Mother Talkers

Progressive Values vs. Active Parenting

by val49erfan

Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 07:13:35 PM PDT

Being a progressive, liberal-minded political activist mom who learned everything about what NOT to do from my own mom, I set out to have this warm, open, communicative relationship with my children. I envisioned us sharing our inner most thoughts, feelings, dreams and aspirations and them including me in their plans of becoming sexually active, seeking my advice over others and maybe being the open mom that their friends could come to as well.

I have been very open with my children about my life and some of the mistakes I have made along the way, in the hopes that they would see me as human and themselves as being capable of recovering from the inevitable mistakes that we all make.

While lots of parents in this very red county of California that I live in drive their teens to Young Life, or Youth Group during the week, my daughter works for Planned Parenthood in their teen outreach department.  She brings information about sexual health, pregnancy etc to lower income neighborhoods, fairs, etc.  

I love that she is open and confident about sex.  However, having progressive ideals and raising a progressive teen sometimes clash with my parenting instincts.  

How do I balance not indoctrinating her with stiff rigid morals, while still providing her guidance and role modeling?  How do I take on the school board over their illegal sex education curriculum, and not have her pay the price at school?  How do I balance liberal ideals against responsible parenting? How do I respect her privacy yet still stay a step ahead of her?

I recently found out that my daughter is sexually active, and that in spite of all the information and access she has, she chose to have unprotected sex.  Of course I took her to our family doc who did a pelvic, STD tests and a RX for birth control.  Afterwards when she and I were discussing it, she said, very causally, well mom, I would have just had an abortion if I got pregnant.  

That was like a knife to the stomach.  Not that she shouldn't have an abortion, but that she casually tossed it out like she would if she were speaking about having a wart removed.

Has my progressive, liberal, pro choice activism somehow made her callous to the painful reality of abortion?  

Does it matter what I envisioned our relationship to be? ANY relationship is the result of how engaged two people choose to be with each other. My daughter has chosen (for now) that she doesnt want the same relationship with me that I want with her.  All I can do now is continue to be there for her, talk MORE about my values when it comes to the issues and wait and see.

Tags: teens, pregnancy, abortion (all tags)

Permalink | 18 comments

  • don't freak out (0 / 0)

    It's a symptom of being a teenager. I remember feeling very much the same way as a teenager. The whole "baby" thing isn't real at that age. You can't comprehend the feeling of being a mother. It doesn't meant that she's doomed to being self-centered her whole life...teenagers are all self centered and can't believe that anything could ever happen to them.

    You're doing great. You'll find out when she's 30.

    by aussieyank on Wed Nov 21, 2007 at 10:45:24 PM PDT

    • Also, the casual comment (0 / 0)

      May well hide a great deal of angst that she chooses not to share with you. I bet she was kicking herself readily and dramatically for letting the moment take over. I remember being asked a question rather like that, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, and I know that my answer was taken as flippant and in a far different way than I intended or felt about it.

      by shenanigans on Thu Nov 22, 2007 at 09:28:25 AM PDT

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  • Remember- she's not in her right mind (0 / 0)

    A chunk of the brain literally turns off during adolescence- the prefrontal cortex, I think?  Anyway, it's the part that controls impulsivity and the ability to foresee consequences.  Terrible timing, from my perspective, but I suppose from an evolutionary view, it's the best way to make sure we reproduce as a species.  Still, it sucks for those of us who have to interact with them at that age.  When I taught HS, I used it as a mantra- "They only have half a brain, they only have half a brain..."

    Stay the course, let her know you love her no matter what, and keep the faith.  It's the best you can do for her.

    by Laura on Thu Nov 22, 2007 at 09:09:04 AM PDT

  • how old is your daughter? (0 / 0)

    above is my first question.  if she is young teenager i would try very hard to still talk to her about being emotionally ready for a sexual relationship. and i might use her abortion comment as a jumping off point. and would also use the decision for unprotected sex as another place to open up a dicussion.  was she pressured? here again if you can crack open that door, i'd give it a whirl.

    i am curious when you refer to the school's illegal sex ed curriculum.  what do you mean by that? are they providing inaccurate information in your opinion?

    your apsiration of being your child's first person to go to for all her inner most thoughts is the dream for many parents...and then teen year reality hits. what a struggle it is for both parents and teens that whole process of separating and differentiating! however it is healthy and normal for teens to seek out their friends over their parents at this juncture. setting boundaries, explicitly laying out expectations and then living with a teen's reactions is the primary parental responsibility. the path to that ultimate open relationship includes some significant bumps along the way.

    you have hit one of those bumps.  i don't believe any of us get through this process without a few. weathering the bumpy road is the challenge...hang in.

    by parentalunit1 on Thu Nov 22, 2007 at 09:20:36 AM PDT

    • The go-to person (0 / 0)

      Sometimes the emotion and embarrassment is just too raw to share with mom, especially right away. But it's not unique to the teen years - expect to see the same in reverse when you're getting old and start having age-related mishaps.

      Hopefully she has some good friends that can help her out as well.

      by shenanigans on Thu Nov 22, 2007 at 09:32:00 AM PDT

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    • my daughter is 15 and 1/2 (0 / 0)

      Thanks for the comments and kind words.  I guess even though intellectually we all can expect a few speed bumps, when they are actually realized, the emotions are a whole different story!

      I had to take on her high school sex ed curriculum in the spring.  California is one of the only states that rejects "abstinence only" sex ed funding from the federal gov't (brought to you by our faith based decider in chief). Mandatory curriculum is here:  Ca Education Code on Sex Ed Curriculum

      Her school had an outdated text book that included a chapter called "abstinence before marriage" and made not one mention ANYWHERE of contraception, condoms, prevention of pregnancy, STD etc.  Not to mention, abstinence until marriage is discriminatory against gays and lesbians who are not allowed to marry.

      I ended up working with the ACLU, NARAL and the school board to get them to (finally) take a look and analize their curriculum against the state's mandates.

      by val49erfan on Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 10:47:48 AM PDT

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      • Wow, good for you! (0 / 0)

        I have been thoroughly spoiled at my son's K-8 school, which covers human development / sexuality very openly and calmly.  Research shows that kids who know more wait longer and make fewer disinhibited (e.g., drunk, peer pressure) decisions around sex.  Thanks for doing your part to wake up your part of the world.  So many kids will be helped!

        by mamacita on Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 03:09:03 PM PDT

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      • amazing.. (0 / 0)

        thanks for letting me know.  i plan to check my dd's curriculum as we too are in california.  i hear ya about the emotions around those bumps...definitely has caused a rash of gray on my head!

        by parentalunit1 on Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 04:55:26 PM PDT

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        • I was totally amazed (0 / 0)

          that in 2007, in California no less, this text book was still in circulation.

          It is easy to be really involved in the kids' education when they are elementary school age and conferences are once or twice a year, but we also need to really look at the texts our schools are using in the years when parents are not typically so involved.

          The teacher kept "patting me on my head" and telling me they covered all of that stuff verbally and so I asked to look at the unit test to see what concepts the kids were being tested on at the end.  Nothing AGAIN.  It was only at the mention of the ACLU that I got any attention.  

          by val49erfan on Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 07:23:00 PM PDT

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          • oh boy... (0 / 0)

            i admire you for sticking it out.  i have seen how hard it is to get any kind of change.  did you do this alone at the high school or with a group of parents?  did you work through the parents club?

            by parentalunit1 on Fri Nov 23, 2007 at 08:45:40 PM PDT

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            • it started (0 / 0)

              with a simple phone call to the teacher to ask questions about the curriculum.  After receiving the answer that it was an "abstinence based" curriculum I batted some questions back to him and actually hung up feeling mildly satisfied.

              A couple of days later when I drove my daughter to school, the very right wing Christian anti choice crowd was protesting on the sidewalk in front of her school, holding banners with photos of aborted fetuses and handing out anti choice pamphlets to the kids as they walked on campus.  Imagine my surprise...I thought I woke up in Kansas, not California.  Of course I called the school and they informed me that they had the right to be there as they were on public property, and that they also had the right to hand the kids their pamphlets as well.  There was nothing the school could do about it, and frankly, I was told, the Vice Prinicpal thought they did a "good job".  Of course my response was that he would be ok with me being in front of the school handing out condoms to the kids....but I digress.

              It was only after this experience then that I actually cracked open the text book and began scanning the chapters into my laptop and making copies of the material on CD to pass out to anyone who would listen.  I have only lived in the district 2 years so did not have a large network of parents.

              I ended up at the school board with one other parent and a representative from Planned Parenthood, and presented a packet of info that was perpared on my behalf by the sex ed curriculum specialist that consults full time for the ACLU.

              It was quite an experience.....Very worth fighting for.  

              by val49erfan on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 01:18:10 PM PDT

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              • Was the group local? (0 / 0)

                We had an incident in our town where a Christian anti-choice group did the same thing in front of some high schools and some elementary schools in our area.  They were awful but they were not doing anything illegal so the schools and the police were kind of stuck with them.  

                They were showing extremely graphic posters of aborted fetuses.  It was really disgusting what they were doing too as they totally traumatized the elementary students.  What's worse is that they chose to do it in front of the poorest schools in the area.  There was sort of an implied racism to their tactic like it was only the people of color or poor folks who would want to abort.

                Apparently it is a group kind of like those hateful Phelps church members who travel the country doing this outside of schools.  The school officials around here were not at all pleased by the incident and admitted as much publicly but again there was nothing that they could do.  I think they did organize adults who could shield the children from the pictures on the second day but they caught everyone by surprise on the first day.  They were fairly confrontational too.  They were getting right into the faces of parents walking their children to the elementary schools.

                by music teacher on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 07:14:40 PM PDT

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                • it was this (0 / 0)

                  group: teens for life and I also believe they were working in conjunction with this group: church of the divide.

                  Interestingly through doing some research, I found out that my school board had rejected (by a vote of 3-2) that Intelligent Design be taught along the biology curriclulum in 2004.

                  I live in Placer County, California.

                  by val49erfan on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:39:13 PM PDT

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                  • Ah, Placer County (0 / 0)

                    A group of my friends lived there for a while. One of the women  was 23, 24 and going for   routine gynecology appointment, and when the office found out that she had not ever been pregnant, they asked her if she needed help with infertility.

                    by shenanigans on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 09:15:52 AM PDT

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  • I would echo what others have said (0 / 0)

    There is something about being a teenager - you just don't think straight, as we all know when we see kids that age do risky things. They feel invicible and nothing will stand in their way.

    I also agree that she may not be comfortable sharing her fears with you, even if she always has in the past. It's also possible that having all the medical discussions and exams could have splashed a little cold reality on her and she didn't want to let on that it had gotten to her.

    Based on what you've said, you are doing a great job with your DD.

    by Lisa in Austin on Mon Nov 26, 2007 at 12:08:29 PM PDT

  • Parenting normally is hard if your past wasn't! (0 / 0)

    You are doing a great job of overcoming your own past in designing the appropriate parenting of your daughter.
    Question: how did you learn she is sexually active? If she disclosed it, then maybe she is trying in her own way to have a dialogue with you. If you learned it otw, at least she willingly went to the doctor with you--that's not always so easy to accomplish.
    Since she works at PP, she should know that having an abortion is not like having a cold. It involves invasion of an organ that is actively resisting invastion, and can lead to lifelong complications. Also, such a young woman might ignore the pregnancy for too long and have a real complicated abortion.

    by threesmommy on Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 01:03:20 PM PDT

    • I found out (0 / 0)

      via spying on her instant message and Myspace conversations, as discussed here: Invasion of Privacy

      Sort of a passive aggressive way of letting me know since she knows I randomly monitor her computer usage.

      Yes, i was grateful that she went to the doctor, our family physician was very good with her.

      by val49erfan on Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 02:15:30 PM PDT

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  • Probably not "spying" if she knew you'd visit the (0 / 0)

    page. You're still in good shape with her, I'd say, because now it's in the open and you're involved.

    by threesmommy on Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 03:51:41 PM PDT

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