April 24, 2009

Boys Are Perverts, Sex Is Gross

This is according to the wisdom of my fourteen-year-old daughter. I’m glad she thinks so for obvious reasons. As long as she holds this view I feel comfortable, however, I know it won’t last and it’s just a matter of time before some young man convinces her otherwise.

She wants to go to the movies with a boy named Will with cute curly brown hair. Her description, not mine. Now I realize there are girls out there who by her age have been dating as well as doing all sorts of other things but as I told her they aren’t my little girls.

I thought I had a while before I had to deal with this. Okay, I realize she turns fifteen in June, but I still wasn’t ready. Just the other day I was teaching her how to tie her shoes.

So far all she has done is meet them at school dances. I take her and pick her up. It’s chaperoned and there is not much opportunity to be alone.

It’s not quite the same as raising boys. Girls have all kinds of issues boys don’t have to deal with like getting pregnant, date rape and possible murder. Okay, the last one pertains to me, but still.

I’d really hate for y’all to read about some crazed mother in Oklahoma that strangled a teenage boy because he took liberties with her daughter. You see it wasn’t that long a go that I was dating and as I remember some of them can be pretty persuasive.

So I called mom’s who raised teenage daughters and asked them what they did in my situation.

Some said they started out by having boys come to their house to watch videos somewhat supervised starting at the age of fifteen. They also let them on group outings. Dating alone with a boy came a while later.

So I am asking those of you with kids how you deal with this. I thought I would be better prepared since I raised two boys but not so much. I don’t want to be too strict so that she crawls out her bedroom window. Maybe I could build a tower and lock her in the top of it. At least her hair isn’t very long.