To start: no, there are no “trusted male figures” in our lives. My brothers & father are all conservative, and I DO NOT trust them to properly explain things without shame and/or religious context.
My son knows the basics of reproduction, but I’ve never really explained what’s “normal” things for a teenage boy to go through… mainly because I don’t know!
I’ve definitely put it off, so he’s almost 14 and is much more physically mature than most of his peers (he’s got hair in places, shaves his face regularly, etc.)… but I’m embarrassed to admit that I know next to nothing about anything else…
Could y’all help me out? What did you go through that he should know about? What should I know about?
Many thanks to anyone who can help. Please don’t be unkind. Much appreciated.
EDIT: Thank you so much for all the advice so far!! Please keep it up!!
My son & I have very open communication & a very good relationship.
Was with you until this line. C’mon now.
It does happen. Had a woman poke holes in all of the condoms in my nightstand when I was 18. She later admitted she thought I was going to leave her when I was going to a University and she was going to the state college. I’m sure it is rare that such happens, but I wouldn’t fully dismiss it. I was paranoid after that and always went to the bathroom after and filled the condom with water to make sure they hadn’t broke or had a hole in them after sex. It wouldn’t do anything to prevent it at that point, but at least I had the peace of mind I guess that I knew it wasn’t leaking and could get a 9 month head start on planning.
It absolutely happens, no doubt! Never disagreed with that!
But putting out such a general statement like “women will baby-trap you!” is such a broad statement. Statements like that are often used to stir up hostility and is a common tactic used in spaces that are anti-women.
Me saying “men will assault you!” would not be acceptable and would get me attacked and downvoted to hell. It’s astounding to me that statements like this about women are supported.
Yeah, a better way to put it would be “There are women that may attempt baby-trap you, and you should always be mindful of that”
Absolutely.
Yeah it really wasn’t the response I expected to teaching your child about their body. Not sure what that person has been through, but it did seem random. I expected responses like how to properly clean oneself.
Yeah… don’t love the “women will be actively trying to ruin your life”–angle.
However, it’s a good idea to let him know that some potential partners will have bad/manipulative intentions, no matter the gender, and how to look out for that.
I made no mention of my kid’s orientation, so… make of that what you will. Lol
Yeah, people make stupid decisions no matter their gender, ideologies, or whatever else. I think one of the things I wish I would have learned more about at that age was the absence of structure. School is all very structured. Everything is about checking a box. Get this prerequisite, go to these classes. Be there at set times, get a set grade level and you will be fine. Get a certain score on the SAT/ACT or what not and you will be fine. Everything is almost definite. Once you leave high school/college there really isn’t any of that for your life unless you create it yourself. Get a job sure, within that job they will have structure. Nothing is telling people to check these 3 boxes and then move out of that job in 3 years and into the next step, as the steps no longer exist and staying in a single job is unlikely to land you where you need to be successful. Loyalty to a company doesn’t mean you will get raises or promotions. I wish I would have spent more time creating the maps and goals I want to achieve outside of the structure given to me, and work on achieving those goals and creating timelines they need to be done by. A certificate to move up/diagonal in my field, map it out and when and where you want to throw those 100 resumes out too and hope one of them will come back. Then already be working on other structured steps curated for my life aspirations.
I procrastinate on many of those things, because there are no due dates. It’s go to work, make dinner, clean, mow lawn, take care of chickens, blah blah blah to get to the next day week year, but then you never get around to improving yourself because I never set required boxes for me to check.
Lemmy.world is worse than fucking reddit was with gender relations lmfao
Weirdos end up on Lemmy. Many of us are a splendidly wonderful, if pedantic, sort.
And then there’s the weirdos that… aren’t that. The ones who never built social skills or the ability to look at the world from beyond their own limited experiences. The ones who extrapolate with reckless abandon, usually in the traditional directions of punching down.
I’m sorry if they or someone they know got baby-trapped, but that is DEFINITELY not the usual nor should it be phrased like it is.
I’m more shocked at the amount of upvotes the comment has.
His point isn’t wrong. He could have explained it better but telling a teenage boy how to not get girls pregnant regardless of what they tell him is not a bad idea. I definitely had experiences with girls I slept with telling me not to worry about it and at least one of them went on to have a teen pregnancy by another dude. They weren’t trying to trap me. They were just dumb. So was I and I got really lucky that there were no consequences. Teenagers say and do dumb shit and the more cognizant your son is of that the better. If he’s anything like me he’s not going to be thinking about consequences in the moment.
The above sentence is the one I’m taking a stand against. The rest was fine up until that.
You are 100% correct to have an issue with that. My point was more to answer why he is still getting upvotes. The premise of his comment about not cumming in women you don’t want to impregnate is correct. The motivation of the woman is pretty irrelevant to the conversation. He is wrong about that but it’s not the main point.
You need to understand that is one of a host of reasons and things that can be said. I’m not going to write a 40-page essay. Frank talk is necessary, too bad you can’t see that and choose to focus on the gender thing. That’s really about you and not me. Frank talk about all aspects of sex is vital. Get a grip.
edit: And I’m not going to sit here and qualify my statements carefully in case you’re too in-the-weeds to focus on underlying points. I don’t need to “not every woman” and bs like that. You should be smart enough to not need constant pandering to and kid glove treatment.
Do you think “frank” means “without nuance or care for how what I’m saying could be misconstrued as bigotry”?
Like, literally the only change I know I’d like to see is “there are some women who” and like… that’s hardly an imposition, y’know? Definitely not a “40 page essay” either.