Anonymous wrote:Most 13 yr old girls having sex aren't having sex with 13 yr old boys. It is the 15/16 yr olds that they think are cool. In order to compete with the 15 and 16 yr old girls, the 13 yr olds have to act and dress older and be willing to do more to get these older boys. If you look on instagram at some of the 13 yr old girls accounts, you will see what I mean. It often really isn't a great dynamic. Also many of the 15/16 yr old boys are experimenting with drugs / alcohol so then the 13 yr old girls get pulled into that.

13 is also very young given how kids are raised here to be dealing with contraception (and doing it right), STDs (that can happen regardless of contraception, pregnancy and decisions about pregnancy, rejection and emotional pain. Really sex at 13 is pretty much asking for problems. Kids at 13 are not responsible or independent or mature enough to deal with everything that come with being sexually active.

I think the posters who are fine with it either beat the odds themselves or come from cultures where very early sexual activity is the norm (girls being married as preteens).

I'm guessing they're also the ones who think multiple abortions in high school are no big deal.

Most 13 yr old girls having sex aren't having sex with 13 yr old boys. It is the 15/16 yr olds that they think are cool. In order to compete with the 15 and 16 yr old girls, the 13 yr olds have to act and dress older and be willing to do more to get these older boys. If you look on instagram at some of the 13 yr old girls accounts, you will see what I mean. It often really isn't a great dynamic. Also many of the 15/16 yr old boys are experimenting with drugs / alcohol so then the 13 yr old girls get pulled into that.

13 is also very young given how kids are raised here to be dealing with contraception (and doing it right), STDs (that can happen regardless of contraception, pregnancy and decisions about pregnancy, rejection and emotional pain. Really sex at 13 is pretty much asking for problems. Kids at 13 are not responsible or independent or mature enough to deal with everything that come with being sexually active.

I think the posters who are fine with it either beat the odds themselves or come from cultures where very early sexual activity is the norm (girls being married as preteens).

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Anonymous wrote:I think you need to know your child and know their friends. I know who I would not leave my child alone with. It just takes constant involvement and communication with your child. My kids are doing much better than I did. My single mother worked all the time and I hung out with some good kids and some kids that did things that we should not have been doing. I want my children to have the opposite of my childhood. I just try to remain aware, involved, and close to my kids.

And they will vow to give their children the opposite of their childhood by giving them independence.

(Not a comment on what you're doing, specifically -- more a comment on how people generally react to the way their parents raised them.)

Sometimes but I think it depends. I had a stressful childhood because of my parents failings. I was not very happy. My kids are generally happy and don't have much stress in their lives. I make a conscious effort to be a better parent. I think kids seek out drugs, alcohol, and premature sexual relationships because they are not happy at home or with themselves.

Anonymous wrote:I think you need to know your child and know their friends. I know who I would not leave my child alone with. It just takes constant involvement and communication with your child. My kids are doing much better than I did. My single mother worked all the time and I hung out with some good kids and some kids that did things that we should not have been doing. I want my children to have the opposite of my childhood. I just try to remain aware, involved, and close to my kids.

And they will vow to give their children the opposite of their childhood by giving them independence.

(Not a comment on what you're doing, specifically -- more a comment on how people generally react to the way their parents raised them.)

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Anonymous wrote:I think it's pretty standard that kids are doing BJs and HJs in 8th/9th grade. Certainly by freshman year all of my Catholic school friends were doing something along those lines. The public school (Bethesda/Chevy Chase area) kids started a bit earlier.

Uhh, you must have been in the high speed popular crowd. No way were my friends and I giving bjs in eight and ninth grade. I didn't get that far till senior year.

I lost my virginity in 9th grade at age 14 with a 16 yr old who I had been dating almost a year. I was not fast or popular. It was not peer pressure and I didn't tell any of my girlfriends until years later b/c I was an honor student and none of my friends from band and French club were doing stuff fluke that. I also cared about him a lot and knew I was doing something I wanted of my own volition. I had sexy with 2 guys in HS and the second one I dated over 2 years and into my death man year of college. I graduated 3rd in my HS class, 3 varisity sports, 2 club presidencies, and 1st chair for my instrument in band. I went to a great school, have a great career, and got married at 33 to the 10th person I had sex with. Not all girls who have sex young are peer pressured, dumb, or low SES. Some of your gifted, perfect, honor students who are so academically precocious are also precociously capable of having relatively mature romantic relationships that include sex.

+1000

Women enjoy sex too and so do girls. Obviously, pp's situation is very different from a situation in which she felt pressured etc but I'm glad someone came on here to say that teen sex can also be a positive experience and part of growing up.

My best friend lost her virginity at 13 and she said that her first lover was actually the best, most generous lover she's ever had. She's now a happily married, employed, respectable 40 year old mother of 2. She's from a great family, not low SES.

I have two girls and when they're older I'm going to warn then about manipulative men or men who pressure them into sex. Also' I'll make sure we have condoms in the house and discuss birth control. But at the same time I'm not going to lie - sex is fun if it's with the right person. Nothing wrong with that.

Does your husband agree that your daughters being sexually active by 13 is a good thing?

I didn't say that. Maybe you should on your reading comprehension. I just related my best friend's experience and said that when the time comes I'm going to keep the channels on communication open and not condemn them if they do decide to become sexually active before I'd like them to. Seriously though, I didn't lose my virginity at 13 but I did a few years after that and it was fun and didn't do me any harm. I didn't spend my teenage years in the US and I find this horror at the idea of teen sexuality kind of weird. Don't you remembe being teenagers?

I think you need to know your child and know their friends. I know who I would not leave my child alone with. It just takes constant involvement and communication with your child. My kids are doing much better than I did. My single mother worked all the time and I hung out with some good kids and some kids that did things that we should not have been doing. I want my children to have the opposite of my childhood. I just try to remain aware, involved, and close to my kids.

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Anonymous wrote:My 43 year old hubby got his first BJ at age 11 from another 11 year old girl during a neighborhood truth or dare game.

What were the parents doing?

They were at work. Kids at that age hang out unsupervised all the time.

Exactly. Welcome to absentee parenting.

So responsible parenting means never leaving your child alone until your child turns 18? Yikes.

Responsible parenting means knowing how to read.

OK, so at what age does a responsible (non-absentee) parent leave a child unsupervised with friends? 12? 13? 14? 15? 16? 17?

Anonymous wrote:I'm a 41 year old female and lost my virginity at 12

Congratulations - here's your award

I'm 40. Some kids in my 7th grade class were sexually active, most, including me, were not. I cannot say that in the long run the kids who were sexually active in 7th grade seem to be worse off/less successful/less happy in life than the rest of us. It still probably wasn't a good idea.

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Anonymous wrote:I'm not suggesting anything about your son. I've never even met him, never mind know him. Could you shed some light on how you determined that he was ready for the priviledge of getting a driving license? It's probably the biggest responsibility you can give him between now and high school graduation.

He gets straight As. He's a 3 sport athlete. He does his chores. He's polite and respectful. Besides, he's 16. Why wouldn't you let a 16 year old get their license? Even if his grades were failing, then I'd pull driving privileges. But I'd still let him get his license. Did you not get your license when you turned 16? I'm really confused why there is even a qualifying factor for that. Again- getting a license is different than letting him drive.

Your son sounds exceptional. I don't know high school kids who have chores anymore.
But in general, I think a license at 16 should be earned, not an entitlement. You should see how most of them are driving. A little mistake of distraction can not only cost him his life, but others as well. Kids are less mature than when they had household and family responsibilities early on.

We haven't yet addressed how sleep deprived high school students are. This is often are dangerous as driving intoxicated.

Trust me, I've seen plenty of shitty HS drivers. Pretty much every day. But that doesn't mean they don't have to LEARN how to do it well. Do you have any kids, how old are they, and did you let them get their license?

Anonymous wrote:I'm 28 and it was happening when I was in 7th grade (not me personally but I knew people who were). And I attended one of the top schools in the country, so it was a good school full of good, smart kids. Anyways, I remember it being more along the lines of blow jobs, hand jobs, and fingering. Can only recall a couple of people who claimed to have had sex.

Um, "blow jobs" "hand jobs" and "fingering" are all sex. Someone's genitals are getting wet. "Sex" is not penis-inside-vagina. That's intercourse.

We are in private school and I noticed around 5th grade some of the girls started to be extremely focused on the boys. Following them around, always texting them nonstop, not liking other girls because they were now in competition for the boys. I pointed this out to my dd so she could see how at some point girls were doing anything to get attention from boys. This is when the girl groups started to divide. Those who declared themselves popular (the ones throwing themselves at the boys) and all the rest of the girls. I steered my dd away from these girls who seemed to be rushing into more teenage behaviors. These girls also have more time unsupervised. I think you need to really pay attention to who your child is hanging out with. Kids influence each other and their brains are not developed to make adult decisions. Talk to your kids about sex, alcohol, drugs, etc. I tell my kids all the time not to be in a rush to growup because time goes by fast. Keep them busy, focused on family, and not to worry what everyone else is doing. Also the message should be that alcohol and drugs mess with your brain and result in kids and adults making bad decisions and result in self destructive behaviors. We also talk about the train wrecks they see on tv like Lindsey Loham etc who have messed up their lives with alcohol etc. Kids who drink early are more likely to engage in other high risk behaviors like sex at an early age.

My teen has already been told that HJ/BJ is sex by me. My mother told my brother the same - I accidentally overheard that conversation, but then my somewhat older sister started dating at 12 and had a baby at age 16 by same boy. Yes, it changed her life. My parents suddenly had a 5th child and she ended up married (to someone else) far too early.

DH has also said he prefers DS to wait until he's 18 - legally an adult. Of course, teens are teens, but we have expressed our views and in fact, both of us waited until we were in college. DS has also had the Unitarian church sexuality/relationship course. They used the s.e.x. book by Heather Corinna founder of http://www.scarleteen.com
We thought it was a good reference book, but very in-depth. Our son actually said that sometimes he had to put it down because it was more than he wanted to know right then.

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Anonymous wrote:I am not completely pro-life but you parents saying abortion for your kids make me ill. First off, it is not the safest procedure, second it teaches nothing, third there are many families looking for a baby of their own.

If your kid is old enough to want to have sex and dumb enough to not use protection, at least give the baby a viable option instead of killing it. 9 months of pregnant may close her legs next time too.

It actually is the safest procedure. Far safer than childbirth. The mortality rate for women is 8.8 dead women per 100,000 live births for childbirth, 0.6 dead women per 100,000 abortions for abortion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22270271

And if you would force your daughter to have a child because it teaches her a lesson, well...

(Thanks for confirming, yet again, that anybody who uses the phrase "close your legs" is not saying anything worthwhile.)

People that have abortions have risks for infertility when you vacuum the baby off the uterine wall. There is also phsychological issues of killing your kid that you have to live with. And no one said forcing a daughter to have a baby. I just am ashamed people actually think their only option for their daughter is killing an innocent baby and going back to school the next day. Yuck.

Every invasive proceedure we allow has risks and consequences. Everyone knows that. And let's pretend that infertility isn't a massive problem for more and more women.

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Anonymous wrote:My 43 year old hubby got his first BJ at age 11 from another 11 year old girl during a neighborhood truth or dare game.

What were the parents doing?

They were at work. Kids at that age hang out unsupervised all the time.

Exactly. Welcome to absentee parenting.

So responsible parenting means never leaving your child alone until your child turns 18? Yikes.

Responsible parenting means knowing how to read.

...Not to mention a few other skills.