Teens, sex, and the world we live in.
Over at the Banner of Insanity, someone posted about teen sex. The post started generating some comments that were too explicit, I think, because the whole post was removed. But I wasn’t done saying everything I would’ve wanted to say.
So here I go.
1. When I was in 6th grade, I knew two girls that were on the pill. They couldn’t have been older than 12. (But they looked like they were about 14.)
2. When we were newly married, my 15 year old niece came to live with us. At the time, she had a group of six girlfriends. All six of them were pregnant. All six.
For one of her friends, it was her third pregnancy. She decided to keep this one since she’d already had two abortions, and was worried a third would permanently damage her reproductive system. 15 years old. Two abortions. Third pregnancy.
This is the world I live in.
She ended up having a beautiful daughter, and the last time I saw her daughter (when she was about 9, I think), she’d grown into a smart, caring, very responsible little girl.
3. When my niece came to live with us, her older sister was in a home for pregnant teens–at age 16. I told my niece straight out that if she needed birth control, to let me know, I’d help her get on the pill. I didn’t want her to get pregnant. She said oh no, she’d never be that stupid.
Well, I was that stupid. I believed her.
She got pregnant a year later. She ran off to Hawaii with her boyfriend (who was originally from there, and his mother had moved back there) rather than tell me she’d gotten pregnant. She was a good influence on her boyfriend–when they met, he was staying in a crack house, and she refused to date him unless he stopped doing drugs, which he did.
Anyway, she finally called and told me the reason she’d gone to Hawaii was that she was pregnant, and she didn’t want to have to face me over it. I told her that was ridiculous, I could never be mad at her, and she should come home so I could help her. She came back home and stayed with us until the baby was born, at which point she moved out on her own, into a small rental house. She lived off of welfare while she finished high school. I’m so impressed with her. You know how hard it is to be a single mother, living alone? Try doing it at the age of 16.
I was just looking at some old pictures from back then. The thing that struck me the most in them was how young *I* was. My niece was 15. I was 20. But it was good that she lived with us for that year before getting pregnant, because Nathaniel was a baby then, and I think she was able to learn a lot about parenting and baby care while she stayed with us. Not that I knew what I was doing!
Her older sister is a whole other story.
That fake blog and all those fake bloggers can really get under my skin.
Teen sex is nothing new. The dimension of it they were discussing may be on the rise, but I don’t know. Y’know the saying that there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics (or maybe you don’t, but who cares?)
My high school sounds like yours. I’ve read Pris’ posts about his high school and while he seems to think of it as a neopuritan hellhole it sounds a lot better than what I experienced. When I was 13 I knew of many girls who were promiscuous (I wasn’t talking with any guys about the subject) and one of the girls in my class got pregnant - at 13. So young. Waiting until marriage - or even waiting for prom or college or anything - was definitely not the norm at my school.
Comment by Laura — October 11, 2005 @ 3:04 pm
I have to question how many teenagers are going to answer truthfully on a survey about sex.
13 years old. That’s mindblowing, isn’t it.
Comment by Susan M — October 11, 2005 @ 3:33 pm
I must have grown up in a bubble… I didn’t know anyone in Jr. High who was pregnant or sexually active, although I am sure some girls were. It just wasn’t something in my circle of freinds or aquaintances. Looking back I feel very lucky that I had the friends I did; I know I would not have been able to resist peer presure if my firends were experimenting.
As it was, I didn;t start experimenting with sex until my mother cheated on my dad when I was 17, and she acutally told me I should go have sex, because it would relax me and I wouldnt be so mad at her then. Honest truth. Is there a subheading under teen-sex for Assinine Mothers Who Encourage It?
Comment by Tracy M — October 11, 2005 @ 4:39 pm
I could tell stories of my high school that would curl your toes. We had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state for several years. We had 2 10 year olds who were pregnant while I was in high school - maybe just after I went to college. A lot of our cheerleaders were pregnant. The whole day care in school? Yeah, that was us. It was unreal. And yet I came out of it all relatively unscathed…
Comment by gabby — October 11, 2005 @ 5:26 pm
For some reason my blogging software is flagging all comments on this thread as ones that I need to approve before they publish to the site–I think it’s the fact that I have “sex” in the post subject line. It’s probably a spam filter thing. So you don’t have to keep resubmitting your comments, there’s nothing wrong with the blog.
Comment by Susan M — October 11, 2005 @ 5:38 pm
Ah, but it was a neopuritan hellhole. Probably still is.
I’m not against fornication, I’m against stupidity. I’d rather there be rampant sex in high school than violence, that’s for sure.
Comment by Pris — October 11, 2005 @ 6:01 pm
With respect to the realness of the Banner of Insanity, I went onto zabasearch and tried to find the people who allegedly blog there. I turned up a hit for Aaron B. Cox but turned up misses for Jennifer Mailer and both Miranda Park Jones and her husband. The others I couldnt check because I couldnt determine their state of residence. I find it difficult to believe the entire blog is a complete farce. The characters are kooky, but also predictably human, like when Sep wrote about the sister missionary who got transferred out because of a love interest, and he didnt even realize it was him, and he didnt play it like he knew it was him, he just totally dropped the thread, as though he was genuinely stupefied by the thought that the sister missionary had the hots for him and he didnt realize it. I used to think the blog was a farce, but I am more and more leaning towards believing it is real, or more real than not. But, then, why arent some of them being turned up by zabasearch?
As far as the comments on high school sexuality the thing started with, the BofH commenter didnt even read the research paper or anything, just a blurb in a newspaper article making reference to it. The research article itself effectively shows that teenage girls have caught up to teenage boys across the boards when it comes to frequency, age of onset, and experimentation. One thing it did show was that number of partners is declining, so theyre doing more stuff earlier, but with fewer people. Also, not reported in the media is anal sex is up. The media is reporting on oral sex, but not anal, for obvious reasons.
As far as HSs go, I grew up on LI in the 70-80s and things were going on, but we only had one openly pregnant gal in attendance, who brought her kid after delivery, but plenty of kids were doing stuff and got caught and gossiped about. But, it wasnt until I got to college that I really saw things totally out of control.
Comment by Kurt — October 11, 2005 @ 7:02 pm
I’ve never heard of zabasearch, but I just tried it out. I looked for me in Cali and got nothing but other people with my last name (who knew there were so many in California?). Looked for me in WA and got my husband and in-laws. But not me.
My high school had a pregnant girl or two, but they all looked like they were in their 20’s. My niece was raised in an area of a lot of apartments, and all of her pregnant friends–all of them–were the children of single mothers. I’ve always figured their mothers had boyfriends sleeping over and that was their example.
Comment by Susan M — October 11, 2005 @ 7:16 pm
zabasearch uses public access records, like financials, yellow pages, internet registries and anything along those lines. If you dont own a home, own an internet domain, or have public records in your name, then youre not going to turn up. Usually, head of households turn up. Theyve irritated people because they publish birth month and years along with address info.
We didnt have any apartments where I grew up, it was all single family home suburbia.
Comment by Kurt — October 11, 2005 @ 7:26 pm
I worked at a gas station before my mission. A fellow co-worker (who ended up becoming a good friend of mine) had a pregnant 13-year-old girlfriend. Last I heard (and it’s been years), he had finished his GED and they were still together.
My high school had a lot pregnant teens. So much so, that the construction class built a day care centre as a class project. The day care centre was staffed by students in the early childhood education classes. A lot of girls finished their education because of that centre, and a lot of students gained practical work experience as well.
Comment by Kim Siever — October 17, 2005 @ 2:40 pm
My niece finished school at an alternative school that had a daycare for their students that were teen moms.
How old was your co-worker when he was dating a 13 yo?
Comment by Susan M — October 17, 2005 @ 2:44 pm
17
Comment by Kim Siever — October 17, 2005 @ 3:24 pm