Saving yourself..to what extent??

[justamom]

I really want to clear something up. I have two children, YES CHILDREN, 17 and 19. Neither is ready for the intimacy, responsibility or baggage that comes with having sex. My daughter is very open about this issue and as far as she has said, the girls who do and the girls who don't are known- Maybe it's because of religious background, no divorce, the region, but by all indicatons, everyone is NOT doing it. Since she has gone to college, of course the percentage of sexually active people she knows has gone up. Heck, her roommate showed up 3 times last semester-she was living with her boyfriend and her parents were clueless. The glory of independence in college often makes for breaking every "rule" carried with you from living with your parents. Instant maturity!

A lot of you guys responding are much older than a Junior in HS or a Freshman in college. So how can my perspective even relate to yours? It can not. I agree, there will come a time when a choice must be made. I pray to GOD for my children, they make the right choice-WHATEVER THAT MAY BE! I would hope that there is love, commitment and TRUST. Too much pain comes from demoralizing sex and frankly, the risks of unwanted EVERYTHING are too great to enter into lightly. I hope my children respect themselves enough to see through the BS that flows around the dating scene. I don't think sex and dating go hand in hand. I do know love and sex (in most cases) are in-seperable. When the majority of people around you are active, it is easy to let your oun judgement be dulled. To those of you who choose to wait-YOU ARE NOT ALONE! There are guys out there who will cherish you for your decision-WHO REALLY WANT TO BE YOUR FIRST AND LAST! For those of you who are active or contemplating the decision, make SURE it's what YOU want because more unhappiness comes from a decsion to have sex too soon than the decision to wait. I've said my peace. Now I will ask any and all-How will you advise YOUR children, what do you hope for them? Will you tell them, "Go out there and screw your little hearts out...it will be good for you."?

[twinstars]

Originally posted by justamom
. Now I will ask any and all-How will you advise YOUR children, what do you hope for them? Will you tell them, "Go out there and screw your little hearts out...it will be good for you."?

What would I hope for my (hypothetical) children?

I'm not really someone who idealizes the notion of losing your virginity after the wedding and only ever having one sex partner in your entire life.

If my kid wanted their life to be that way, fine, but I wouldn't tell them or pressure them that I think that's the best or only way to live one's life. There are a lot of different routes people can go, and I don't believe that one life decision is necessarily always better/more advisable than another.

My own parents didn't drum it into my head that I "had to wait" or anything like that... they said waiting for marriage is often a good idea (I always had the impression that at least my mom was a virgin until marriage, dunno about my dad) but they hoped I'd wait for the right time and a special person and protect myself. I never got the impression that they'd feel let down or disappointed in me if I chose not to wait for marriage. In fact, when I decided to go on the pill at 18, I told them about it and they pay for it and pick my prescription up for me!

I'd tell my own kids that I really hope they wouldn't start having sex until at least their late teens (like 18+... I really feel there's not a lot to be gained by starting sex in high school) because it's a lot for a young person to handle (emotionally, risks of pregnancy, disease...). Of course, I'd tell them to wait as long as they felt was right. If they didn't feel ready until marriage, then fine. However, I don't feel most people have to be 25 (or married) before they are ready to deal with the implications of sex.

I would tell them at any age to come to me if they needed advice or help about getting birth control. If I had a teen daughter who was having sex, whether I approved or not, I'd want her to be on the pill.

When my kids are old enough to be thinking about sex (early teens, I guess... I mean considering the thought of sex, not actually having it) they should already know how I feel about it. If they decide to go ahead and "do it" anyway, and they want my help being safe about it, I don't really think a good parent would throw a fit and refuse to help on moral grounds.

I think sex is a natural, often healthy thing. Young people have urges just like old married grown ups do.

The last thing I'd want, as a parent, is for my kids to become sexually active at an early age as a way of rebelling against me or "breaking rules." I don't think their decisions about sex should be made to please me or to upset me. It's not my life.

[James]

Justamom, if a daughter, she can go on chaperoned dates beginning after grad school. Which is a little incentive for accelerated learning. If a son, well, we'll just take him over the border for a little seasoning at 14 or 15 if you know what I mean Its that pesky double standard.

The best advice I have ever been given and I share with my friends (especially the starry eyed ones) is don't get have kids and don't get married. And I mean that in an unexpected way, don't be in such a hurry or make a mistake you pay for in the long run that will define your life for you. That way, most wounds do heal.

As far as what I would really say to him/her: Don't get married/pregnant, expect to feel hurt and do what are ready to do. But I could see myself adding for a daughter: You can always do it, but you can't undo it . . but that is the double standard again.

The rest of it won't be what you tell them it will be if you supplied enough of the elements that build self esteem, and they took from them and learned.

[justamom]

To drum into ANYones head anti-sex messages is really asking for problems later on.
Of COURSE if you know or even THINK your children are contemplating sex you help them the best you can- to protect them.
You ARM your children with knowledge BEFORE the act so they don't get caught with their pants down so to speak.
THESE ARE A GIVEN!

It is inevitable that parents don't want their children ,making the same mistakes they made be it financial-sexual-drug experimentation-raising kids and on and on. Thinking CHANGES when you have REAL kids as opposed to hypothetical ones.

An alternative to what you describe as a good way to advise a child is NOT the equivalent of soldering a chastity belt around your daughter or feeding salt peter to your son. It is keeping sex in perspective as an integral part of LOVING, healthy, human relationship- not something to be bandied about. Personally, I feel you are too liberal in your attitude for my comfort on this subject, and I could not disagree more with your message to the young "girls" and "boys" who may read these boards. Please note the implied age distinction. I am sure you are in equal disagreement on my stance as well.

I too was raised in a supportive climate where communication was open. This is what we, Hubby and I, have tried to emulate
in our home. Waiting until marriage was taught almost exclusively in the homes of people I went to college with. It did not make us crazy-frigid-sexless-uninspired-klutzy lovers-quite the contrary. Neither did it "doom" everyone to sexless love lives. People still had "freedom of choice" and many chose over and over and over... What it did do was give us a moral compass and that is what want for my own children.

[DeltAlum]

I agree with JAM.

Maybe it's because I'm a father of three, ranging in age from 18 to 25.

It can be pretty scary looking at this from a parent's perspective -- and with the hindsight of age and experience. The thing we were most worried about was getting pregnant. Sex didn't have nearly the life and death considerations it does now. Most sexually transmitted diseases either could be treated, or weren't fatal during my youth.

As for the original question -- which had to do with kissing -- that seems pretty extreme to me.

[LexiKD]

Well, although I think parents want to think their kids are angels that in the back of their mind you wish you could know the real deal.

I hope that, if I had children, that I rasied them to make good decisions. Like anything else, sex is one of those things that will come up and if he/she wants to do it, then go ahead but be careful.

My parents never said a word about sex and I had to go it alone, but through my family teaching responsibility for my actions I pretty much knew that, if faced with the prospect of sex, I needed to be careful.

I think peolpe who wait for the long haul will be dissappionted in the end, but to each their own.

End of story.

[nucutiepie]

I think that sex is something that necessitates love. While I don't believe in waiting until marriage, I believe that you need to love someone and to trust them completely before you have sex with them.

So many of my friends put so little stock in sex. One girl I know lost her virginity on a beach chair in Cancun our senior year of HS and within six months had slept with perhaps six or seven people, all but one randomly. I just feel like if I slept around like that, I would lost all of my self-respect. Or perhaps it's that I respect myself too much to sleep with any and every willing guy who comes along.

[33girl]

One of my big fears in high school used to be that there would be a nuclear war and I would die a virgin. I didn't have sex till I was in college and it was with someone I loved, who loved me. I can't imagine if it would have been a one-nighter or something.

After that relationship turned sour and ended, I admit, I had quite a bit of fun. And I don't regret any of it. Mainly because, I went back to my hometown for a while after graduation. So many people there married the first person they dated and/or slept with, because getting married was a sign of "success." And guess what, after 4 years they were like "hey....I closed myself off before I needed to" and they were @$#%ing around with anyone and everyone. The whole town is like Peyton Place and it's really nauseating sometimes. I personally think it's worse to sleep with one person other than your spouse after you are married than to sleep with 100 people before you get married.

On the other side of the coin, there are people like my friend Beth who started going with this guy when she was 12...married him...and they are still very happy together. But that is very, very, VERY rare.

So don't limit your options before you have to...I think when people start screwing around it is not so much for the sex itself, but for the newness and the thrill. In that sense, I think you can save yourself for marriage and not worry about it later...but if you only ever kiss one guy, unless you are a rarity or a very complacent person, eventually the urge to experiment is going to come out.

[James]

33girl, your post reminds me of the scene in Grease 2 in the fallout shelter when they were supposed to "do it" for their country.

[h2oot]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers have found that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to have communication problems that could lead to divorce.

We found that those people who live together were more negative and less positive when resolving a marital problem and when providing support to their partner," Dr. Catherine L. Cohan, of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told Reuters Health.

Cohan and colleague Stacey Kleinbaum interviewed 92 couples who had been married for less than 2 years. The couples were primarily white and college-educated, and none had children. Some of the couples had cohabited--before marriage with their current spouse or with others--while some had not.

The investigators found that husbands and wives who had lived together before marriage were more verbally aggressive, less supportive of one another and more generally hostile than the spouses who had not lived together, according to the report published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

According to the authors, it is possible that people who live together before marriage enter the relationship with lower commitment. "The open-ended nature of the relationship," they note, "may cause them to be less motivated to develop their conflict resolution and support skills."



I've heard the argument that living together may help to determine if the two of you are compatible. This is an interesting counterpoint.

[Optimist Prime]

those studies are like two years old and have probably been disproven. All mariges have a 50% chance so i don't think living together will have that much of an impact.

[h2oot]

Originally posted by Optimist Prime
those studies are like two years old and have probably been disproven. All mariges have a 50% chance so i don't think living together will have that much of an impact.

This study was just published and posted today. Its ok to disagree, but don't dismiss it cuz you think its out of date.

SOURCE: Journal of Marriage and Family 2002;64:180-192

[DeltAlum]

Random Thoughts...

I think at least some parents have a "sixth sense" about what their kids are doing. And when. Many of us don't become confrontational because, while we may be pretty sure, we don't have proof. That was particularly true with my middle daughter in terms of sex and drugs.

I know how clever I thought I was when I started drinking with fake ID's while still in high school. My family knew, I just didn't realize it.

Besides, it really is true that many of you are simply doing what many of us did when we were your age. Compare notes with your parents some day.

Second, I'm surprized at the findings of this latest study, however I wouldn't discount it using the 50% marriage failure figure. Statistics are funny things unless you know how the numbers were reached, size and composition of samples, etc. It could be that all 50% of those divorced couples lived with each other before marriage and the 50% of successful married couples didn't.

I agree that's a real stretch and is highly unlikely, but my point is that I'm not sure using those numbers are relavent to this study.

As I said, random thoughts.

[Optimist Prime]

Originally posted by h2oot


This study was just published and posted today. Its ok to disagree, but don't dismiss it cuz you think its out of date.

SOURCE: Journal of Marriage and Family 2002;64:180-192

Um...I didn't know you meant a particalur study. My teacher told us about a similar ones two years ago. So probablby someboy doing follow up reseeeearch

[James]

Interesting, the trouble with these kind of studies is that are observational and don't really test for a single variable in a controlled setting. This doesn't diminish the value, but it can skew the interpreation of which element is the predictive factor.

There used to be an old joke (only in academia), that physicians wrote studies thusly: if a terminal ill patient is given pea soup and recovers, then Pea soup cures that type of illness. If given to another patient who dies, the study reads: 50% of patients given pea soup recover.

You see the problem.

These types of reports come out regulary. And while I can't say with certainty that the authors have an agenda, usually there is a certain spin to them.

If I were a social science researcher analyzing the data, I would have done a little more statistical sifting (assuming they didn't) and started tracking couples for total time together also.

There was a study in the past that said that marriages that began without cohabitation lasted longer. Review of the data showed that usually the people that had cohabited were together longer before the marriage than the non-cohabitators.

The total length of relationship time was about the same in each group adding up time before and after marriage. I think the average time of relationships was about ten years until seperation regardless of category.

If the cohabiters were together longer before getting married than their counterparts then maybe they were just closer to the end of their relationships . . although 2 years is not long into a marriage.

Someone mentioned to me that marriage longevity had lowered below 10 years and was like 6 now but I haven't seen anything myself.

Originally posted by h2oot
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Researchers have found that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to have communication problems that could lead to divorce.

We found that those people who live together were more negative and less positive when resolving a marital problem and when providing support to their partner," Dr. Catherine L. Cohan, of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, told Reuters Health.

Cohan and colleague Stacey Kleinbaum interviewed 92 couples who had been married for less than 2 years. The couples were primarily white and college-educated, and none had children. Some of the couples had cohabited--before marriage with their current spouse or with others--while some had not.

The investigators found that husbands and wives who had lived together before marriage were more verbally aggressive, less supportive of one another and more generally hostile than the spouses who had not lived together, according to the report published in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

According to the authors, it is possible that people who live together before marriage enter the relationship with lower commitment. "The open-ended nature of the relationship," they note, "may cause them to be less motivated to develop their conflict resolution and support skills."



I've heard the argument that living together may help to determine if the two of you are compatible. This is an interesting counterpoint.