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writes: What has happened to the world...children having sex at the age of 14? They can't be emotionally prepared for all the stuff they will go through. Reply to this Question
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female
reader, HonningKanin  +, writes (2 November 2009):
 I Have to partially agree and disagree with the anon poster. Yes, kids were incouraged to grow up and grow up fast because of different factors like, life expectancy and family income. If you were a large family supported just by the father, you would want to get rid of your daughters fast and have your boys ready as soon as possible to work to bring in income. With bans on child labour and again the definition of a child changing over time and allowing women more freedoms to work to now where a mother and a father working is the norm for survival the one thing the parents will expect from their children is that they get a good education.
Ecouragement of staying in school and avoiding what previously was the norm(marrying young and starting a family) because it was no longer beneficial. We moved from agricultural families to industrial. We can tell these kids to "dont do it," but not all will listen so instead of pretending they don't society needs to tell them "if you do, use protection." Because if they were to fall pregnant society will instantly make them social pariahs, because they arent married or have the education, skills and what not that todays society requires for successful individuals.
As for the other issues of sex, that is just part of life and is a leason learned at any age. A mind can be mature at 14 where an biologically developed "adult" mind is still poorly immature. An example is a child outgrowing their parents immature behaviours, of which we do see. Girls can be just as detached about having sex as boys. Don't be fooled by society saying only boys can have detached sex. Girls have just the same capability.
HonningKanin
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reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): In the past teens would be married by 16 or 17 or 18 and started families right away (my grandmother married at 15, had kids right away and stayed married to my grandfather until he died in his early 80's; my mother married at 18). They were encouraged by their own parents to work hard, find a good mate, move out on their own & start their own family. Men were expected to learn a skill and go to work; in my family, women often got jobs as domestics or doing laundry.
Gender stereotypes aside, the bottom line is that kids were encouraged to work, and work hard. They were expected to grow up. Now our society encourages kids to be lazy & self absorbed. We have kids who, although having learned to suppress the urge for responsible adulthood, have not been able to suppress their sexual urges.
We don't expect anything of our kids anymore. Instead, it's fast cash, instant gratification, poor performance in school, self absorption, materialism, and taking short-cuts in life. My first job was at a fast food restaurant when I was a teen; these days kids are ashamed to work at McDonald's. Even the old school paper route job (or babysitting job or the job cutting grass), that was once a rite of passage for kids, has been taken over by adults driving SUV's while the kids need to be dragged out of bed in the morning and practically dressed by their parents & driven to school.
Teen sex is nothing new. Teen irresponsibility is.
Another part of the problem is that the adults in our society give teens two messages concerning sex: either "don't do it" or "if you do it, get protection". We act as though pregnancy and STDs are the only negative consequences of having sex. We neglect to explain to teens that while sex is a physical act, is also an intense, emotionally intimate experience. badAdvice said "it's just sex". Maybe for him it is, but what about the girl he's having sex with? Is she having sex with him because she wants intimacy while he's just looking for pleasure? Does he even care if she enjoys the experience? Hell, does he even know how to give her pleasure? Are teens emotionally equipped to deal with the hurt that stems from a broken relationship with someone you've been sexually active with? Adults struggle with these issues, so I can't possibly imagine teens are adept at handling them.
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reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWell I guess I get that being 16 and all I guess its just the fact that girls are getting pregnant at 12 you know? Its rough to watch girls go through this at that age
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (2 November 2009): It's real life. Real life says have sex when you get the urge. That's natr
ure.. Then you get society that tells you to be 30 before you even think about sexuality.. And you wonder why so Many kids are "suicidal"
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female
reader, HonningKanin +, writes (1 November 2009):
Um, through out human history 14 year olds have been having sex. There are african tribes and even arabic people to modern Romanian Gipsies who marry their daughters off to men and boys. Sometimes of the same age.
Remember Romeo and Juliet? That classic Shakespear tale? They were 13 and 14. The virgin Mary in Christian mythos is supposed to be 13.
Read up on ancient Greece and Helen of Troy was only 15. Dark Age england there was a law stating that as soon as your child(boy or girl) was out of the cribe they could be eligable for marriage. Remember life expectancy back then was more so along the lines of 40-50 years and if you want a thriving population you will want girl who are ready to bare to start having kids so it was not uncommon. Life expectancy has gone up with the rise of modern medicine and with that we have delaid our giving birth periods.
Not so long ago, give it 50 years, having a baby at 26 was considered late and the woman an old maid. Now we have women waiting until their mid 30s before their first. Morality has changed with the definition of what a child is. Again not so long ago 16 was seen as a man with the ability to marry without parental consent. Now we would scream at the very idea. Society changes fast, biology, however, moves alot slower.
HonningKanin
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (1 November 2009): I agree with you. If you want to help them maybe you can offer them some words of useful advice on this site when they write in with their problems.
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (1 November 2009): The middle 1900s were unusual for kids NOT having sex as soon as they got the urge. That's why people used to get married when they were teenagers back hundreds of years ago.
It's not that anyone ever thought teenagers were really ready for it. It's that the kids were gonna screw anyway. There was nothing else to do but marry them off so at least they had a formal code of responsibility for the kids that were produced.
The recent problem is also due to kids hitting puberty at younger and younger ages lately.
Kids have always had sex pretty much as soon as they hit puberty. But that process used to happen at ages 12-16, now it happens at more like ages 9-14.
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 November 2009): Because my generation don't see sex as some hugely complex act that only an adult can participate in. Its just sex. When they invented all those methods of contraception, they took away the things that scared us from sex like pregnancy. So the answer to your question from a fifteen year old( not to say everyone my age will agree) is because we sexually active and equiped. What has happened to the world? We grew up.
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female
reader, shnookims  +, writes (1 November 2009):
 I don't know how anyone can answer ths question. Kids are having sex when they are younger than 10. They want to be adults. My brother is 17, a teenager but still acts like a kid, although he wants to be an adult, like most teenagers do. They want to be adults. They want to believe that they know what love is and that if what they're feeling is love, then they should be having sex.
Just this year, my brother spent a weekend in jail for statutory rape( he was innnocent), had a nervous breakdown because of it and just this week, stole and wrote off my parents car. This is a sumarry of it.
I think it all comes to the fact that life has become this constant struggle for some kids to be the biggest, best, most popular, coolest, etc. To the point that they're willing to do anything to fit in, including drinking and drugs and even having sex, just to say that they've done it. Even smoking cigarettes is an addiction mostly started off because of peer pressure.
I think that you can also add in the fact that the media is a big influence and lack of knowledge of these kids is pretty much astounding. Parents can take part of the blame with certain kids.
All in all, the majority of youth are not considering their futures and it looks like a lot of them are going to have a pretty interesting time trying to grow up. But I guess that's why we have therapists.
That's just my opinion.
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reader, anonymous, writes (1 November 2009): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionI mean I get that every one has these feelings because even I do...but its the fact that they are acting on them at this age. Its very sad
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