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Talking is Job #2

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium. If it’s October, it must be “Let’ Talk” month. 

This is the time of year when parents are poked and prodded to pontificate about sex. Specifically, October is the month that parents are---steady on friends---encouraged to talk to their kids about sex.   Don’t get me wrong, encouraging often-recalcitrant parents to talk to their kids about sex is the right thing to do. Still, it has always struck me as a classic case of putting the cart before the proverbial horse. 

Why? My sense is that not a single parent in America will talk to their kids about sex if they believe that what they have to say will fall on deaf ears; if what they have to say will have absolutely no effect on their beloved offspring’s decisions about sex.  

It seems to me that before we encourage parents to talk to their kids about sex and related issues, we must first convince parents that they matter on this particular set of issues. Considering the in-your-face nature of the present-day culture, it is not surprising that many parents feel that their influence over their kids’ decisions about sex has been lost to the influence of peers and popular culture. Given that, our first job should be to fill parents in on the good news---when it comes to teens’ decisions about sex, parents matter far more than they know. 

Don’t take my middle-aged- stuck-in-Washington, DC-not-as-trim-as-I-once-was word on it. We at The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy have conducted periodic national public opinion surveys on a variety of topics. A decade-plus of polling has made one thing crystal clear: teens say parents most influence their decisions about sex---more than peers, popular culture, or the media.  

If you’re not inclined to believe public opinion polling then simply review the growing stack of quality social science research that reaches essentially the same conclusion.

Of course---exhibit A from the duh file---it’s not just s-e-x that parents should be talking about with their kids. One could even argue that sex is number four or five on the list. What about helping young people understand the characteristics of a healthy relationship and the warning signs of an unhealthy one? How about helping teens understand that if sex is the price of a close relationship, it’s best to find someone else? How about discussing whether you believe if sex should be associated with commitment?

A final thought---exhibit B from the duh file. Helping your kids navigate the tricky six-river confluence of love, relationships, sex, contraception, pregnancy, and family formation cannot, must not, be limited to one month. This is an 18-year plus conversation friends.  When you signed up for this parent gig you signed up for the good, the bad, and the ugly. And you signed up for life.

Parents: It’s October. You matter a lot. Now stop reading and start talking. Your kids are waiting.

Bill can be reached at balbert@thenc.org.