Stop me if you've heard this before...

I am not sure why I was remembering this particular event in my life, but I felt I had to share it anyway. Here it goes...

I was with a group of ladies the other night. We meet once a month for knitting, conversation and lots of laughs. Everyone knits squares which are then put together for an afgan and then donated to different places. It was at this meeting that a discusstion started about parents and how they talk to their kids about sex, drugs, etc...

This is my story.

When I was 19 years old I finally had a boyfriend, it was about time. Of course I was one of those teenagers who always said I wanted to wait until I was married to have sex. Of course at the time that I said that there was no boyfriend in sight, lol. Anyway, I decided to go to the gynecologist, figuring it was time to talk about options since my parents never spoke with me about these kinds of topics.

When I told my mom I had made the appointment she immediately assumed that I would be having sex and that she would have no part in it. By talking about birth control she already decided that I would have sex and that I should think about my parents, not shame them, and not give in to instant gratification. Things worth having are worth waiting for, blah, blah. blah, and if this boy really loved me he would wait.
I got the whole stroy about when she was young and not giving in to urges and how she felt when she was my age.

I kept thinking to myself that she had the perfect opportunity to make me aware of all the ways I could be safe if I did choose to have sex. Instead she made me feel isolated and that she did not care about me at all.

So...I had been dating this guy for about 6 months, thinking all the while that I wanted to have sex, but not wanted my parents to be disappointed in me. I did the adult thing and made the guy have an AIDS test. After the results came back and everything was ok, I decided that I wanted to go for it, I know, big shock right, lol, but I felt it was the right decision.

So, like a stupid teenage girl who wants her mother to like and respect her I decided tha I was going to tell my mom about the decisions I had made and hope we could have a heart-to-heart. I went into her room and asked if we could talk. I told her that I had decided to have sex, had the proper tests done so no one would get sick, used protection and felt like I was on my way to becoming an adult. No one had ever "schooled" me on the rights and wrongs so I was left to learn it all on my own. I thought she would really be proud of me. Not for the sex part obviously but for the being safe part. Boy was I ever wrong. She started to cry and told me to get out of her room. I left the house for awhile, maybe for a walk, but I do not exactly remember.

I came home later and found on my bed a letter from my mom. Basically it said that by having sex I had not only shamed myself, but shamed my family. It proved that I could not wait for the right time, for example the marriage bed, and to add insult to injury, she went on to say that the day I had told her about this decision was the anniversary of my grandfathers death and no longer would that day be sacred. It would be tainted with what she called "MY ADULT DECSIONS."

OH MY GOSH, right? I gave my mother the perfect opening for helping me shape what decisions may come up in the future. She stomped all over my heart and made feel like trash. However, I was never upset about my decision to have sex. I was upset with the fact that I told my mom and how she handled it. I hope that when the time comes and my children need help in these areas they will come to me. I know that no parent wants their child having pre-marital sex, but I would rather have an informed child. Needless to say, the sex was awful, the guy did not know what to do and I thought that was normal...I kept waiting for it to get better, the sex that is. I think after that I was not interested in sex anymore. Maybe it was my inexperience or his, it really did not matter. I always said that anything worth doing is worth doing well. So I just stopped doing it altogether. We dated for about another year after we had sex, but in the end, I broke up with him. I just knew that he was not my future. It was extremely hard to do, I thought I loved him, but I think I just wanted to be loved.

I knew if I waited the perfect man would come to me...and that of course is another story, lol.