A bit back, my friend Ceridwen and I had a discussion about teen sex. This discussion morphed into a story here on this blog.
Today, the University of Minnesota released a report on the influence mothers have on the age at which kids have sex for the first time. You can read the highlights in the press release, or, if you're a stickler for punishment, go whole hog and read the monograph, or worse, the the journal article.
Or, you can take the easy way out, and just read my digested hightlights here. :-)
Points that I found of interest:
They had to limit the study to mothers, as only 1.8% of the questionaires were completed by fathers. Does this mean that dads are absent in the sex ed process?
15.8% of the 14-15 year old girls (about one in six) who were virgins initiated vaginal sex during the year of the study. This excludes those girls who were not virgins at the outset of the study.
Kids consistently underestimate their parent's opposition to them having sex.
While discussing or recommending birth does affect a teen's perception of the mother's approval of sex to a slight degree, it has no affect on early sexual debut.
From the the monograph - "When mothers spoke with their teens about the negative consequences of sex, such as problems that come from early pregnancy and the cost to a teen’s reputation, it had no impact on initiating initiating intercourse for either boys or girls." Expressing your disapproval has an effect, trying to scare them with consequences does not.
The vast majority (~86%) of parents are uncomfortable discussing sex with their kids. This impacts the argument that many folks have about sex ed in schools, and "leaving it to the parents."
A close maternal relationship delays the debut of sex for daughters, but has no affect on boys.
Even this close maternal relationship ceases to matter by the time the daughter reaches the 10th grade.
Parent's education matters. The kids of more highly educated parents tend to delay sexual debut. I personally suspect that this is due not to the education itself, but the affect of the parents' education on socio-economic status, family stability, etc. but that's just me talking out my patootie.
Parents' religious beliefs and practices do not affect sexual debut. So much for setting the example and dragging them off to church. Again, my patootie talking here, but my personal experience is that it may be a negative correlation. Teens are to a greater of lesser extent rebel against their parents' values in the process of "finding themselves," and I think the more you beat on them with the Forbidden Fruit, the more they want to taste it. I certainly didn't have too hard a time leaving pecker tracks all over the good Catholic school girls, and later in life met plenty of wanton preacher's daughters.
Final weird factoid - the mothers of daughters were three times as likely to "strongly approve" of their children having sex as the mothers of sons, though both groups are tiny percentages. (1.4% to .3 %, respectively)
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, half of the kids that are having sex have their parents fooled.
The Compleat Iconoclast
