children, parenting, morality, sexMany parents who are now atheists come from religious backgrounds. Within religious circles premarital sex is often considered a grievous sin. The punishment of which is used as a deterrent to try to get children to abstain.
Knowing that this type of threat is now simply a tool of control, and also assuming you don’t want your children to just be running around having sex with just anyone.
What approaches do you use to encourage responsible behavior while respecting the need for healthy relationship development?
If your child is old enough to ask the question, they’re old enough to hear the answer. If they are repulsed by the answer, so be it. The fact that they may find the answer disgusting shouldn’t be used as an excuse to lie to them.
Generally, in the religious paradigm, sex is not considered sinful as long as it’s for the purposes of procreation; sex for pleasure is not, therefore it’s sinful. Sex outside of marriage cannot be for anything other than pleasure because children born outside the ‘sanctity’ of marriage are somehow tainted with sin, so an unmarried couple wouldn’t dream of wanting to bring a tainted child into the world. In the religious paradigm.
Without all that rubbish however, sex is sex and marriage is marriage and the two are independent of each other. So when your child asks about sex, tell them about sex, don’t muddy the waters with talk of marriage.
With honesty and without stigma.
Raskolnikov is right, you seem to be attaching a pre-supposition that premarital sex is in some way harmful. Sex is a most natural behaviour in species which require 2 party conception. For me dealing with a 15 year old boy I have found honesty and the ability to be a little light hearted about the matter invaluable. That said it is important to introduce concepts around consent and safety. Most important; let the child set the pace of the discussion because you’ll never know where a teenagers mind is at (although I would be surprised if sex related topics have not entered the discussion, in some form, during the pre-teen years), and don’t pre suppose your childs sexual preference. That’s my best advice on the matter; good luck;)
I read “Where Did I Come From” as a child, long before it became an “I guess it’s time for the talk” issue. I don’t see why it has to be withheld, delayed, fussed over at all. Children love to learn, so teach them everything you can. It seems to me that if you treat your children like children, they’ll grow up acting like children.
Although I had some religious “pushing” in my family, the main thing my parents did was speak honestly with me about it. Yes, it was uncomfortable - for me and them. But they attempted to get me access to good educational books that told facts - that STDs can happen, what their effects were, etc. I was more careful, I believe, about sex than most of my peers. I know of a couple dozen of my high school peers (this was about 12-15 years ago) who were having regular sex with multiple partners, and still attending church all the time. I was not - mostly because I wanted to be careful and to have it with someone I truly cared about.
Although I was effectively a non-believe by the age 14 (I called myself an “apathetic agnostic”, mostly because I wasn’t ready to commit to the idea of there being no greater God), I was still focused on doing the right thing at the right time - i.e. I wanted relationships to be special, so I didn’t want to simply have casual sex.
I know this is a little rambling, but I believe, and have experienced, that being taught respect and the facts can definitely help young people keep in line. The most important thing is to be honest. All that lying does is make the children question everything else you say. For instance, if you tell them lies about Marijuana, they will question other authoritative things you have said.
Well, I don’t have kids, but as an atheist I have to imagine that the first thing I would tell my kids is that screaming “Oh my God” during sex might be a bit misleading. :-)
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