The Miami Herald, Inc.; Friday, March 21, 1997
Ana Veciana Suarez; Herald Staff Writer

I'm not laughing anymore. On different occasions, I've spoken with my kids about sex, and each time I have become a little more understanding, a little more forgiving of my own parents. For all my adherence to so-called modern-day parenting techniques, I can think of few other situations that make a mother or father feel as uncomfortable and awkward.

Like most of my friends, I think I am open with children when it comes to subjects my parents once considered off-limits.

Yet, I agonize not so much about what to tell them about sex, but how to tell them. If I say, "No, absolutely not," will they be sexually active before marriage anyway? Will I cut off the potential for any future communication?

On the other hand, if I hand over the condoms or birth-control pills, have I just thrown in the towel and given my consent because everybody else is doing it?

It has occurred to me that before speaking to them about this most natural of acts, we, as parents, must come to terms with our own sexual practices and values. That means reviewing our own pasts, the mistakes and lessons, the downright embarrassments, and directing a just-as-critical eye on the present to see if we're practicing what we preach.

Conflicting signals

This type of personal audit won't be easy. Yet it may help parents understand why our adolescents appear to be so confused. Maybe they are just following our lead, doing as we do and not as we say. If Dad is sneaking around behind Mom's back, can he look his daughter in the eye and tell her to wait until marriage? If we bombard them with exploitative messages in the media, how can we tell them to zip up, button down and look the other way? What do we say to teenage girls impregnated by much older men when other women, women we have held up as role models, choose to become mothers outside of marriage?

Conflicting, confusing messages are exactly what we're feeding our children. And, predictably, we're paying the consequences. Though we've been handing out condoms and providing sex education in the schools, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy and earlier and frequent sexual activity are more of a problem than ever.

Sobering facts

Some studies show that 40 percent of ninth-graders and two-thirds of 12th-graders have had intercourse at least once, and one-fourth of 12th-graders have had at least four sex partners.

In Florida, one of seven births is to a teenager. HIV infects two teenagers every hour, and AIDS is now the leading killer of Americans 25 to 44. (Because it takes about 10 years for the symptoms to reveal themselves, that means most contracted HIV as teens.) Many other forms of sexually transmitted diseases are also on the rise.

Why? Many, many reasons. A loosening of values tops the list, but that's just one explanation. Some parents see inappropriate or dangerous sexual activity as a "them" problem, the type of thing teens without supervision or with low self-esteem practice. While that may be true, premature sexual activity transcends socioeconomic boundaries. If you doubt this, take a look again at this past Sunday's stories in The Herald about teenagers and sex. Our kids are "doing it" at the beach, in the hidden corners of the school, at home while parents are at work, even on buses. One honor-roll student said she and some friends have been sexually active since they were 15. It's not that unusual anymore, and it happens in the best of families.

It's not unusual because, more and more, we seem to be afraid of setting boundaries, taking control, moralizing to our children.

"Parents," says Dr. Gwen Wurm, the University of Miami's director of community pediatrics, "need to be parents again. We're afraid of our children. We don't want to control them."

Tough questions

But we are afraid they may hold the mirror to our face. We are uncomfortable about defining when sex is appropriate, maybe for fear of having to follow those rules ourselves, or simply because we might appear to be old-fashioned.

Still, we have to ask and answer tough questions about ourselves and our own behavior, as well as that of our children: Is sex appropriate only in marriage? Is the answer to this different depending on your age? On the gender? Is sex OK when there's a long-term commitment of another kind? If no long-term commitment, should there be at least some emotional attachment? Is a one-night stand more acceptable at 17, or at 42, or ever?

If we don't answer those kinds of questions first, we can't talk honestly with our children.

And if we don't talk to our children -- and early enough, before the hormones kick in -- they will get their information, often erroneous, often without the values we profess, from somewhere else. And sex is much too beautiful and special to leave in a stranger's hands.

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