You should subscribe to the site's RSS feed here or bookmark the page in your browser. Also, submit your own story for inclusion on the site here. “Oh,” he says, “you’re one of those liberal moms.” No, I think, I’m one of those realistic moms. My fifteen year old daughter was in a relationship (that lasted another year and a half), and sexually active. Allowing her boyfriend to sleep over at our house seemed pretty much like a no-brainer to me.
The alternatives – telling her she was too young, shouting: “Not under my roof!” or just pretending it wasn’t happening – seemed to me not only irresponsible, but hypocritical. Any way you chose to look at it, she and I were statistics, and I never really had the option of pulling any kind of moralistic card. Her father and I split up before she was born, and she has never met him: it’s not as though I could pretend she got here through anything but a contraception blip, and even before that, I was a teen pregnancy statistic. Having an abortion was my choice, and one that continued to haunt me until I got pregnant again six years later. It wasn’t a choice I wanted her to have to make if I could avoid it, and in that respect being Liberal Mom gave me a huge advantage: I could corner them both in the kitchen and lecture them about birth control.
Quite apart from the pitfalls of pregnancy, I also wasn’t stupid enough to imagine that a mother saying feebly: “I think you’re too young” would stop a teenager all hyped up on hormones and first love from having sex. If they weren’t having sex in a bed with parental consent, then where would they be having it? Yes, I know everyone looks back with nostalgia remembering half-clothed fumbles in the back of a car, but round about where we live that tends to happen in the woods, with the drug dealers and worse: around the time this conversation was taking place, a woman was murdered and set fire to in her car by her ex-lover, in those same woods. I had to at least learn the lesson my parents learnt the hard way: all you get from ignoring teenage sex is grandchildren (and to their credit, the grandparents did learn their lesson: it was her grandmother who marched her off to be put on the Pill).
We live in a small, religious town. Here I wasn’t regarded so much as Liberal Mom as Bad Mom, but I didn’t see that burying my head in the sand was much of an option. I could remember my own wild youth well enough to recognize that when other mothers told me self-righteously that their daughters weren’t smoking, drinking, having sex and skipping school “because she would never do anything like that” they were fooling themselves. My Bad Momness at least meant that I wasn’t spared the reality: you can’t fool someone who knows all the signs, and if you encourage honesty and try your damndest to not be non-judgmental, you at least have the option of bombarding your offspring with facts about risk-control, which is more effective than pretending none of it is happening, because of course you brought your child up better than that.
It still astonishes me how many parents are willing to suspend belief. Now, as never before, our children are able to make informed choices about sex. Our culture glorifies it: everywhere is the message that sex is desirable and to be sexy is aspirational. The upside of that is greater access to information: although there will always be the invaluable hands-on (so to speak) learning process of sex, much of the confusing and often misleading mystery is gone. While it is perfectly reasonable to assume that one’s 15 year old is not sexually active, it’s unfeasible to assume that a teenager with internet access won’t have a more informed opinion about it than we probably did. My only quibble with my daughter was that I wanted to be sure she was doing it for the right reasons and wasn’t being coerced, so when she told me cheerfully that she most definitely wanted it, my main aim was to make sure she was properly protected. At this point, I morphed into Embarrassing Mom, bellowing: “Condoms!” down the stairs after her every time she went out.
I’d love to say that my policy of openness meant that my daughter’s teenage years were a breeze, but they were pretty much pure unadulterated hell, and it didn’t stop her going off the rails pretty spectacularly. At times I regretted my mantra of keep the channels of communication open, and quite often I’d really rather have not known, but I gritted my teeth and kept at it, mainly because I couldn’t see any other way of doing it. And it did pay off, eventually: at 21 she’s making a pretty decent stab at being a responsible adult, and claims to be grateful for all the unwanted understanding and advice she was offered in her wild youth.
As my children are approaching the teen years and hormones are beginning to rage, I have made a promise to myself. A promise to keep an honest, and open line of communication with them when it comes to any of the “tough” subjects. A promise to really listen to what they are trying to tell me when they come to me with questions or want to have a conversation about what’s going on in their lives. Why am I so adamant about this you ask? Because my mom and I learned the hard way.
When I was sixteen and a half I was THE small town, all American, girl next door. I was on the honor roll, I was in Drama club, Chorus, S.A.D.D., Student government, I was even a Sunday School teacher. I stood at the Veteran’s Memorial in the center of town during the town’s Memorial Day Parade and sang “Amazing Grace” in honor of our town’s veterans. I never tried a cigarette, never took a sip of alcohol. I was in bed by 10pm on the weekends. I was a “good” girl. With one exception. I had an older boyfriend that I was having unprotected sex with every weekend.
I knew it was wrong to have sex without a condom but I just kept doing it. I could say my older boyfriend co-erced me into it, which I am sure played some roll in it all, but I knew better and the worry ate at me.
Finally I decided on a plan to get my mom to take me to a doctor so I could get on birth control pills. I remember that moment clearly. My mom was sitting on the edge of my bed, and I was sitting in the big comfy green chair in the corner of my room. My heart was pounding while I explained to my mom that my boyfriend and I were “thinking” about having sex and I thought it was time for her to take me to the doctor for birth control. My mother, the queen of denial, sat there shocked for a moment and then replied “Well if you go on birth control, won’t that just make you actually have sex instead of just thinking about it?” Half of me was completely mortified and the other half was furious. Was she that stupid? What did she THINK was happening when she allowed me to “visit” in my room with my older boyfriend, with THE DOOR SHUT?!!???
So I agreed with her. And by the next year, at the end of my first year of what looked like it would be a very promising college career, I was pregnant.
I look back over the years and recognize that moment when I went to my mom asking for her guidance as a defining moment in my life. I don’t blame my mom for being in denial and not giving me what I needed from her that day. She was an extremely loving, hard working single mom. Maybe that day she was just tired or scared or maybe she didn’t know what was the “right thing” to say. I will never know. And I made my own choices.
Which is why I am making this promise. To myself and my kids…
I promise to answer your questions honestly and thoughtfully…
I promise if I don’t know the “right thing” to say, I won’t brush you aside, I will find the answer…
I promise to not let your embarrassment or mine get in the way of educating you…
I promise to really hear what you are trying to tell me or ask of me…
I promise…
It’s not always easy being the offspring of an astrophysicist. Relations between me and my father were always a little awkward when I was living at home. No direct unpleasantness, but there was always some sort of distance between us. It was probably as much my fault as his; we’re too much alike. We have never been really close. The advantage – and at the same time the curse – of living in a learned family was that the house was full of books, plus we had a monthly subscription to ’Scientific American’. We were encouraged to find things out for ourselves. If we came to our father with a question he would indicate one of the many bookcases and say “Go and look it up.”
One day, a new book appeared in the house. It was never mentioned, it just appeared. I know now that it had been strategically left lying around and that sooner or later I would pick it up and read it. I can’t remember what it was called (Your Changing Body or something equally imaginative I should think), but read it I did. From cover to cover. Several times.
And that was that. Sex education done and dusted.
We were a fairly conventional churchgoing family. When I did finally get a girlfriend, visits from her were always with a parent in the background, always in the lounge and never up in my room. The same when I visited her at home. We did a lot of making out in the car, as you can imagine, although with us both being good well brought up kids from good churchgoing families, in a peer group with similar backgrounds, it never developed into more than a kiss and cuddle and a grope under the jumper…in all the five years I was going out with her.
I remember the scandal at the church youth club when one of the girls, who was very well developed for her fifteen years and more forward than most, took one of the lads behind the stage in the church hall and let him take her bra off. I was warned in no uncertain terms by my mother to steer clear of that particular girl because she might get me into trouble. SHE might get ME into trouble???!!!
University changed all that, and for most of that first year Heather and I were sleeping together, despite the fact that we each had a room in hall of residence. The second year was going to be more problematic because we were expected to find digs for ourselves and accommodation in London has always been a problem. The situation was not made easier with the university accommodation officer being a militant Trotskyist whose contribution to bringing about The Revolution consisted of attempting to foment unrest among the student body by failing to find accommodation for any of them. So we were left to traipse around town with outdated lists of possible addresses and much-thumbed copies of the “Ham and High” (we were definitely North London types). Eventually we managed to secure a double bedroom in a family home in Hampstead Garden Suburb. There was only one hurdle left to tackle; how to break it to my parents that we intended to share that bedroom.
I had a summer job in south west London that year and was waiting for a Green Line bus home at Hampton Court one afternoon. By the merest co-incidence my father turned up at the same bus stop. I think he’d been to the flower show or something but in any case, the odds against us meeting there were vanishingly small. Normally at home we could spend a whole evening under the same roof without exchanging so much as a word but here, at this bus stop, we started talking. He asked me how it was going with the search for digs. I answered with a few mumbled platitudes about how difficult it was to find somewhere and his reply struck me like a bolt out of the blue.
”Well, you and Heather are just going to have to find somewhere to share”.
I could have hugged him (almost!). With one sentence had had swept away the problem that had been bugging me for days. Sure, the family had met Heather several times, and liked her. But we had never told them how serious we were about each other. Now I had as good as got a paternal blessing for us to “live in sin.”
On the other hand, my father was himself, at the time, admissions tutor for a major university department. He knew the score. My estimation of him went up from that day onward.
“Nick and I are going to have sex. I need to go to the clinic and get on birth control. I think I want to use the shot.” My fifteen year old daughter sat in the passenger’s seat of my Jeep looking straight ahead and munching her crunchy taco.
I turned down the radio and took a deep breath. This was the moment I had been waiting for ever since the first time I said to my daughter, “I hope you know that you can talk to me about anything”. Now, she *was* talking to me. And the onus was on me to keep my promise not to be angry or judgemental. I knew that how I reacted in that moment would determine whether she would trust me with many, many conversations to come.
I exhaled and said, “Okay, I’ll call tomorrow and make an appointment for you.” A few days later, we walked in to Planned Parenthood for her appointment. When her name was called and I didn’t get up, she asked me if I would go back with her. “Sure,” I said, “if you’re comfortable.”
After the counseling part of the appointment was over and it was time for the physical part, I waited outside the exam room and thought about my daughter. Still so much a child, yet so close to being a woman – I felt so proud of her for being proactive with contraception. Parenting someone who was sexually active was a new phase of my life and I hoped that I was up to the challenge.
When the doctor came out of the exam room, he called me over. “I was unable to examine your daughter because her hymen is still intact. It’s against our policy to give birth control without an exam so I won’t be able to give her a prescription today.” I was livid. My daugther showed the maturity and responsibility to come here *before* having sex and you’re going to send her away?!
“Here’s a bag of condoms and some contraceptive foam. Once she’s had sex, she can come back and get the DepoProvera shot.” My claws came out. I’m pretty sure it was my ‘out loud voice’ that said “OH HELL NO”. As an adult, I had tried foam and the sponge and could say from experience that the chance of two fifteen year olds stopping in a moment of passion to put in foam was exactly nil. I staged a sit in – “I’m sorry, but this makes no sense to me. You are setting my daughter up for a situation that has dire consequences. We’re going to stay here in the exam room while you go find someone who can help us today.”
A half-hour later, the doctor returned with a syringe and gave her the shot. “That’ll work for three months. You’ll have to have sex before you come back for the next shot.” My daughter looked at me and rolled her eyes.
As we walked out of the clinic, my daughter said, “Maybe I should just go to the regular doctor next time.” I agreed.
I was (and continue to be) so proud of my daughter’s strength and wisdom. I’m proud of myself for teaching her that sex is a natural, normal and wonderful part of life and that talking openly and honestly with someone who supports you always turns out better than hiding.
I’m also proud that on that day – the day that it really mattered – I was able to put my own issues and uncomfortableness aside and do what was best for my daughter. When you tell your children, “You can tell me anything” be prepared when they do. How you react in that moment could change everything.
–Submitted by Dee
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