Subscribe
Previous Post
When I was in high school, plenty of people assumed that I was having sex. Whether it was friends, teachers or random girls at a party, my proclivity for dating seniors as a freshman seemed to indicate some advanced activity. However, I was pretty surprised when one woman jumped on the “You must be sleeping with him” bandwagon. My mother.
Even more uncomfortable in this whole situation, my mother wasn’t admonishing me or trying to keep me locked in the house. She wasn’t explaining over and over again that I should save myself for marriage. She wasn’t condemning those who have sex in high school as terrible kids who will ruin their lives. My mother actually didn’t have a single negative thing to say, even though she assumed that her 15 year old daughter was considering sex with her 18 year old boyfriend.
Here’s what my mother told me, as I remember it.
“Lindsay, if you’re thinking about or have already decided to have sex, here are a few things that I want you to know. I’m not going to tell you that sex is dirty or bad. It’s not. It’s a beautiful way for two people who love each other very deeply to connect. In fact, it’s the most intimate connection that you can have with another human being.
You already know that teenagers have plenty of hormones running through their body. It’s natural and healthy to feel excited by the idea of sex. These aren’t feelings that you need to be ashamed of. But I want to give you one warning.
You can’t take back sex and the choice to have sex is your’s alone to make. You shouldn’t make it because your boyfriend is ready and you want to make him happy. Someone who truly loves you will be more than happy to wait for you. You shouldn’t have sex because your friends are. You all will grow and mature at your own age. You should only choose to have safe, protected sex because you feel that you’re emotionally ready to handle the possible consequences, like having children, and you love your boyfriend enough to go on that journey with him.
You should only have sex if you, in your heart, feel like it’s the right decision for you. It is a very big step and it will have a huge emotional impact, so I don’t want you to make that choice until you’re positive that it’s what you want.”
Now, I’m sure it didn’t come out exactly like that, but this is the message that I received from my mother about sex as a freshman in high school. And you know what, I remembered these words when I finally decided to take that step about five years later. And I’ve remembered this lesson as I watch my own daughter grow and think about “the talk” that I’ll have with her someday.
Sex is an important part of life. (Ya know, since it creates it… sorry couldn’t help myself.) I feel so blessed that my mother taught me early on to respect its significance, but not to be ashamed of sexual desire. She taught me to value myself and my own choices. Her guidance has made all the difference.
Valentines Day might be all about romance, but it also makes me thank my mother, for teaching me to appreciate and embrace love, even the physical aspects of it.
The parents play a big part not only in the education aspect of sex, but the emotional aspect as well. If a parent can convey the concept that sex is not just a physical expression of love, but creates emotional markers as well, they will set their child up for a successful marriage later in life. Here’s a resource I created to help parents in this area (especially dads): http://www.DadsTalkPurity.blogspot.com
This is the basic message I got from my parents as well, though my mother believed I was having sex years before I actually did it at 18.
I love this article! My mom had a very awkward sex talk with me at 8 years old, and when she found out I had sex with my long-term boyfriend at 15 she went ballistic and didn’t talk to me for about a week….talk about shame. There was a time when I was about 9 and I wrote the word SEX on the back of my bedroom door in lipstick, I guess I just wanted to see it in print, and when she found it she did not talk to me for several days, furious the whole time. Anyways, as a married adult I still cannot think about sex without feeling bad about it, and I feel like she took something away from me. My daughter is 3, and I feel like I need to have a good handle on the way I approach sex with hear, finding a balance between being open to natural human sensuality, and waiting until you are emotionally ready to engage in a physical relationship. Any advice on this topic is welcome, and I appreciate it in advance!
I’ve never really gotten the big deal over “The Talk”. If you’ve raised your kid(s) well (and I mean both girls and boys, here), it should really be countless conversations over the years. Not just this one big, scary “Talk” that makes everyone uncomfortable, parents and kids included.
Of course, I come from a family of practicing and lapsed Catholics that never talks about such things, so maybe my opinion is skewed. I’m 26 years old, didn’t have sex until college, and have never discussed sex, birth control, or any related topics with my mother. Nor, I am certain, did she ever discuss it with her mother, who had 6 kids. None of us ended up pregnant in high school or on the streets selling ourselves. I guess, different strokes for different folks