marks@yogi.DEC (03/04/86)
> Our sixteen year old and her boyfriend seem to be getting >"very close". I don't want to see her get pregnant. I'm >worried but don't know what to do. Should I talk to her about >birth control? If so, how? Absolutely talk to her! Not a minute too soon! I'm not going to cast judgment on the fact that she is sixteen and you haven't yet talked to her -- it is really as difficult for parents to view their children as sexual beings as it is for children to view their parents as sexual beings. The fact is, they are, we are, everyone is. The culture we live in, like it or not, hypes sex in every way. A 16 year old has grown up with a TV as a best friend, and Madison Avenue as a playmate. Premarital sex is simply not the societal tabu it once was. All you have to do is turn the TV on at 2 in the afternoon to see women and men having affairs, from the ages of 18 on up, married, single, or both. Some kids are going to form relationships with other kids of the opposite sex at an age we as parents don't consider appropriate. All the lecturing, earnest talking, and breast-beating in the world are not going to change this. Fortunately, these days pregnancy is not a foregone conclusion. I would talk to your daughter honestly, objectively (if possible), and with as little hysteria as you can manage. There are several possibilities. Perhaps she is determined not to have sex with her boyfriend. Perhaps she is swept away by passion. Unfortunately, many kids think if you "do it in the heat of passion, you don't have to feel guilty about it, and if you use some kind of birth control method that makes you evil." I would try to turn that kind of thinking around. (Time Magazine recently had a wonderful article on teen pregnancy in America -- we have one of the highest, if not the highest rate of teen, unmarried pregnancy -- perhaps you should get a copy of this and read it and have your daughter read it.) Bottom line is this: you do not care to see your daughter having a sexual relationship at her age; she may go ahead and have one anyway; I feel it is ultimately MUCH more acceptable to provide the kid with birth control advice and a trip to the doctor, telling her that you don't approve but that if she must, she should be protected, than to have her become pregnant and then have even worse choices before you. Good luck! R.M.
whitehur@tymix.UUCP (Pamela K. Whitehurst) (03/05/86)
In article <1500@decwrl.DEC.COM> marks@yogi.DEC writes: >[...] I feel >it is ultimately MUCH more acceptable to provide the kid with birth >control advice and a trip to the doctor, telling her that you don't >approve but that if she must, she should be protected, than to have >her become pregnant and then have even worse choices before you. I occured to me this morning that if we do not give our children information on birth control then someone else may. This information will not always be correct. I knew someone who actually believed that if she stood up right after she would not get pregnant! -- P. K. Whitehurst hplabs!oliveb!tymix!whitehur +-------------------------------------------------------+ | General Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own and | | do not necessarily reflect the opinions | | of McDonnell Douglas Corporation. | +-------------------------------------------------------+