what do i do if my 18 year old boy wants to date a 15 year old girl

Dear Prudence

Non And then Innocent

My 15-year-one-time daughter is having sex—and it'southward breaking my heart.

Emily Yoffe

Photo by Teresa Castracane.

Get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week; click hither to sign upward. Delight send your questions for publication to prudence@slate.com . (Questions may exist edited.)

Got a burning question for Prudie? She'll be online at Washingtonpost.com to chat with readers each Mon at noon. Submit your questions and comments hither before or during the live give-and-take.

Honey Prudie,
Over the weekend, during a heated argument with my 15-twelvemonth-old daughter, I found out that she and her young man of a twelvemonth take recently started having sex. I had suspected this, and, to her credit, when I asked she said yes without hesitation. I spent many years talking with her about choices and trying to develop an open relationship. Nosotros are seeing her doc to discuss birth control and talk virtually reproductive wellness. On paper, I've washed all the right things. Merely I am devastated! I feel pained that she didn't come to me showtime, sad that she made this choice so young, and afraid that something horrible will happen. I'm sure this is a normal reaction but how can I move on? How do I make her understand that even though I know she is having sex, and even though I have taken her to come across a doctor, that I'1000 not OK with her having sex? What word is appropriate for her dad and me to have with the boyfriend? Conspicuously lying in bed weeping is not the answer.

—Weepy Mom

Beloved Weepy,
Parenthood requires the power to accept the necessary and bittersweet truth that if you're doing the correct things your kid will eventually shed her innocence and need you less. I empathize, Mom, that you lot weren't set for your 15-year-old to be shedding her clothes and getting it on with her fiddling pisher of a boyfriend. It's true that co-ordinate to the Guttmacher Plant, she's younger than average for first intercourse—the establish says 16 percent of teens that age are sexually agile. But by the time they are 17 years old nigh half of teens have had intercourse. So dry your eyes and take that in this arena your daughter is precocious. She is having sex with someone she cares virtually, and vice versa. In that location are and then many lousy ways to lose your virginity—think of the drunken party in the basement—that it is a skillful thing she decided to do information technology in the context of a relationship. Y'all are right that at present she needs a rubber and reliable class of birth command. She also needs to be able to talk privately with a gynecologist who can discuss pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and other consequences of becoming sexually active, then good for you for setting this upwardly. Every bit for your fears that something horrible will happen, being a parent means living with that fear just not letting it disable you. In that location'southward no reason to think her losing her virginity will start a cascade of disaster.

You enquire what you and your husband should say to the boyfriend. I think you demand to stick to things like, "Hi, Tyler, how'southward school?" and, "Are you playing basketball again this flavour?" Sure, initiating a discussion with him about the fact that he's having sex with your daughter might terrify and (temporarily) wilt him. Just I don't run across annihilation practiced coming of it except awkwardness and a sense of violation on the part of your daughter. I agree with you that information technology would take been better had she waited to start this phase of life. But she didn't, and your weekend weeping in bed made clear that you disapprove. You lot will merely amerce her if you can't come to terms with her decision and care for her with respect. You motion on by accepting that you have just a few more years of your little girl living under your roof (yous promise). Tell her yous appreciate her existence honest with you lot, and that fifty-fifty if you don't ever concord with her decisions, you lot will always be there to love and back up her.

—Prudie

Honey Prudence: Husband Hung Up on Hair Length

Dear Prudie,
My 32-year-erstwhile boyfriend is a great guy—cute, funny, smart, and loving. Nonetheless, he is unhappy because he hasn't accomplished success in his field. It's a hyper-competitive manufacture, known as "the industry" around here, and he works in a retail task he hates in order to make a living. A guy he went to schoolhouse with has accomplished massive success due to a projection he created while in schoolhouse (my boyfriend helped him perfect it in class, just they were never shut). Now whenever that guy'southward name comes upward, or he achieves more success, it sends my beau into a downward spiral of low. It breaks my heart to see him unhappy similar this. I tin can't believe how much ability he lets this successful guy have over him (the classmate hasn't responded to my swain's emails for years). I honestly don't know if he will ever brand it in this industry. He will near certainly never make information technology the fashion his schoolmate did. How tin I assistance him to assistance himself accept this and discover happiness anyway? I am also trying to break into the same industry, with somewhat more success than my boyfriend is having, but seeing my schoolmates and peers make information technology but doesn't affect me the same way.

—Middle Agonized for Him

Dear Centre,
I'm assuming the industry is amusement and apparently your young man has been fruitlessly trying to get a toehold for about a decade. So I have some news: He'due south not going to make it in show business. I know that you can point to an endless number of people who've had breakaway success after years of failure. But they are an infinitesimal percent of prove biz strivers. Far more common is relentless failure, but no one wants to tell that story. Also common are people who take had some degree of success, which and so dries upwardly every bit they age (and in Hollywood, by your 40s you're considered old). So you have a thwarted guy stewing in bitterness nigh his lot, hating the chore he has, and having no real prospect this will change. You cannot make this amend. What you lot can do is help him face reality. He needs to take a hard look at a career he would find satisfying and for which there are employment opportunities. If that'southward non retail, he needs to become out, maybe get some education or training, and retool himself. If he won't, in another 10 years he will exist that hostile guy behind the counter at the mall obsessing over people with half his talent and a grand times his money.

—Prudie

Dearest Prudie,
My young man and I met and savage in love three years agone, while we were both married to other people (we both take children). My spousal relationship ended quickly. He felt he should attempt to work it out with his wife, but this past summer they filed for divorce. We brought our relationship out in the open. I know what we did was incorrect, and I'm aback that information technology's role of our history. My family accepts that nosotros're together. His family unit blames me for his divorce and thinks that I'm with him only because he's financially stable. They stay in contact with his ex-wife and refuse to acknowledge my being. His mother told him that information technology would be better for his kids if he moved away and let his ex-married woman have sole custody. This Thanksgiving my kids are with their dad, and his kids are with their mom. My parents are going away to come across relatives only I can't join them. My boyfriend decided to spend Thanksgiving with his parents and siblings and their families, even though I'thou not welcome. I understand that he wants to meet his family. If nosotros're going to have a futurity, though, at some point he's going to have to insist that we're a package deal. Is information technology reasonable for me to still be punished in this way? Maybe I should just have that I have to spend a solitary Thanksgiving.

—Scarlet Letter

Dearest Scarlet,
I concur that if you lot two stay together his family is going to take to take you, only his divorce is still quite contempo and the feelings well-nigh his affair run so high that his own female parent thinks he should abandon his children. Then it's going to accept a lot of work to get them to come around; it'south possible they never will. Just this first Thanksgiving is not a adept test for you to printing your case. I tin understand you're feeling abandoned, simply you should either volunteer at a shelter or come across if a friend can accept you lot join their dinner. Your boyfriend wants to effort to repair some very frayed relations with his family. It makes sense for him to spend time with them. Even though he'due south not with his kids this Thanksgiving, it volition be a huge do good to them in the long run if he has decent relations with his extended family, who proceed to be part of the lives of his children. Allow this go this year, and lay depression where his family is concerned. Maybe some less fraught vacation—try Arbor Day—he can tell his family information technology's time they got to know the woman he loves.

—Prudie

Dear Prudie,
I am a veteran public school teacher at a very needy school. I work in a small group setting with students who have bookish trouble. I love my job and I honey my students. All the same, I find myself having a very hard time enjoying the holiday season knowing the dire living situations that some of my kids are in. I report to government what is actionable. I buy snacks and coats when I can, and have even bought alarm clocks for kids whose parents aren't getting them upwards to come to school. My school has some skilful programs to assist make full the gaps. But when I am buying groceries or Christmas presents, I think, "How is it that some of my kids have food and presents and and so many others at my schoolhouse will be spending Thanksgiving suspension just waiting for school to open support so they tin accept two meals a day and a safe place to be?" With SNAP benefits beingness cut, so many more than of our school families are struggling. My husband is very supportive and never fusses at me for the things I buy for students, but he does encourage me to permit go of the worries while I am at dwelling. Exercise you have whatsoever advice?

—A Teacher

Dear Instructor,
Thank you for this reminder of what the spirit of the vacation flavor is really all about, and how grateful so many of us should exist for but knowing in that location volition a warm bed tonight and food tomorrow. Your devotion is admirable, and and so is your ability to make a difference in such an individual way. You should find solace that twenty-four hours in, twenty-four hour period out, year in, year out, you are working to heal the world. But you lot take to keep in mind that you are similar a doctor who treats the sickest patients. Yes, yous should bring compassion to your task, but you lot tin't exercise your job to the best of your ability if you're overwhelmed with the pain of the people you're helping. You have to be able to put a limit on your worries and then that you lot can recharge. You are besides carrying too much of this burden lone. You can't be the main customs resource for these kids. There must exist organizations that work to provide coats, nutrient, and Christmas presents, to which yous tin pass forth the names of your pupils. Enlist some of the schoolhouse administrators to assistance make this happen. The work y'all exercise with your students can aid them make better lives for themselves. So it's essential for yous, and them, that y'all don't get burned out.

—Prudie

Discuss this column with Emily Yoffe on her Facebook page.

More than Dear Prudence Columns

"Iii'southward a Crowd: My husband slept with the nanny. I kicked him out. Tin I keep the nanny?"
"Easily-Off Relationship: My husband had sex activity with me while I was in a drunken state. Should I divorce him?"
"Spousal Surveillance: My hubby has been monitoring me through my laptop. How can I go him to stop?"
"Willful Blindness: My fiancé was sexually abused as a kid. My stepmom defends Jerry Sandusky. How could they possibly meet?"

More Dear Prudence Chat Transcripts

"There's Something Almost Mary: In a live chat, Prudie offers advice on a woman who hasn't told her boyfriend she used to exist a man."
"Bad Granny: In a alive chat, Prudie counsels a woman whose mother in law plays intellectual favorites with her grandchildren."
"When Parents Aren't Enough: In a alive conversation, Prudie offers advice on neighbors who care ceaselessly for their disabled son—to the neglect of their infant daughter."
"A Breast Too Far: In a live conversation, Prudie advises a woman who discovered her female parent-in-law suckling her newborn son."

Check out Dearest Prudence'south book recommendations in the Slate Store.

vierapostencell.blogspot.com

Source: https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/11/dear-prudence-my-15-year-old-lost-her-virginity-thats-too-young.html

Share this post