I accidentally stumbled on a fascinating and compelling blog apparently written by a single mother raising two kids. Her entries have simple headings….Honesty. Church. Broke. My Ex. Teenage Daughter. Tears… but are surprisingly candid and powerful. I found myself reading every one…as if she was a character in a novel.
Yesterday was a pretty eventful day in a bad way. I have a 16 year old daughter who recently informed me that she had sex with her boyfried for the first time. I handled the situation fairly well inspite of the dreaded feelings that were inside me. I asked her if she was ok with what happened and explained to her that she should not do it again for awhile as she really needed to let what happen sink in. I told her that sometimes we do things that seem ok at first but then after thinking about it we are sorry. I asked her to give it a month before she does it again. It seems weird to tell her this as it is almost like giving her permission but where there is a will there is a way and I am not stupid enough to believe that she will stop it now. Then I asked her if he wore a condom and explained the health risks to her.
The things that upset me most about what she did is that she didn’t appear to care about what she did. She really had no compassion whatsoever considering the level of intimacy that she allowed herself to experience with this boy. It was like it didn’t even really matter to her that she gave up the one thing she can never get back. Maybe she is to young to understand and she is looking at it as only a physical act.
I have had sex without loving the person I was with but I still hold a very serious level of compassion towards it. Each experience that we have had in our lives is different and when you have sex with someone you learn something and experience something with that person that most people have not. Whether you want that bond or not its there. In most cases if you are not in love the bond is not a strong one but it still remains. I guess it just makes me sad that being her first time she didn’t hold it higher than she did. She will remember that experience for the rest of her life and it makes me sad that she is too young to understand what she did.
Anyway, yesterday I went over to my ex-husbands house and I saw her boyfriends car parked on the side of the street. I looked in the window and I guess she heard my ex coming in the house so when I saw her she was running half naked up to her room. She was caught. I was infuriated. I am not even sure why because I knew she had been doing him already. I guess it was because it was in that house and in my old bed. When I finally got into the house I screamed at her about the disrespect and grounded her. I told her boyfriend to get the fuck out of the house.
Then I went to her job and asked her manager for her work schedule as I want to know where she is at all times now. Then I went to her boyfriends house and bitched him out. I made sure he knew that he was a minor and if he gets her pregnant I will without a doubt sue his parents for child support. He must have called my daughter because later she sent me a text message telling me she hates me because her boyfriend broke up with her because of me. I feel bad but I guess he didn’t really love her like she thought. She knew the rules………..no boys in the house………she got caught………she doesn’t care about anything but him……….I am going to make her live with me full time. She will hate me even more. Am I over reacting?
Wow, interesting to say the least! Being a parent of a 16 year old daughter myself I can relate to her inner most feelings of how to deal with girls from this generation.
I guess I can say that I’m very lucky that I have a close enough relationship with my own daughter to know where she stands when it comes to her feelings about this subject. Something I didn’t have with my own mother when I was growing up and wish I did before I got married. I had to learn alot of painful lessons during it.
Yes, this mother is nosey about her daughter’s life outside of our relationship and I poke around her stuff to see what’s been going on outside of the typical mom and daughter relationship.
I was lucky enough to come across a note in her journal about how she’s broken up with two boyfriends because she’s ‘…not that kind of girl and I respect my dignity before I’ll stoop to that level to keep a boyfriend’. There have also been times when she’s come storming in to the house frustrated because she sees her own girlfriends starting to do things that are less than respectible to ones self.
I’ll stop now and post something to my own blog about this topic, then write to this mother supporting her taking action in her daughter’s life. Any more there doesn’t seem to be enough parents out there that really seem to care what thier kids are up to now a days.
Thanks, Lee!
Mary
I agree. She’s giving us a deep, inside look that is candid and refreshing in its own way.
BTW, I’m enjoying your blog and have added your link to mine. I remember reading your posts on DorothyL.
I’m still active, more or less,on DorothyL. I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog!