Recently, I came across an advice column on Slate.com in which a heartbroken mother learned her 15-year-old daughter was having sex with her boyfriend. “I spent many years talking with her about choices and trying to develop an open relationship,” lamented the mother. “We are seeing her doctor to discuss birth control and talk about reproductive health. On paper, I’ve done all the right things.” The mother wondered what to do.
I found this letter interesting because my husband and I have two daughters, the younger of whom is 15. On paper, we also think we’d “done all the right things” when it came to raising our girls. But apparently our “things” are vastly differ from the “things” this woman and her husband did when raising their daughter.
The advice columnist offered the type of response that can be expected from a liberal magazine. “There are so many lousy ways to lose your virginity – think of the drunken party in the basement – that it is a good thing she decided to do it in the context of a relationship,” soothes the columnist. “You are right that now she needs a safe and reliable form of birth control. … There’s no reason to think her losing her virginity will start a cascade of disaster. … You will only alienate her if you can’t come to terms with her decision and treat her with respect. … Tell her you appreciate her being honest with you, and that even if you don’t always agree with her decisions, you will always be there to love and support her.”
Let us just say that, as the mother of a 15-year-old daughter, this is NOT the kind of advice I would give (nor take).
I have no way of knowing what kind of upbringing this girl had, of course, but based on the mother’s letter I believe I can make a few deductions. First, the mother is married (kudos). Second, she clearly loves her daughter and wants what’s best for her (more kudos). But as far as I can deduce, that’s where my admiration ends.
At this point, the family of this girl is probably too entrenched in the liberal marinade to make radical changes. But if I could have caught the parents when the girl was young, I would have given them a few suggestions, as follows:
- Stay married. (To her credit, the mother has done this.)
- Stay home. Kids need a hands-on parent, not day care.
- Homeschool (or use private schools). Most public schools are an academic joke. But worse, they cultivate an environment of intense peer pressure where children are encouraged to cater to their basest instincts. This is termed “socialization” and somehow is seen as a necessary component of childhood. Lately we’ve seen bizarre situations where judges are ordering homeschooled children into public schools for purposes of “socialization,” in the mistaken notion that environments which cultivate sexually active 15-year-olds are somehow superior to environments which cultivate virgins.
- Be a parent, not a friend. This, I believe, may be our distressed mother’s issue. She apparently spent many years “trying to develop an open relationship” with her daughter but is only now realizing that children don’t need buddies, they need parents.
You see, some people have this notion that they have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to raising kids. They don’t like the traditional strict two-parent, mom-at-home, spank-when-necessary method of raising children, so they try to do their own thing … and then grieve when their young teens also “do their own thing.”
Progressives glamorize sexual freedom and emphasize the importance of “reproductive health” while forgetting that responsible sex also includes self-control, commitment and a moral compass. This 15-year-old girl does not understand self-control in the face of sexual pressure from her peers and especially her boyfriend; she does not have any comprehension of commitment since, of course, she has no plans to marry at 15; and she certainly does not have the moral compass that might have prevented her from becoming sexually active in the first place (and which she is not likely to acquire after going on the Pill).
The girl’s mother is, in effect, being told to set her daughter adrift in a sea of progressive and relative values. She’s being told to be her daughter’s friend, not her parent. She’s being told, hey, they’re going to do it anyway, so here’s a way to keep her from getting preggo. And if she does become pregnant … well, that’s what abortions are for.
The advice given to the mother of this minor child emphasizes little more than catering to the girl’s feeeeelings rather than stepping up to the plate and teaching the kid not to shred her self-worth with a succession of cheap hookups. This girl will grow up to think that her value comes from what’s between her legs, not from what’s between her ears. It’s a bad way to start out one’s adult life.
Too many people give their kids what they want, rather than what the need. What this teenage girl wants is birth control so she can continue slutting with her boyfriend. What she needs is tough love: less freedom, more chores; less material goods, more work; fewer privileges, more accountability.
Too often, modern parenting techniques are antithetical to the old-fashioned time-tested ways to raise children, complete with restrictions, religious values, discipline, repercussions, training and high expectations of moral behavior.
None of this advice guarantees a child won’t go off the deep end and rebel against every value they were raised with. I know of several such cases of phenomenal parents and a wayward child. But these parents did not enable their child’s rebellious behavior by providing more opportunities (such as birth control) to continue it. And the funny thing is, these wayward children often “see the light” as they grow older and straighten themselves out – in effect, realizing that the firm grounding their received is, in fact, the best way.
But enabling and even encouraging bad behavior, like this mother is doing, almost guarantees the kid will never straighten herself out.
Something to think about as we raise our own teenagers.
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