Does your teenage daughter scare you, too?
I have a 15 year old daughter, she's not a terror, but a typical girl that could already be having sex, I don’t know, she isn’t going to tell me. (Yes, I've asked) I have run this through in my mind over and over.what would be the right thing to do if she should get pregnant? I have put her on birth control to prevent it “just in case” which I am afraid just gave her a green light to do it, but why take the chance, you know? She knows all the dangers of disease, not to mention the effect it could have on her self esteem, etc. We've had countless talks about this. My daughter and I are both pro-life (please, no arguments, you have absolutely no chance of persuading me to the other side). We watched “Juno” together a few weeks ago, and I told her that making a childless couple very happy was the right thing to do in my opinion, and immediately she spouted off with “No way, I would keep my baby.you couldn’t do anything about it” She doesnt live with me, she chooses to live with her father in a town about an hour away. I see her every Saturday, and what I see is a father that will not put his foot down.
knows what she does on the weekends, so you can see my concern.
always has a way of throwing me stuff that makes me crazy inside, all the while having to act cool, not freak out, not scare her away from conversations. I am constantly feeling like I have missed teaching her something, I have failed to give her proper guidance, failed being a role model.the list goes on.
this piled on the fact she'd rather be with him than with me.
makes me nuts, too. Now, my questions are.can you make your minor child give a baby up for adoption? At 15, she isn’t even old enough to give consent to sex.
do you other parents feel about this? What is your “preliminary plan”? I would love to hear from real parents of teenage daughters, please.
thoughts on this will be appreciated. I don't have the time or space to explain why I have lost trust in my daughter. I do have plenty of reasons to be paranoid. I wanted to hear from parents, please.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:11 am
i am a 18 year old teenager and i scare my mom. my mom actually found a condom wrapper on my bed in college when she helped me pack for winter break.
shit hit the fan. haha, but in all seriousness, dont worry.
is really nothing parents can do to stop their children from doing anything. so just relax. if you raised her well, she will know how to take care of herself.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:13 am
You need trust for your daughter!! it's not like every 15 year old is THAT irresponsible.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 am
You seem exactly like my mom. A very well rounded individual. You're not doing anything wrong, it's typical for a daughter (especially a daddy's girl like myself) to get away with more and want to be with their father.
because THEY DO get away with more. You're not doing anything wrong. I'm 15 years old and my mom has the same scares time and time again. I do talk to her and we do have these conversations, but she tells me she doesn't expect me to tell her every single aspect of my life.
important details in which she can help me with because, she obviously is more experienced (42 years old). I'm just hoping you're not the type of mother to follow your daughter around when you've lost trust in her like my mom can do.
calls me constantly checking up on me where I am and who I'm with.
tells me it's “because she loves me” and “she doesn't want anything to happen to me” I believe her, but it just makes me crazy because she doesn't trust me.
I've been doing a lot to show trust.
can't expect your daughter to come right out with the fact that she may or may not be having sex (chances are she is if she's with the wrong crowd.) but you have to respect her and that she is a sexual being. Don't think about children right now, if she knows about sex safe (even though there is a chance that she might get pregnant.) i wouldn't plan for a child right away.
girls are smart and if she's anything like me and has plans for her future, she wouldn't risk it. I wish you luck! Don't lose too much hair over this
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Well, if I were you I would be glad that she agreed to go on birth control. There's only so much you can do, and you're right it's terrifying.
daughter behaved just like yours except she refused to accept birth control.
gentle but frequent reminders about the risks of early sex only made her shut down and tell us “it's not your problem.” We didn't trust that response, and we tried to maintain some control over when she went out, where, and with whom. We did everything we could short of locking her up. It didn't work she's now pregnant, and I think it was intentional.
she still “throws stuff at us that makes us crazy,” as you put it.
saying she's going to move out, refusing to talk to us or her baby's father about her pregnancy and saying “it's my baby, I can do it myself.” Yes, it makes me crazy.
your daughter, she won't even consider adoption. Although we believe that would be the best thing, we also believe that her rights as a mother supercede our rights to force the issue. It would be a terrible thing to do.
mother of any age would ever get over havinig her baby stolen from her and given to someone else? What young girl could survive that without permanent emotional damage? Like you, I have gone over and over my own relationship with her and wondered if I failed.
I don't think so. At this age, if they decide not to listen to their parents, there are a million ways to get away with it.
some very good kids do make the wrong choices, for reasons we may never understand. Don't beat yourself up over this.
try to consider the long term. Is she a good person? Does she do well in school? Does she have friends? Does she have goals for the future? Does she stay away from drugs and alcohol? Will she outgrow this stage? As long as the answers to these questions are “yes,” she will probably be OK.
kids who have done a few “bad” things in high school managed to grow up to be outstanding citizens and good people.
to keep her focused on her future.
early sex seems to be the norm if you believe the statistics, over 50% of kids do it before their senior year. I can't imagine how they handle this so young, and I am NOT condoning it, but they seem to have different attitudes about it than we did.
do handle it OK.
if you think she isn't handling her life well right now, try to talk her into getting counseling. I wish I had been able to get my daughter to go. We parents tend to think there's only one right way for kids to grow up they should finish school, find a good job, find the right partner, get married, and THEN start a family. Yes, this may be the easiest path and the most likely to lead to financial success in the short term.
I have come to understand that this is a form of prejudice too.
are other goals in life besides financial success.
proper support, early motherhood can be worked out and need not permanently harm the mother or the child.
you, I tried to come up with a “preliminary plan,” because I saw where my daughter was headed a long time before it happened. I did everything in my power to talk her out of having sex and getting pregnant.
I decided that if I couldn't prevent it, I would support her and her baby for as long as it took for her to finish school and support herself.
she told me she was pregnant, there was no shock and no agonizing about what to do.
and I and my husband are just trying to carry on from here and be thankful that we still have each other. We will have a future of one kind or another and it may not be the one that I envisioned for her, but it will be the one she chose.
this “crisis” will not last forever, and she WILL grow up and live the life she has made for herself. As long as we're a part of it, that's all we can ask. I know this is very hard, but try to stay involved in your daughter's life. Do things together just for fun.
conversations about impersonal things, like politics or fashions or anything.
her see that the main topic of your interactions doesn't always have to be her and her life choices.
may or may not make her more willing to open up, but at least you will both see that you can still enjoy each other's company.
try not to worry so much.