarital sex damaged our souls and we don’t want to see their souls damaged likewise?
c) we are scared to death of our daughters getting pregnant, or our sons getting girls pregnant?
d) we don’t want them catching things?
e) we consider our premarital sexual experiences to be huge mistakes that we regret, and we are trying to spare them that kind of remorse?
f) all of the above?”
Let me start out by saying that, in my opinion, children don’t need to know all the details of their parents’ sex lives. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lie and tell them I was a virgin when I got married — although I’m not going to tell them that any time soon. It’s none of their business. I have no intentions of giving them a blow-by-blow account of my sexual past. Which I think I can safely avoid while still not lying outright. (I may be proven wrong on this. Time will tell.)
So, to run this down:
a) Yes, I am doing my best to teach my children what the Catholic church teaches. I will expect them to have doubts and ask questions, and I pray hard for the guidance to help them explore these things. There are a lot of issues I have with the Catholic church. I expect when my kids are adults, it will be easier to talk about the questions together. In the meantime, I’m going to mouth the party line. Not because I think it’s the end-all-be-all of answers for all time. But for now, it works.
b) and e) Yes and no? I had pre-martial sex, and not just a little of it. For awhile, I treated sex as very pleasant exercise. I was also very careful (duh). Do I regret having premarital sex? Yes, some of it. Not all and every instance; the premarital sex I had inside of committed relationships was vastly superior to one-night stands or short-term sexually-based relationships. And sex in marriage is, in my experience, hands down, the very, very best. This is kind of the version of my sex life that I plan to share with my kids if I have to.
Using hyperbole, which the Catholic church tends to do — i.e. Tom’s example of “damaging our souls” — is likely to inspire plenty of eye-rolling from teens. However, talking in terms of remorse — i.e. I’m not really proud of my sexual past, I do have some regrets — I think that is honest, and I think kids respect honesty.
c) and d) YES! I don’t want my children to become parents before they are ready. I don’t want them to catch herpes or (God forbid) HIV. As much as I will tell them why saving sex for marriage/LTR is important spiritually, it is even more important for their emotional and physical well-being. I have some resources outside of school-based health classes that I plan to use as my children get older. I’m going to take my daughters to a midwife or gynecologist (something my mom never did) when they are 16, if not earlier. I’m going to teach my kids about their bodies and in as much as I can about the power of sex.
If my children decide to have sex before they are married, which is fairly likely, I want them to be able to come to me without fearing punishment. I want them to come to me about birth control and sexual health. I don’t want them coming to me when it’s “too late” as it were. So I have to start having these conversations. I’m trying not to freak out about it, because that will close off communications.
Once they are adults? I doubt they will talk to me about their sex lives. I will have to hope that I can give them the confidence to know what they want, to know that waiting for a mutually loving and respectful relationship is superior to anything else, that they will have the tools to remain safe. I don’t think sex is bad or dirty, I don’t think bodies are bad or dirty, and these lessons more than anything, are things I want my kids to internalize.
I had sex because I was curious, because I didn’t know any other way to explore my sexuality, because I had problems with authority. Losing my virginity at 18 wasn’t all that fantastic; it was something I did to get it over with. That’s kind of screwed up. I don’t want my children to have sex for the first time just to not be virgins. Granted, sex got better; I learned more about my body (confession: I had started masturbating as a teen), and had the confidence to ask for what I wanted. I didn’t get in situations where I was in danger. I had the further confidence to insist on condoms. And when I did get into an LTR, I went on the pill, and discovered that sex in an LTR was better than hooking up.
Well, got that off my chest. I have a few years to see how all this thinking plays out in real life, I suppose.
Red Pen Mama 