“No matter what, you can come to me. Whatever your problem is, I’ll listen.” My mom told me that when I was about eight years old. I never had anything really important to tell her, other than the fact that I was being bullied in school by kids who lived in our apartment complex. She told me not to talk to those kids. Hard to do when your friends are friends with them.
Fast-forward five years. I was 13 when the “rumors” started – I was sleeping with (and, according to some, pregnant by) the son of the local Christian church’s pastor. I tried to tell everyone that I wasn’t, that I was still a virgin, but it didn’t work. Finally, after about a year of me coming to school every day, been seen around town (where, to my knowledge, there’s nowhere that offers an abortion), and was still wearing tight clothes, the pregnancy rumor subsided. Still, a good portion of my class thinks that I lost my virginity in middle school, and I’m still the class slut.
My mom told me to ignore it. She told me last year that I’m probably just making up, being called a whore because of that. Uh, I’m not. It’s horrible having people ask me if I’m pregnant, who I’m sleeping with this week. I’ve had a boyfriend for the past year and a half, and it still doesn’t stop.
Fast-forward another year. I was 14 when my mom found my diary and read it. I had a seventeen-year-old boyfriend, and we were getting serious pretty fast. She told me how disappointed in me she was, and how she hadn’t expected to have “the Talk” with me until I was sixteen. It wasn’t the fact that she was disturbed by my behavior that bothered me, but the fact that she didn’t even want to talk about me possibly having sex until I was sixteen that got me. Yeah, at the time, I was two years under the age of consent in my state, but kids do illegal stuff all the time. Mom then informed me that it didn’t matter that all the boy and I were doing was making out, he could still go to jail if she pressed charges on him.
Fast-forward three years, to right now. My friends think I’m so lucky, because my mom encourages my obsession/fascination with birth control. What they don’t get is, I’m basically forbidden to be on it. I used to be, freshman and sophomore years, but my mom refuses to help me get an appointment anywhere where I could possibly get some – which includes Planned Parenthood.
Guess what? I haven’t told my mom anything major about me since them. Why? Because she won’t listen. If parents are going to pretend that their kids aren’t being sexually active, they shouldn’t pretend to care about it in relation to their kids. I want to tell my mom about what I’ve done, but I know that she’ll overreact to the least-important part (“You’re going to break up with him, you’ve gone too far”), than actually pay attention to what I have to say (“Mom, I want on birth control just in case anything happens”).
If parents are just going to cover their eyes and ears about it, why lie?
Note: I don't mean every parent is like this, but from my experience, and that of my peers, a good majority seem to at least refuse to talk to their kids about sex. Like my aunt. But she's crazy. Long, different story
that sucks but for a lot of kids it is that way. i dont think parents really want to know about our sex lives but they do want to know about other things going on in your life. I know i would never tell my parents if i had sex. i didnt even tell them i have a crush on a boy in my civics class. I did tell them when i was being called miss piggy in elementary school and i do tell them about things i am stressed about in my life now. i know my parents know that i cuss and probably know i have done stuff with boys but they really do not like thinking about it and dont condone it becase most parents were raised in a generation that had a lot more freedoms than we do now and i think they think the worst when they hear us talk about our sex lives.
~ <3 Breanne <3 ~
Personally, if she said anything, I was going to tell everything major. And I happen(ed) to think my mom would rather hear me say "Hey, Mom, if I have sex, I don't want a baby. Can you get me on the pill?" than, "Mom, I'm pregnant."
Have you tried making friends with an older girl, such as a college student, a friend's mother, or other older adult that could help you out with this stuff?
Doesn't work - she's basically made sure that all the older females I could be friendly with report back to her before doing anything, which I think is smart, as she's my mom and she deserves to know.