Oh, please! Really? Parents who invite their teens to “do it” at home so they can be “safer”?
When I read an article about a parent who appeared on Good Morning America in June to extol the benefits of allowing her 17-year-old daughter to have sex with her boyfriend at home, I had to shake my head. Her reasoning included the fact that it was “clean” and there were condoms in the bedside table drawer.
We’ve known for years that teens who think their parents disapprove of sexual activity are more likely to choose abstinence. It was telling that two teens invited to be panelists on the show had serious misgivings about the idea: “If your boyfriend knows or whoever knows that there is a perfectly open available house I think that takes away one of your big excuses,” Kelly Lund, 17, said. Grace McVey added, “You’re like, ‘No, I can’t. My parents would kill me.’ But if that whole thing is gone, like, what do you say?”
It is sad when parents not only fail to protect their teens, but instead are giving a push toward risky behavior (both emotionally and physically) that some young people secretly may not even want.