Taking Sex with Your Kids by Amber Madison

Author:Amber Madison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Adams Media, Inc.
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

CONTRACEPTION

Talking to your teens about birth control is not the same as giving them permission to have sex—and they won’t see it that way. It tells teens that you think they’re mature enough to make an important decision to protect their future, and that you want them to have good information

—Katharine O’Connell White, MD, MPH, OB-GYN at Tufts University–Baystate Medical Center

Ideally, young women would be psyched about the fact that by taking a pill, they can have sex and avoid pregnancy—OMG, the miracles of modern-day medicine! But in reality, many girls see the pill as something that will make them fat, bitchy, and perpetually nauseous. And although there are lots of other birth control options, most girls either aren’t aware of them or automatically assume the worst.

Girls need to stop hating contraception. Condoms are a great way to protect against the spread of STDs, but when it comes to pregnancy prevention, they just don’t cut it. Sexually active young women need to be on a contraceptive method even if they’re planning on using condoms. And as their gatekeeper to the health care system, part of your responsibility is to make sure they are.

In order for you to help your daughter find a method of contraception that’s best suited for her, you need be informed yourself. You have to know what rumors are swirling around about different methods, what her options are, and how to be the most useful in a health care setting. This chapter includes everything you need to know about contraception in order to best help your daughter make informed choices.

The Beef with Birth Control

The way young women badmouth contraception, you would think it had slept with all of their boyfriends. Girls love to hate birth control: blaming it for weight gain, causing cancer, infertility, relationship problems, and more. No birth control method is without side effects, that much is true. But as far as the severity of the side effects, many are blown completely out of proportion.

All of girls’ contraceptive concerns wouldn’t be such a roadblock if girls were actually afraid of getting pregnant. After all, what’s a little hormonal oversensitivity compared to an unplanned pregnancy? But the problem is that many girls just don’t believe it will happen to them. Every girl I know who’s gotten pregnant has told me that even though she was aware of the statistics, she was still shocked when it actually happened to her. For many girls, the thought of becoming pregnant just doesn’t penetrate into their reality. According to a 2007 survey, 45 percent of teen girls admit they’ve never really thought about what life would be like if they got pregnant as a teen (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy).

In order to effectively motivate your daughter to use contraception, you have to address her concerns (even if those concerns seem unimportant or silly to you). You can’t soothe her worries with one fell swoop of, “Well it’s better than being pregnant,” because for many girls pregnancy doesn’t seem like a realistic threat.

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