Do girls without Dads tend to have sex earlier?

[Daddster]

There are quite a few pyschologists who seem to think so and there seems to be some anecotal evidence to back it up. Seems that teenage girls without a father may seek from older boys the male presence she is missing, and end up having her longing and trust taken advantage of.

There seems to have been a bit of this when I was at school, although the primary brake on sexual relations appears to have been education. There was I waiting for my first kiss at 15, when some of my less academically gifted peers were becoming parents!!

The research you mention, Tom, sounds credible but
the distinction between 'having sex' and 'falling pregnant' is important here.

I am not sure whether my fatherly involvement as such will make
a great difference to when dd starts experimenting with boys.
Other factors - her personality, peers, school, interests, her mum - will
probably be more decisive.

I am very confident, though, of the part I will play in educating my daughter
about responsibility, looking after yourself, enjoying life without taking utterly idiotic risks etc.

And maybe the stats that you mention are skewed by the fact
that these pregnant teens did not just lack a father figure -
but someone to firmly but lovingly teach them wrong from right.

Hi DaddyJ

Yeah - the research has found connections between father involvement and 'unintended pregnancies' - its very specific. Not sure you can create measurable research metrics for 'someone to teach right and wrong' though.

There is a direct link between father involvement and unintended pregnancies, although the research hasn't gone far enough to explain the causal connections (i.e. why this happens). All we know is that the association exists.

Of course, this doesn't mean that girls who grow up without a father/father figure will inevitably experience this - it is a figure averaged out over statistically significant sample sizes. I'm sure there are loads of different outcomes for girls who didn't have a strong relationship with their father - probably shaped by their experience of their mother.

And it includes girls who have a good relationship with a non-father male - i.e. a father figure.

What I am getting at is that there is a difference between unintended pregnancies
(i.e. the negative consequences of having sex without taking precautions)
and starting sexual relationships per se.

Regarding the former there is a correlation with fatherly involvement, agreed.

Regarding the latter (and that's what this thread is about) I don't think so.

I had no father growing up

it made me decide to do without a man unless one was absolutely worth having

god I was ancient when I finally did the deed

I wonder, though, if two different but somewhat more extreme reactions are more likely if you have grown up with no experience of a close relationship with a father figure.

One girl may feel that she needs to seek out male approval and find herself having early and frequent sexual encounters

while another may feel quite scathing about the necessity of men at all and avoid intimacy with the opposite sex until they are "convinced" that it is worthwhile.

I would consider both of these reactions to be quite extreme, and think that the affect of a good relationship with a caring and loving father would generally, at least, remove some of the mystique about men that both of these reactions would suggest.

I was 14 when mine left, and he did not keep up good contact. Emotionally I have been a bit of a wreck since. I'm not doing too badly and have managed to stear clear of the 'wrong uns'.

Unfortunately, I married a man I loved but was not in love with and the marriage did not withstand pnd. Maybe, If my father had been there for me I might have realised, However, we have ds to show for it.

I then met dp and I now know about the in love bit so can teach that to my dc.

Incidently, I too was embarassingly ancient before I thought what the heck, what am I saving myself for? I'd done heavy petting etc but not the full monty, and I certainly had not dated that many blokes. Was too scared of being abandoned again, I guess..

Hmmm. Actually I tend to agree with madamez.

Teenage girls in 'human beings with different circumstances, needs and desires' shocker!

i lost my virginity at 18,in a long-term relationship.

however,not having a father(my dad died when my mum was pregnant with me)has affected my relationships with the opposite sex in many other ways.put it this way,i was never looking for sex,but i spent most of my teens and early 20's lookin for my dream man to come and rescue me,and that sort of desperation leaves you vulnerable to all sorts

My mum and dad are still very happily married, I was 14.

I come from a single parent family (Dad left when I was 8) and I was 19.

My sister was 18.

So er...there you go!

I think the presence of a Dad can warn boys off a bit. Like our fathers, my dh would not be 'cool' with dd having sex underage but once in the later teenage years would come to accept it's the natural way of things, but still with a degree of protectiveness.

Can picture the scenario where he'd embarrassingly introduce himself, hard handshake and then invite bf to play Guitar Hero 65. He was a teenage lad himself once, and I think Dad's do know what boys of that age generally thinking.

Likewise having a Dad and brothers can make boys seem less interesting!

My mum and dad were together, I was a early starter, my sister a late starter. My friend had no father she was a late starter. My DD has not had a father in her life and I know she will be a late starter. It sounds like tosh to me.

The fact that girls start their periods early without having male hormones in the house equally questionable. I also read something else. That girls who have a non biological male presence in the home start their periods early.

How or why they come up with these things I will never understand.

Meant late/early starter as in lost viginity sense.

abouteve - that thing about hormones you said might actually make sense.

If you think about primitive humans as you would a pride of lions or a group of chimpanzees. If the biological father is in the house, a daughter's periods might be likely to start later because she is related to him and so is not needed for reproduction as that would be incest and not healthy. If the biological father is absent, and no other man is present in the house, or a man is present who is not genetically related to her, then nature might bring on her menarche earlier in order for her to be available for reproduction with the alpha male who is not related to her or for her to attract a new alpha male.

Either of these might be constructive towards the cohesion and success of the group. I.e. when we were cavepeople, it was necessary to have males around for reproduction but also to secure food and fight enemies, predators, etc.. So it is in nature's interest for a female to be available for reproduction in order to attract strong males, unless there is already an alpha male in the group who she is genetically related to. Of course, in our culture and society, it would not be acceptable for a daughter to sleep with her mother's boyfriend (her step-father) so what nature might want to happen would be different to what we would find culturally acceptable.

But regardless of the above, as I said in my previous post, and as we can see from many of the posts here, there must be loads of emotional and psychological factors that could mitigate against any of the ways that nature might try to manipulate us.

I am a single mother of a daughter whose father does not wish to have contact. This is why I am interested in this. I grew up with my father around, possibly a little emotionally distant due to my mother dying in my late teens and my father having difficulty coming to terms with this. I was 20 when I first did the deed and, generally, a late developer.

I have also read that daughters with absent fathers tend to either be underachievers or overachievers rather than average. Underachievers because, in some cases, the mother has to work long hours to support her children and may not be around to encourage a child with their homework. Or the mother herself may have always had low aspirations. Overachievers because the daughter may believe that, if only she could make a success of herself, the absent father might realise the error of his ways and take an interest in his child.

But, again, I am sure there are many more exceptions than that one that is required to prove the rule. The research that is done into these kind of things often seems to be funded by right-wing religious organisations in the States and would seem to be a little bit suspect.