and an old prude to be upset by dd13's pornified take on life?

[tantrumqueensmum]

dd (13) thinks I am being totally unreasonable (so what's new) as I have taken her phone off her for the second time after she sent messages referencing anal sex and lube to a boy she barely knows (esp as one of the messages mentioned that said boy had asked my dd2 (only just turned 11) about lube - eurgghh.

Apparently, this is classed as 'banter' - as was the previous set of messages to a different boy she barely knows about prostitution with reference to oral sex?! (Ironic and 'jokey', according to her.)

I do not think this kind of topic is appropriate for anyone of any age to text to someone they hardly know. There is also swearing too - I don't like to see this in texts either but am less bothered about this and am prepared to let this go.

Should add dd goes to an all girls' school so sees boys as rather more interesting than they actually are. She certainly has no actual sexual experience though reads EVERYTHING not nailed down eg newspapers, books etc, and though internet filters apply, I daresay the odd thing there may also have slipped through. Presumably teens talk about such matters as well, and she also presumably picks up the general porn-inspired culture around us, where women are supposedly expected to look and act like porn stars in all contexts, no matter how inappropriate.

I've tried talking to her but despair of making her understand - have told her that that kind of 'banter' in the workplace would lose you your job, that texting/messaging is not the same as chatting in the flesh, as stuff is recorded potentially forever; but though in the past she's claimed to understand my point, she is now just weeping that she neeeeds her phone back, I'm killing her social life without it, and that this kind of chat is actually not that bad and 'all teenagers do it'.

So, dear MN jury, is she right? Do 'all teens' 'banter' like this? Am I prude? Or , alternatively, is she way out of order/in need of help (what help???) and how do I get her to understand how normal adults (or even teens) interact with each other on phones (or off them)?

[Aussiemum78]

I'd be very worried. She sounds naive but also like she lacks confidence (saying things to get boys to like her). That could lead to further bad decisions.

I'd be talking to school, as well as her.

[hooochycoo]

another one who to a certain extent recognises her teenage self in your daughter.

no internet or phone back them, but i was desperate for excitement, romance, sex, intrigue, something other than the mundane boring crap at school and home. at thirteen I put an advert in the fanclub newsletter of a band i like and asked for pen pals. wrote to dozens of people, most of them boys. not so much sexual, but total love and romance stuff, undying love and merging souls and passion and all that. two of them drove hundreds of miles to meet up, i lost my virginity to one of them. he nearly fainted when he saw me in my school unifirm, i'd told him i was seventeen.

i was very intelligent, high achiever, geeky at school, but increasingly utterly bored and non conformist and into music and poetry and art and didn't see school as being inspring or interesting. i was bullied as didn't fit in at primary school due to being clever and non athletic. and i'd had a tricky childhood with an abusive father, abused mother and their divorce and ensuing court battles. but my teenage rebellion was actually me taking control and finding out who i was i think, i needed it. looking back i don't regret it atall, it made me me and i recognise myself then in myself now, infact i miss some of my courage. by fourteen i was drinking, taking drugs, in a punk band playing pubs, by sixteen i moved out and went to art college.

i might have been lucky to not get into to any great trouble, or i might have been clever enough not to put myself in danger too much, but i didn;t come to any harm.

i'd advise, give your daughter some respect. some girls grow up quicker than others, and some really really want to. being a child can go on forever and when you've had enough it's prison. give her freedoms and responsibilities. trust her, send her off on inspring adventures. if she won't take it from you as youre the thing she needs to rebel against, then try and engineer her people and experiences that are powerful and inspiring. buy her tickets for gigs, take her to festivals, read her politics, poetry, great literature. if there's a powerful female role model in her life then enlist their help if she won't take it from you. for instance, i had an aunt who lived in london who i use to go stay with who let me drink and took me to gigs and inspired me with literature. She's looking for intensity and connections, so try and show her connections and intensity elsewhere.

[hooochycoo]

What sort of things is she interested in?

[rabbitlady]

you are right, she is wrong.

[tantrumqueensmum]

Wow, hooochycoo, great post. Yes, you do sound like dd but forgive me if I say that my dd drinking, taking drugs and moving out at 16 would make me v sad. :(

But I do understand what you say about wanting 'intense' experiences; she's always been quite obsessive about different things - right now, it's music and I have encouraged it, taken her to gigs of her choice, bought her guitar/keyboards. You may well be right that as what she wants is independence, I probably couldn't be the one to 'lead her' to exciting pastures new - she wants to do stuff herself.

And you're also right that in some ways she is quite 'old' for her age, and wants to be treated that way - but the problem is that that is matched by a knowledge of the world that is quite immature.

Really interesting to hear a different perspective from someone who's been there - to give her more freedom not less. I know she feels I'm cramping her freedom and spoiling her social life - but keeping her safe has to come before her feeling peeved. If I can find a way to give her freedom and safety at the same time, I'll happily take it. But not sure what will achieve that except for her getting older and inevitably getting more responsibility/freedom (and possibly more common sense?).

Am feeling v sad again; don't know how to get through to her as she has a kind of water off a duck's back approach to anything you say to her, she takes nothing in and lives in a little bubble where she believes she knows everything, is superior to everyone and can learn nothing from others (especially her parents). The school doesn't help by going on about how clever and high-flying she is, either (at meeting I had with HoY yesterday); they were trying to be encouraging but it just fuels her arrogance and assumptions that being sensible/doing some work isn't necessary for her. :(

I don't know any older girls who could speak to dd; MIL, who dd gets on with, and best friend from primary have both tried but with little success.

[cjel]

I wouldn't advise more freedom. In the days before internet and phone freedom was far less dangerous. She needs to know what she is doing could be very dangerous and once she has experienced bad things it is much harder to recover. She is 13 not 16. has her school got a mentoring schem or maybe childrens services < the I would get her a counsellor who can help her build solid confidence and help her recognise the potential danger she may put herself in.x

[ThanSheSaid]

I wouldn't advise more freedom either, she is clearly too immature. She needs to regain your trust. I would definitely put controls on her phone. She is still a child.

[babiesmakemecrazy]

I am now 19 but at 13 this went on a lot at my school unfortunately. I remember that texts and pictures used to get sent round that the girls had sent to boys. It even escalated to other schools. Talk to her, explain the risk and your concerns. It's hard to check what young teens text and facebook each other as it can be deleted.

[nooka]

Showed the OP to my dd as she is also 13. She told me that there was definitely some of this sort of stuff going on at her school (which is co-ed), and described some of the other ways that some of the girls involved behaved which sounded to me like lots of rather stupid bravado from rather immature girls. ds who is 14 was incredibly dismissive, and clearly thought the whole idea was really quite grim.

Generally it sounded to me like the girls were desperately seeking validation - certainly the one girl we know quite well who is in this group of girls has frequently done some very stupid (and quite unkind) things in order to be in with other girls that she perceived as higher status.

OP I think that if you can access counseling services for your dd then that might be really helpful as it sounds as if she is behaving fairly out of character and there might well be an underlying cause for both the sexting and the general behaviour issues. It does sounds like it could be more than typical teenage terribleness.

[hooochycoo]

I think you might need to accept in some ways that you've lost her for a while. I made my mum very sad , and I hated her for a while for her perceived smothering of my freedom, but we were fine by my late teens, and she made the most amazing speech at my wedding about how much she respected and admired me for my intensity, precocious ness and choices. You'll just need to keep her safe from the side lines, be her anonymous protector and sometimes the bad guy, and be proud that your daughter is growing up. I agree the sexting isn't ideal, but neither was a twenty one year old stranger coming and picking me up and taking me away for a dirty weekend in the Peak District when my mum thought I was staying at my friend's house when I was 14. But it made me who I am. Respect her intelligence, you might just need to trust that she's doing what she needs to do. If you punish and restrict her you'll know less and less about her life and have less influence and control. I don't agree with other posters who say she's still a child, she's obviously not. It's more complicated than that. She's on the cusp. You both have my sympathies!

On the sexting thing, why don't you challenge her to write you an essay about feminism and the objectification of the female body? Give her a reading list? Every
500 words gets her phone for a day/ some credit?

If she's into music, then how about buying her tickets ( and you) for Christmas for a local music festival next summer, for her and a friend, and a tent for them to share? Where do you live?

Encourage her to write music, poetry. Buy her albums by Peaches, the Slits, the gossip, Patti Smith, PJHArvey, sny bold sexual strong women who's words and attitudes could inspire her. Get her to form a band. Put an advert on a message board she uses, offer to host practises and jam sessions.

If you've the means, Take her on an intense foreign holiday. Immerse her in another culture entirely, show her poverty. Show her something intense. She's at an age when something could completely shape her and she needs a pivotal experience.

And also have pity on her. Remember how insane hormones can make you feel.remember pregnancy, childbirth, pmt. puberty and the girl to woman bit can be insane for some. But also marvel and admire her, let her know that you respect and fear her power and the changes that are happening in her. Don't deny or move to squash them. They will still be there.

[hooochycoo]

My suggestions are only suggestions. I'm sure you can figure out a way to give her freedom and respect and keep her safe simultaneously, you're clever too. but just remember it'll need to be things that'll push your boundaries and make you feel uncomfortable , or else it won't be fair on her. For instance, my mum tolerated me playing in pubs in my band at 14, if she could come and pick me up after. Meant her driving at 2 in the morning to pick up a drubken me and my guitar and amp, but kept me safe. She let me invite friends back to the house, even when she must have known we were drinking and the like, but it kept me safe rather than going back to a squat or something. I did take the piss out if her alot, but she let me to keep me safe. I can see that now. It was so hard for her, but she was part if the reason no harm came to me. Good luck, the next few years could be the most challenging you get with her.

[hooochycoo]

By the way, you sound brilliant. Respect to you and your open minded ness , she's lucky to have you

[summermovedon]

Utterly terrifying, is my first reaction. My little sister's friend was 11 when she had sex first. Girl's school, her parents definitely didn't guess. Children grow up too quickly. Whether it is banter or not.

[OhMerGerd]

OP this was my DD two/ three years ago in pretty much every detail. Every detail! ( sound so spooky I'm wondering if you're writing about her by proxy). Any how just to give you hope. She is out the other side. Older, wiser, few a*s less than predicted, and a few 'friends' lighter but actually you know I think she'll do better for it- as she's shaping up into a very confident and caring young lady. The operative word here bent 'shaping' ... She's just turned 17 so she's still a child and learning.
Anyhow - we went down the less freedom route. Not more. the world is very different today than it was even 10 years ago. my DH was of the cut some slack school of thought for about three weeks but without going into the details he changed his mind pretty swiftly. It was bloody hard. We're knackered. But it worked. We realised we were trying to use adult principles of reason and respect on a child who could articulate and out argue us with her brilliant mind but emotionally she was a baby with raging hormones.
So we went to no phone. No use of PC without supervision. iPod touch confiscated. She went to school. They finish at 6. She came home. We organised activities with her friends or she went on organised activities with friends whose parents we met and trusted. I broke my neck to get home or my DH did so that she did not spend more than an hour alone at home in the evening. Holidays. If we were not off or i couldn't take her to work she went to my mums 50 miles away who had no Internet at the time. Yes she was out of the loop and her friendship group suffered etc but they were not helping in fact teenagers love a drama and her friends were encouraging her to 'run away' or 'it's your body you can do what you like' but as I pointed out they were saying all this from the safety if their mum and dads sofa where they were snuggled in their pjs drinking hot chocolate.

Reading back it sounds like prison. But it wasn't so bad as I realised that actually we needed to spend more time with her. When i took her to work. She had to sit on a desk next to mine or in a corner doing homework, sleeping, doodling I didn't care what. I even took her to conferences and meetings, dressed her up called her the work experience girl. It actually made her feel special and was great mum daughter time( but hard for me as you can imagine trying to lead a seminar or present a paper with daughter sat in back row swigging from a pop bottle - I can smile now though ). At home we baked ( she's now into baking for fetes and stuff), we did fashion and makeovers, 'spa Saturdays' towels down in the lounge classic drama on the telly bowls of hot water for feet cucumber for eyes. And gradually we talked.
We slowly reintroduced the phone. No Internet. Payg very limited texts. Then moved up. Basically the people she was texting/sexting moved on to other girls. She didn't feel any pressure to be in contact with them and has moved on.
In this time she has had two 'boyfriends' . We just included them in the organised activity things and have strict rules about behaviour in the home ( which I have had no qualms about sharing with their mothers so we're all on the same page). She is not having sex ( yet... We've started discussing the pill and I would imagine she might want to start taking it some time next year) she's in a stable and normal equal respectful non abusive non pornified relationship with a lovely boy. We are close. She says I'm her best friend .... I'm not her bestie and nor would I want to be. Really I'm her mum and we're where we should be but it took hard work. It's drained me and I've aged about ten years but it's been worth it for my girl.

Oh and she's not a bad child or a naughty girl and we're not crap parents. Other people will have different issues. Maybe later in life. I see women in their twenties at work behaving quite extraordinarily juvenile over men and I think well at least DD2 went through it at 14 ... When its a forgivable part of growing up!

[OhMerGerd]

Lord that's long sorry

[ThanSheSaid]

I would have done the same as you OhMyGawd. I am glad it worked out well.

Hoochy Surely, you must find it really creepy that a 21 year old took you away for a weekend to have sex with you when you were 14. He could be prosecuted for that.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

She'll survive without her phone. Presumably you have a home phone from which she can phone her actual friends to arrange meet ups etc?

She sounds very miserable and is clearly desperate for fun and affection. I think that one of the best things to do with teenagers is remember they are still your child, quite young, and nice inside even if grotty on the outside at times, and spend time with them. Do you do much with her, one to one? Take her out for lunch on a Saturday or go to cinema just the two of you? If she's got a younger sister, especially one who's no trouble (for now!) maybe she feels that her parents look on her as a pain and a problem?

The part about how she made you cry because she's had such a shit week struck a chord. I remember how upset my mother used to get over me (and I didn't do anything "bad" per se - was just grumpy and upset and unhelpful ie typical). By concentrating on how awful it was for her it made things worse because I knew she couldn't see that I was experiencing really upsetting and intense emotions, stress, social anxieties etc. Yes, it's really hard being a mum, but you're so far ahead of her in some ways:

• you don't have to go to school and if you hate your job you can leave or change careers
• you've passed your exams and never have to do them again
• given that you have kids you've proven once and for all that someone fancies you enough to have sex with you
• you have friends who like you for who you are
• your body has developed in such a way that people don't throw up when they see you

I know it may seem silly, but those kind of achievements and certainties and confidence are all still in the future for your daughter. At 13 it's all to play for. She is just playing for it in the wrong way, and needs some understanding but also some parenting cf. ohmergerd

[hooochycoo]

Not atall creepy, I knew exactly what I wanted, I'd wanted romance and sex for years and was in love woth him. I totally knew my own mind and heart , I look back on it with fondness and gratitude that my first was so romantic. He was a sweet poetic 21 year old student. The only regret I have is that I lied to him about my age and could have got him in trouble. That was selfish.


Ohmawgod that is amazing, and full respect to you. it would not have worked for me. I would have ran off. But all kids are different, we all walk and talk at dufferent times, potty train, learn everything at different times. Some grow up quickly, some slowly. I'm just trying to give a different perspective.

The OP's the only one who knows her daughter. And I'm saying give her full freedom to go off and fuck and get fucked up. I'm advocating respecting her and inspiring her.

[cjel]

Hoochy - surely as a 13 year old OP should still be guiding her dd and not letting her go. I think that you may be happy with how you 'turned out' but I'd say you have missed so much of age appropriate growing up that it sad.

I have done the same as Ohmawgod and its amazing how dds like it when they are allowed to be their age and not to feel they have to rush into adulthood. Tis dd is being corrupted in a way that she is not mature enough to realise.

[hooochycoo]

Cjel, I didn't like being patronised as a thirteen year old and I still don't. Everyone is different, not all 13 year olds are the same. I'm giving another perspective, not the bible. I personally have no regrets about my teenage years, I enjoyed it all, ruined nothing for myself. Got all my exams, got a degree, have a great career and have had many happy, interesting and non damaging relationships. Don't be so close minded as to assume everyone is the same.

[cjel]

I am not close minded and you clearly still have some touchy feelings about your childhood. I have enormous experience with 13 year olds and assure you that the vast majority prefer to be parented differently to you. Your last post confirms to me that there some residual issues for you if you read my post as patronising. My post started with the enquiry 'surely' and was merely asking a question. I then went on to say that you missed out on age appropriate activities as a 13 year old , which you did. It wasn't patronising or a criticism but as you say a perspective. Not all 13 year olds are the same but nor are all babies and they have milk and nappies. There are certain things for certain times of life and 13 is not a time for anal sex and lube.

[hooochycoo]

And yes, I've said the OP should respect and inspire her daughter, which could be construed as guiding. I haven't told her to abandon her to anal sex hell!

What ohmawged described might have been appropriate for her and her daughter, but going to my mum's work and having pamper sessions would have utterly killed me. Everyone is different. Just giving some different perspective. I'm not saying anyone else's experience isn't valid. So please have respect for mine!

[cjel]

I never disrespected it you are the one getting defensive!

[hooochycoo]

I have no "residual issues" and also no need to argue with you about it as I still find you patronising) You maybe right about me not being the majority, and personally i take that as a compliment. Everyone is different!

Good luck OP! X