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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Daughter lost her virginity-not sure how I feel

109 replies

Silverine08 · 26/02/2017 11:31

I had my daughter quite young (21) and we've always had a close, honest and open relationship. We have talked about sex and I've offered some of my experiences and advice mostly as cautionary tales such as just because you sleep with a boy doesn't mean he loves you, respect yourself etc.

She's always been very sensible and mature and to be honest I thought she would probably have her first sexual experience at uni. Well I was wrong. She started going out with a boy around Christmas and she called me last night to tell me she had slept with this guy. She's 17. On the one hand I'm pleased she told me but on the other I feel really weird about it. I didn't really know what to say to her.

Has anyone else been in this situation? What am I supposed to say to her about it. I feel I should be doing something but I'm not sure what! Also feel like my baby girl has kind of gone.

OP posts:

claraschu · 28/02/2017 06:18

Splinters you wrote: I treat my children the same. You think that makes me a liar? I treat my children the same too, and no I don't think you are a liar! I was talking about the feelings of the OP, which have been attacked fairly viciously on here. Obviously lots of people disagree, but to me it seems natural, even inevitable, that the OP feel a little empathic twinge about this particular step in her daughters' life. I don't know what it is like to be a boy having sex for the first time, so I didn't have quite the same level of personal emotional reaction to my sons' first experiences.

Fairnuff I agree that my sons' have just as much responsibility for a pregnancy. They still won't be the ones to get pregnant. Yes, I have done my best to bring my boys and my girl up to be responsible, mentally healthy, feminists. I am not naive enough to think that my best efforts will necessarily be good enough, nor to think that other parents all successfully bring up their kids to be feminists. I still feel that sex is possibly the only thing which must feel different for boys and for girls because of the difference in our bodies, and I feel more of a sense of personal connection with my daughter, because I only know what sex feels like as a woman.

nooka · 28/02/2017 06:42

I think that there are some quite odd ideas being expressed on this thread, but perhaps that's because I don't really get the 'wistful' thing. I have not at any point during my children growing up felt that they were 'slipping through my fingers'. I don't see having sex as a gateway to adulthood, and think that's a bit of a troubling idea. Oh and I have close in age teenage dd and ds. dd is younger and happens to be more sexually experienced, but I don't think that ds is therefore more innocent or somehow childlike. I would not describe either of them as babies, that seems a bit disrespectful to me. They are almost adults after all.

Lessthanaballpark · 28/02/2017 06:58

Your "baby girl" hasn't "gone". She is the same person.

This idea that a girl changes and has lost something when she has sex is a pretty damaging concept.

As a girl I was taught that sex was something that a boy constantly wanted to take from you and once you gave it away you he wouldn't want you as you were used goods.

It's an awful thing to convey to a girl that her value is tied up in this and leads to all kinds of negative attitudes towards sex.

Your daughter is exactly the same person as she was before.

Splinters6 · 28/02/2017 07:46

Actually, Claraschu, that quote was from Fairenuff. I said that I felt no different about my daughters' sex life to my sons. I cannot understand why anyone would.

Neverthelessshepersisted · 28/02/2017 08:32

Nooka, that is really interesting, I genuinely had not realised that some of us don't "do" wistful.
I don't "do" guilt which I know many others think of as nearly universal.

Perhaps this is why the thread got so odd.

Iamastonished · 28/02/2017 08:36

I don't get the "wistful" thing either. Id anything, DD at 16 is closer to me now than when she was little. I am desperate for her to be more independent and encourage it all the time.

Fairenuff · 28/02/2017 18:08

Splinters you wrote: I treat my children the same. You think that makes me a liar?

No, it was me that wrote that claraschu and it was in response to your statement - I think it is disingenuous to pretend that sex doesn't tend to be slightly more significant to mothers when it comes to our daughters

Particularly the words 'disingenuous' and 'pretend'. I am neither. I am not pretending. I genuinely do not feel any stronger connection to my daughter's sexual experience than my son's.

You clearly do. Many others don't. I was just clearing that up.

Neverthelessshepersisted · 28/02/2017 19:25

"I don't get the "wistful" thing either."

I have genuinely learnt something from this thread!

Come to think of it, I have a neighbour who shudders and says "god no" when I say "don't you miss them being little?!"

Maybe it's just me, the OP and, of course, ABBA

claraschu · 01/03/2017 05:29

Sorry about the mixup.

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