August 31st, 2005
Dear Straight Talk: I’m wondering about the girl who got caught having sex in her parent’s house. I think it was a blaring omission that you never talked about consequences for her. All you told these parents was not to let her use the house as a hotel room. But life isn’t like that. Life has consequences and she needs some, too.—K.C., North Auburn
Dear K.C.: What did you have in mind? Lock down? Hard labor at the salt mines?
I work with a lot of teenagers, and I can tell you, at 17, these kinds of consequences tend to backfire.
Parents each have their own history around sex and shame, and each will react uniquely to a situation as loaded as walking in on your daughter. A lot, too, depends on the daughter. Is she solid in school? Does she have a healthy social life? Is she stable emotionally? Is this a steady boyfriend, or someone you’ve never seen before who reeks of alcohol? Many different pictures are possible and each one needs to be handled differently.
If the teen has a history of drug and alcohol use and you’ve not seen this particular “date” before, very likely this teen is using sex addictively, for the same reason she uses drugs or alcohol. Walking in on her I hope would be a wake-up call to get this child some help. Shaming her is not going to accomplish anything because her actions indicate she’s already operating out of shame. Counseling would be very helpful in a situation like this.
Regarding the letter you refer to, I did offer a consequence. What I said was that the seriousness of her daughter having sex with her boyfriend should inspire heightened expectations around chores, school, jobs, driving, etc. Since she is choosing to act like an adult, sexually, she should be expected to step up to the plate in other areas of her life.
This needs to be encouraged with love and firmness—they go together. There should be no shame involved, just concern that she’s in over her head. If you are feeling enraged or alienated, diffuse your feelings with someone else so you can parent more effectively.
Above all else, teenagers want you to love them for who they are, not who you want them to be. Each “loaded” situation is unique. What doesn’t change is that your help is needed to ensure your teenager makes it to adulthood without the major mishaps of pregnancy, STDs, or debilitating shame.
The teen staff agrees with me on consequences. Here is a sample of their thinking:
From Brittney, 16: If a 17-year-old thinks she is old enough to have sex, then she should be taking on other adult responsibilities as well, like having a job, bettering her grades, and paying for a lot of her own things. These are responsibilities most 17-year-olds already have, and it definitely should be the case if the 17-year-old is having sex.
From Lennon, 18: If, as a parent, I caught my daughter having sex, I would expect more adult behavior from her. But just because you’ve had sex doesn’t mean you’re ready to live on your own and take out a mortgage. I can see how, as a parent, it could be easy to let anger take over and push her too far.
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August 24th, 2005
Dear Straight Talk: A friend of my daughter’s told her mother about a certain group of kids who were smoking pot. This mother then told me. I happen to know one of the kids involved, “Brittney”, and as I know her mother quite well, I thought it made sense to tell her. Well, it went out of control and I’m feeling like I shouldn’t have gotten involved. This mother was only intent on figuring out who told in the first place, and as I wouldn’t tell her (not wanting to compromise the girl who told her mother in the first place), she put two and two together and figured it out and placed a bunch of calls in defense of her daughter.
I already know her daughter is a good kid and I only thought I should let her mom know that there was some experimenting going on. Did I do the wrong thing? Everybody seems to be mad at me: the mother I told is angry, the mother who told me is angry because now her daughter is known as a tattle-tale and she is worried that her daughter won’t share with her in the future. So, what in the heck is a person supposed to do with this kind of information?—El Dorado Hills
Dear El Dorado Hills: Read on for Farren’s response. It says it all.
From Farren, 17: As much as I’d like to say there was a better solution, I think what the mother did was exactly what she should have done. I think every parent should be aware of what their child is doing with their time, even if it’s just experimenting. What if something had gone wrong and there was an emergency? Without the parents knowing what was going on with their children, they would have no idea how to address the situation.
As for the huffy mother, that’s too bad, but there will always be parents out there that feel the need to be in defense of their beloved daughters. As for the daughter who did tell her mother about the group of kids smoking pot, she obviously cares for her friends’ well-being and I’m sure she will continue to care enough about them to speak up.
I can’t say that something like that wouldn’t happen again if this mother chooses to share things with parents again. It’s in parents’ nature to come to their kids’ defense, or to worry about them being called a tattle-tale. But that does seem like a small price to pay for their well-being and safety. For the mother who chose to speak up, well done. At least somebody is worried about their child’s safety, and not just their social status within a group of friends.
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August 24th, 2005
Dear Straight Talk: I’m writing in reference to the PMS comment someone made a few weeks ago. Speaking as a guy, I’d have to say that I do believe in PMS, just like how I believe that childbirth hurts. That is to say, I’ll never experience either one, but all the signs are there saying they’re real. Didn’t you pay attention in biology?
It might be hard to wrap one’s mind around the concept if you’re a guy, but chew on this: there are a lot of things we’ll never understand about women. One the one hand, you can question PMS’s validity or you can be sympathetic to her situation when it comes around once a month.—Peter, 18
Dear Peter: You sound like a man with the right approach.
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