The New Version of Sleepovers!
Last month, USA Today ran an article written by Amanda Marcotte encouraging parents to allow their teenagers to enjoy romantic sleepovers or invite their boyfriend or girlfriend to move in. The article provided the following 7 reasons why it’s a good idea for your teenager to cohabitate:
1. Angelina Jolie lived with her boyfriend when she was 14 and plans to be “just as liberal with her daughter.”
2. Allowing your child to have romantic sleepovers might actually improve your parent-child relationship.
3. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says 9 percent of women have cohabitated by age 18. By age 20, the number shoots up to 26 percent.
4. According to researchers, when teens live together, teenage marriages decrease. Although both cohabitating teens and married teens get pregnant, there are fewer pregnancies among teens living together. The article then concludes that teens living together is good.
5. Since Americans are now accepting the idea of young adults living together, it makes sense this positive attitude should extend to 16-year-olds as well.
6. Teenagers say cohabiting is good because it’s a way to save money and spend more time with your partner without committing to marriage before you’re ready.
When teens are allowed to have romantic sleepovers and/or live together, they no longer have to sneak around …”and that also is a good thing.”
In other words, if you let your teenager have romantic sleepovers,
wonderful things will happen.
First and foremost, you will be just like Angelina Jolie. (One of your life-long goals, I’m sure!)
And as you become best buds with your teen, he or she will stop stressing over sneaking behind your back which evidently reduces the risks of pregnancies and
STDs. And if all goes well, your child will avoid marriage. Isn’t life wonderful?
Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm and counter with seven reasons why teenage romantic sleepovers are a terrible idea.
1. The younger a person is when he/she starts having sex, the more partners they will have and the greater the risks of pregnancies before marriage and STDs.
2. It’s a scientific fact a girl’s cervix will not be fully matured until she is in her mid–
20s. As a result, teenage girls are far more susceptible to serious complications from STDs than teenage boys, adult men and women.
3. Most sexually active teens regret their decision to have sex. (67% of teenage girls and 53% of teen boys wish they had waited.
4. Sexually active teens are significantly more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide than teens who are NOTsexually active.
5. Sexually active teens are more likely to find themselves living in poverty and being dependent on welfare as an adult than teens who have not had sex.
6. Couples who postpone sex until their wedding day are more likely to have more stable and stronger marriages than those who have sex before marriage.
7. Saving sex for marriage produces the BEST SEX!
So to summarize:
Saving Sex for marriage:
Prevents pregnancies before marriage and STDs for a lifetime.
Decreases depression and suicide, and increases overall happiness and well-being.
Decreases the risk of divorce
Produces strong character: self-control, self-respect, and self-discipline.
Provides an exclusive intimate relationship shared with one lifetime partner.
Produces the BEST SEX and HAPPIEST MARRIAGES!
www.aimforsuccess.org. , September 2013. Used by permission.