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When Teen-agers
NeedtoKnowAhoutSex
but Fear to Ask Parents ...
S
IXTEEN-YEAR-OLD
Denise finds
a boy she likes. "Daddy," she
confides, " I think I really !ove
Frankie." She has an expeclant, al–
most ques lioning tone to her voice.
"Ha, ha!" her dad chuckles. "You
in !ove, al sixteen? Hey, Mom, did
you hear thal? Our little girl thinks
she's in !ove!" He turns lo his
daughler witb a devastating "You'll
learn what !ove is when you grow
up" as he retums to his newspaper.
The "feeUng" may seem ridiculous
to Dad, but to the girl it is the
most
important
part of her life at the mo–
ment.
Consider another happening.
"Mommy, what's a menstru ...
menstrual cycle?" eleven-year-old
Maria hesilanlly asks her mother.
"Well, uh ... ah ... you'll learn
later,"
is
the answer tinged with an
obvious feeling of embarrassment.
The girl , of course, may come lo
assume that there is somelhing
nasty or evi l about the process. At
least, those are the vibes she wiU get
from her mother's stammering.
A third situation: "What were
you doing with that girl?" roars Al's
obviously angry father . Taken
aback, Al answers, "Why nothing,
Dad."
PLAIN TRUTH
June
1973
by
Poul W. Kroll
"Don't tell me 'nolhing'! I know
what's going on. I'm not stupid, you
know." At lhis poinl whelher or nol
Al was "doing" anything has be–
come somewhat irrelevant. The ax
has been taken to lhe father-son
relationship; a breakdown in com–
munications is the sad prognosis.
A fourth situatioo could be sum–
marized in the following scene: Six–
teen-year-old Janice is attempting to
tell her dad what happened on a
date.
"Dad, 1 ... uh was with John, and
he tried to, uh...."
" Listen, sweetie," Dad blurts out,
"tell me later. l've gol lo run and
take
care
of sorne business." But
"later" never comes.
The Communications Gap
The above examples illustrate
how to turn off communication
about sex problems without reaUy
lrying. Though a generation gap is
especially critica! in the area of sex–
ual matters, no human problem
is
free from this communications gap.
Severa! years ago, Dr. Marvin C.
Dubbé, a former sociology professor
at Oregon Stale University, did
sorne unique research concerning
tbe parent-child dialogue dilemma.
Dr. Dubbé's firm conviction: "More
than ninety-five of every hundred
young people do experience sorne
problems when they lry to lalk
across the child-parent
b~rrier
- at
sorne times, about sorne topics in
sorne degrees."
Dubbé surveyed one hundred
bigh school fresbmen boys and one
bundred freshmen girls in western
Oregon. He had previously studied
fifty girls and fifty boys of coiJege
age. The younger sample was taken
from geographic areas similar to the
older ones. Both groups had the
same basic difficulties in commu–
nicating with parents.
Fear was the greatest reason cited
by both girls and boys for not talk–
ing to either fathers or mothers.
Other reasons included parental
nagging, age differences, signals of
discomfort , guilt , lack of time, no
need, parents didn't know, con–
demna tion, evasion.
The Problem With Sex
Dubbé had 36 specific subject cat–
egories to which the students ad–
dressed their comments. The
subjects covered a wide gamut of
problem areas - from sexual mat–
ters to politics.
Sex problems
were
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