to think that putting your 14yo on the pill and letting her sleep with her boyfriend at home is just bloody WRONG?

[macmonkey]

An (I thought) otherwise reasonable Mum has not only encouraged her 14yo to have sex with her boyfriend of several months but has the boy staying practically every weekend and lets them sleep together. I honestly believe she thinks it's the way to 'keep' a boyfriend. The first time she sent the girl to sleep with bf was when all the girls were over for a sleepover. What kind of message does that send to them? Not to mention the younger siblings, also in the house. So when her DS gets to 14 and brings a girl home, will she let them start shagging under her roof too? Or will she discuss it first with girl's parents, maybe? FFS. I'm practically speechless.

I dont think my attitude is depressing or enabling at all!

I hope that my DD will not be sexually active at 14. I talk to her, we have great communication, I am very open and vice versa. But if she comes to me at 14 and says she has had sex, I dont think going mad and saying she cant go out again until she is 16 is going to help!

I'm a safeguarding specialist, by the way. I'm not an apologist for or condoner of under age sex. But equally, I believe in a pragmatic approach that has the best possible chance of ensuring the young person doesnt end up with a STD, pregnant or in a dangerous situation.

I am in no way saying we should all be inviting boys in to our homes to have sex with our 14 year old daughters! But the fact remains that many young people do become sexually active before the age of consent and they need support and information, not judgement and some la-la land attitude that no 14 year old ever acted in their sexual feelings before!

*on their feelings

I also just had another sudden flashback to my school days. One of my friends had very strict parents. No boys allowed upstairs at all. Girls, of course, were fine, and she had a very close female friend who used to come and crash over at least one night a week for a year and a half. They were allowed to share a bed etc. Not a problem.

It never occurred to the parents that their very sheltered girl actually was completely having teen sex. Just not with the gender they expected. I'm also prepared to put money on the fact that at least some of the parents declaring loudly that their DD is not having sex and is definitely at the library doing her homework because of their excellent parenting are completely unaware of what is actually going on. God knows my parents were.

I always think ambition is the best contraceptive in teenagers. I would not encourage my under 16 DC to have sex. But if they told me they were going to I would help them to be as safe as possible (assuming boy same age). I probably wouldnt let the boyfriend say overnight til they were both 16 though.

Oh yes, I was dropped off and picked up at friends houses. Didn't mean I stayed in those friends houses.

I say boy, should be boy or girl.

I bet not many people really regret having sex at 14 or 15 in a consensual relationship with kid of same age. A pregnancy at that age is a game changer though.

Underage sex causes girls so many problems later on in life. Working in Colposcopy I see many many women, who are still too young to be called to have a smear test, having to have colposcopy to remove pre-cancerous cells. The only warning sign was post-coital bleeding. And that is if they are lucky. Cervical cancer is caused by the HPV virus, which is transmitted via sexual intercourse. So, yeah, great, let your 14 year olds sleep around. People like me will clear up the mess in ten years time.

That's unfair I've said I would encourage an under 16 to have sex. If they are it's better they do it safely (including condoms which would help in the circumstances your talking about I think). The message you shouldn't have sex before 16 but if you do be careful is good parenting. I think there is some naïveté on this thread.

The important word NEVER is missing from that first sentence.

by the time kids are at secondary they are making their own ways to and from school.

school finishes around three.

parents finish work around 5.

are you entirely sure what's happening on the way home from school? do you ground all your teens and refuse them.that trip to Costa after school?

and do you have secret nanny cams in every room in your house when it's home study time?

Or do you fit them with trackers and follow then on your computer's at work?

in yr 11 at my school we were allowed to leave the school premises at lunch.

just saying.

oh and guess what many 6th formers drive. are you absolutely certain that when your dd or ds is home within the time it takes for all the buses to get back, that they did t in fact just get a lift after stopping off at the park.

how can you all be so sure what your kids are doing?

free periods, lunch, teacher absences, home study, there are opportunities within the school day.

You can't ban boyfriends till they are 18 that's ridiculous

What a bunch of horrid, nasty, narrow minded people there are on here.
FFS you pearl clutching twits, until you stop being like that about sex, nothing will change. Nothing has changed since Nell Dunn's 'Up the Junction', which is just plain scary. No boys in the house until your girls are 18? Really? How ridiculous. Until we talk to our teens and are honest with them, nothing will change. No we don't want you to have sex until you're ready is sensible. If you are below the legal age of consent, these are the precautions you need, is sensible. Until contraception and contraceptive advice is freely available in schools, this will continue.
Study, after study has shown that the households that discuss sex openly, and discuss contraception freely are the ones in which the teens start sex later. We need to behave like adults to have these conversations and this thread clearly demonstrates that there are many, many people unable to hold an adult conversation about sex. How awful.

I often wonder about how I'll approach this with DD. Both my grandmother and my mother were single teenage mums who readily admit now that they thought they were more mature at the time than they really were. I broke the typical family mould and was a complete pride about boys... I didn't even kiss anyone until I was 18, and I'm so glad I waited on the academic front because I didn't have that as a distraction.

All I will be able to recommend to DD is my way of doing it because it worked for me. But that may not be the route she wants to go down, as it seems an increasingly rare one, and I really don't know what to do if she gets a boyfriend at 14, say. I really can imagine turning into the pearl-clutching type just because I know what can go wrong, even if she is fully informed. At the end of the day she could be ruled by her hormones rather than her head, just as my relatives were.

You're not in Italy are you OP? Legal age of consent there is 14 y'know (as it is in Germany Austria and lots of other countries en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Europe) Spain is 13!

Isn't it funny how some animals - Home Sapiens - decide at what age their sexually mature offspring should engage in reproductive activity, whereas every sinlg other species on the planet, animal, vegetable, fish, fowl just gets on with it when the members of the species become able to reproduce?

And it's some humans deciding for the offspring of other humans too.

It's illegal to have sex at 14 for a start. So you are encouraging your child to have under aged sex. Very wrong and not very responsible in my opinion.

At 14 dd is still under my watch. She doesn't go out at night, she is dropped off and picked up at her friends in the day time, and if she's staying anywhere I call the parents and double check.

I lost my virginity at age 14, in a field having detoured from walking from my boyfriend's house (parents home, would not have allowed sex) to my home (parents also at home, also would not have allowed sex).

My mother believed I was a virgin until my early twenties.

the same happened to my friends daughter,friend allowed her just 14yr old sleep at hers with her 17yr old bf,daughter said she was on the pill two months later was pregnant

she had her son just after her 15th birthday,dropped out of school at approx 6mths pregnant and never returned

now living in a young mum's flatlet,no education nothing

her son is now 3 and just started nursery and the young mum now has to start thinking of college etc

There are too many humans on this planet to not have laws against sexual activity for minors. If all youngsters were allowed to go shagging around at will, we couldn't afford to pay for all the offspring. It's alright for animals...if there are too many of those, the excess die off.

There are also laws regarding alcohol consumption/purchasing.

but it would also be naive to assume no one's going to touch a drop until their 18th birthday.

show of hands here of anyone who hasn't sat on a bench or in a park drinking white lightening bought by your oldest looking mate.

I'm amazed at the poster saying no boys in the house hasn't also banned girls.

no parents of gay or bi teens?

it really would take complete isolation from everyone to ensure that your child won't go further than they should with someone.

talking to your children and helping them access contraception and keeping he lines of communication open is completely different from encouraging your kids to have sex

The way I read the o/p is that the mother sees value in her child having a boyfriend, and is of the opinion if you've managed to get yourself one you have to put out to keep him.

It's not an uncommon view. I have come across mothers who seem to think their teen having a boyfriend shows she is attractive and well liked. Sort of low self esteem by proxy. These mums will boast about how nice the current boyfriend is and how the child has "done well", much like a parent with different priorities might brag about school results.

Same as those who think getting married is about the ultimate achievement for a female. I knew one girl who would say if she wasn't married by 25 it meant she was a loser, unattractive, and being married meant she was worthy of a mate.

Has she encouraged it? Or has she just accepted the fact that it's happening and dealt with it in a pragmatic and liberal way?

I'm not sure anyone ever didn't sleep with their boyfriend just because they weren't allowed to do it at home and in their own bed.

Imagine this scenario:

Your 14 or 15 year old comes to you and says she is considering having sex with her boyfriend. She asks you to take her to to the family planning clinic for implant and condoms. You reply, "Not on my watch kiddo, let's keep that stable door firmly bolted." 5 months later she tells you that you're going to become a Grandma. Wouldn't you kick that you'd not said "Let's talk about this are you sure you are ready to do this? It's against the law and you should not feel pressured by bf or friends. Let's sleep on it and I'll book an appointment for next week if you are still sure?".

I cannot imagine, for one moment, lying in my bed knowing my child was having sex the other side of the wall with another child.

It seems insane. It would seem sexually abusive, by me.

I'd be saying all of that for sure Ghoul but I'd also be getting her straight up the FPC while she mulled it over, just to be on the safe side.

I don't see that as encouragement or a green light to have sex any more than I see wearing shoes as an encouragement to walk on broken glass. It's just that if it accidentally happens you are less likely to come a cropper.