My kids live with me full time, and eldest, dd is 13. She talks to me fairly openly about personal stuff, like when she started her periods a few months ago - she doesn't seem shy or embarrassed to talk to me. She's a fairly quiet girl, slightly tomboyish, wears baggy clothes rather thank skimpy stuff, very studious, doesn't go out that much, doesn't often wear make up, and isn't too preoccupied with her appearance in general. Sometimes I have to remind her to brush her hair or put clean clothes on lol.
I don't think she's particularly streetwise, and in some ways is possibly a bit immature for her age (yet in others does seem mature). So far she's not openly shown any real interest in boys, other than platonically, and up until recently has been telling me that she thinks she's asexual. I'm not aware of her having any actual boyfriends, and her attitude still seems to that boys/sex = gross. I'm waiting with baited breath for the hormones to start going crazy and all that to change dramatically.
I'm not completely naïve, I remember from my own youth what young teenage girls were like at that age (in the 90's), but I've always thought that at 13, only a small minority were actually sexually active? Sure, a few years later, by 16, probably the majority of girls were, but in my mind there's a big jump from 13 to 15. But so far, given my daughter's attitude and behaviour, I've no reason to think she's a sexually active 13 yo. And she'd have to be selling me a magnificent cover story to hide what she's really getting up to.
But it came up in conversation with my dp the other day (who knows my dd reasonably well, but we don't live together, and no way would any of us consider her as a step parent). DP was insistent that it's 'very common' for most 13 y/o girls to be sexually active, and there's every chance dd is getting with boys already, and that she's just putting on a sweet and innocent act for me as a cover up. DP basically did a character assassination on dd and told me she's a perpetual liar and I shouldn't believe anything she says (I know she lies and withholds some things from me, but nothing serious). I think that's a bit of a leap tbh, or maybe I am just totally sucked in by my dd's very good act?
I know that DP was sexually active from 13 and from that age had a several much older boyfriends (20's) up to when she got pregnant at 15 by a 28 year old bloke. So from her perspective, DP thinks that was pretty normal. But I think even in the 90's that wasn't particularly common? And these days I get the impression that it's a lot rarer for teenage girls to have much older boyfriends. It just seems less socially acceptable, or is it because I'm viewing it from a very different perspective now?
I'm going to have to have another chat with dd about it, but I'm struggling to see things from dp's view that dd has pulled the wool over my eyes with lies and an elaborate cover up.