Teens and Sexual ActivityJan 25 '03 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Keep those lines of communication open.
My oldest daughter will be seventeen next Tuesday (January 28th). She was born the day space shuttle Challenger exploded, so her birth carries quite a few memories. I remember sitting in the hospital bed waiting for a labor room and watching the television coverage of the Challenger disaster over and over again. I remember when she was born, holding that tiny baby in my arms and loving her with an incredible intensity. As the years have passed and I have watched her grow, I have been more and more proud of the wonderful person she is. Even though we have had our challenging moments, our relationship is very strong and the lines of communication are always open. Raising teenagers is tough, and when things like sexuality come up it can be very delicate. I have always advised my children to wait to become sexually involved; wait until they were in a committed relationship. Advice, pure and simple. I have always known I can't make my children's choices; but I can give as much advice as possible and hope they will make the right decisions without suffering too many unpleasant consequences along the way. In reality, though, sexuality is not driven by advice. It is not controlled by all the "just say no" programs or human growth and development classes the kids go through during their school years. It is not always ruled by common sense. Sexuality is at the mercy of hormonal urges in teenagers, pure and simple. Is a mother ever ready for her teenage daughter to say she is sexually active? I know I wasn't. A billion fears and worries popped into my head when she and I were talking a few weeks ago. Did I get angry at her? Of course not. What purpose would that serve? Only to drive her away and make her less willing to discuss such sensitive subjects with me. We talked about everything. We talked about potential consequences of sexual activity in this day and age; pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and peer pressure. We talked about birth control. I know some people think that giving a teenager access to birth control is an open permission slip to have sex. I disagree. First of all, the most important thing a teenager needs to learn about sex is to be responsible. Birth control is a responsible facet of sexual activity. And I would far rather I knew my daughter was using birth control than to have her go behind my back to Planned Parenthood, where birth control is readily available without parental knowledge or consent. The bottom line is that if a teenager has decided he or she is going to be sexually active, the parent can't do anything to stop it short of locking the child up. And that isn't a very proactive solution in my opinion! Better to talk about the potential consequences and make certain the teenager is making an informed decision based on fact rather than peer talk and rumor. My daughter has since broken up with her boyfriend because she decided she was spending too much time with him and not enough time on her schoolwork; a very mature decision in my opinion. So for the moment, she isn't sexually active. But will she be again? The decision is going to be hers, and I will have to respect her decision whether I like it or not. I hope my children will wait to have children until they have settled themselves in a committed relationship and finished their education; I know first hand how hard it is to go to college and raise a family at the same time. I pray my children will never contract a nasty disease because of sexual activity. I am glad my daughter knows about safe, responsible sexual activity. And I am glad she feels comfortable enough to discuss it with me. Was I ready for that conversation? No. But I am glad we have open communication. I wasn't able to discuss this type of issue with my mother and as a result I learned a lot through trial and error and bad situations. Thank goodness my daughter won't have to learn the same way I did.  |
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