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attempted to tell mother and father about Roger .
. . .
they said,
'You don 't know what love is,' and laughed as they said it
.. . .
Since that inciden!, 1 have given them evasive answers to almost
every question they have asked me concerning boys."
the rnost difficult for teen-agers to
discuss with parents.
Dubbé then compared the high
school students with 19-year-olds in
an earlier pilot study at Oregon
State College. He generally found
the same results, with sorne excep–
tions. There was one disturbing
trend. Instead of communications
increasing with age, the gap became
more pronounced. On tbe whole,
the nineteen-year-olds had
greater
dijficulty
talking over sex questions
with parents than the younger
group.
" 1 Can' t Talk . . .
About Boys"
Many of the teen-agers wrote
brief case histories. A college girl
summed up how easily communica–
tion breaks down in sexual rnatters.
"Although 1 can talk with rny par–
ents on almost any subject," this girl
stated, "regardless of how personal,
1 cannot reveal to them my feelings
about boys.... To me there carne
the day tbat comes to almost every
girl. I met a boy with whom 1 was in
!ove.... 1 attempted to tell mother
and father how 1 felt about Roger,
hoping once again for their under–
standing.
"Instead, they said, 'You don't
know what !ove is,' and laughed as
they said it. . . . They will never
know just how small and ignorant
they made me feel. . . . Since that
incident, I have given them evasive
answers to almos! every question
they have asked me concerning boys
- even asto where I go and what I
do on dates. At that time, 1 built up
14
a resentment against Mother and
Father."
The tragedy is that the parents of
this girl did not mean to hurt their
daughter; they simply d id not thi nk.
The subject wasn't that important to
them.
Or
it may have been that the
parents were so worried they over–
reacted in a negative way. In either
case, the issue was explosive for the
young girl who was perbaps for the
first time experiencing a volatile at–
traction for the opposite sex.
This single, but critica!, experi–
ence snapped the communications
line
in
a vital area of their daugh–
ter's life. Being unaware of the wall
that was erected, they would proba–
bly find it difficult to help her in any
further times of sexual crisis.
One obvious consequence:
rhis
girl would begin to turn to her peers
for help and understanding.
There is
much evidence indicating that teen–
agers, to a large degree, have
stopped relying on parental assis–
tance in sexual matters. Their peers
have become their new sexual in–
structors.
Attitudes of University
Stude nts
Further evidence of this disturb–
ing trend was found when 750 fresh–
man students at an American
university answered questionnaires
regarding their own sexual altitudes.
A unique aspect of this study by Dr.
Robert Walsh was that the students
took similar questionnaires home
for their parents to fill out. Sorne
results of the study were published
in the January 1972 issue of
Sexual
Behavior
magazine in the article en–
titled "The Generation Gap
in
Sex–
ual Beliefs."
The survey revealed that 72% of
the fathers and 63% of the mothers
thought they were the major source
of their child's sex information.
Contrasted with tnis assumption
was tbe students' assessment. Only
7% of the boys and 29% of the girls
reported their parents as a major
source of sexual information.
Fathers, especially, fared badly.
Only 5% of the boys and 2% of the
girls named their fatbers as the ma–
jar source of information. The obvi–
ous consequence was also noted.
About two thirds of the boys and
one half of the girls mentioned
friends
as the majar source of sexual
information.
In an earlier study, Jean Bolton,
an executive director of a well–
known home for unwed mothers
(the Florence Crittenton Agency of
San Francisco) talked with a num–
ber of girls in five high schools. a
prívate girls' school and at the
borne.
Among the questions asked was
"Where do most ofyour ideas about
marriage come from?" Only 73 of
the girls said from borne and par–
ents. Another 81 girls cited one of
the following: either TV and movies
( 16), friends (30), or oneself (35) as
the chief source of ideas.
If the boys had been surveyed or
if the question asked had been re–
garding purely sexual matters, the
percentage receiving their informa–
tion from parents would probably
have been somewhat lower still.
PLAIN TRUTH
June
1973