Raising 3 teens, I am curious to know if the women in our community beleive that what they did as teens and young adults has had an impact on how their married or single adult lives have been affected...???

As a teen, I was pretty cautious, my molding by Franciscan nuns still in full force. So I didn't do alot of the things some of my peers did. I eventually did a little partying, but refrained from much of the kind of thing girls seem to do pretty regularly now as young teens. I believed even then in the sanctity of a loving relationship and was wise enough to realize that the kinds of relationships we had as teens at the prom were not forever things. I went a tad hog wild in my very early twenties when I left home and lived in a resort. But pretty quickly realized I was a monagamous creature. I worry about the girls I see now, as young as middle school, dressing like a billboard for teen sex, being promiscuous at a very young age, drinking, smoking.....I know this sounds dowdy and like our parents sounded but I wonder what kinds of relationships these girls might eventually end up with.

Kath, I am also worried about the young girls today. They see sooo much on television, MTV, PG, and PG 13 movies, and plain old tv for that matter, that promotes promiscuity and weird relationships. When the time comes for them to relate to teen boys they truly don't know how to act.

Dropped my daughter off at a local Catholic high school dance a couple weeks ago, and some of the girls walking in there looked like they could have been going to work on The Block in Baltimore City! What are they thinking?

Well, as a teen, I was totally obsessed with finding "love" that it overshadowed everything else in my life. Everything else suffered if I was lonely, having trouble with a man, out oflove, recovering from the last horrid relationship, etc. I think that's one of the huge reasons why I married whom I did and when I did... he seemed so "perfect" for me, he seemed to love me, he said all the right things, and I was desperate for what passed for stability. Also desperate to not move back in with my parents, because I was dropping out of college. My parents were also desperate for me to find a husband, because I was pretty wild at one point in my youth. They also didn't want to be saddled with me as a single mom (they got me later on, anyway!) There was always this unspoken anxiety that I would never marry, as I was a tomboy (still am)... and there was this unspoken pressure for me to find a man.

It's not all the teen girls' fault, Ladies. We pressure them toward a certain kind of life, whether we want to admit it or not. In my life, I "understood" that the way to find everlasting love was through dating and sex. I was never taught how to relate to males any other way. Either they were bosses or they were boyfriends / lovers. I tried to just be "human," but there wasn't anyone to just be a person with.

I think boys are victims of the same B.S., too.

So if you have a girl who knows nothing outside of the role of lover, and a boy who knows nothing outside of the role of lover (or hit and run!), how are girls going to avoid the things we fear most for them?

Just my 2 cents' worth....

Lil, you bring up a very important point here. Children need to be taught to have friendships with the opposite sex. Boys need to have friends that are girls...not only girlfriends, and girls need to be taught to have boys that are friends...not only boyfriends.

I think this starts at a very early age.

One thing that can really be helpful (and I've seen this happen with my two youngest children who are only ten months apart) is having a sibling of the opposite sex very close in age. My youngest two grew up playing with one anothers' friends because they were so close in age. As a result my younger son has friends that are girls and my daughter has friends that are boys. It is actually something that others have commented on because they are very comfprtable withthe opposite sex.

I wish I could say I planned it, but I didn't, it just happened and I think it's healthy. Chalk up one thing for having kids 10 months apart!

So much to think about while raising kids, isn't there?

I was a prety adventurous teenager but always seemed to know my limits. Truly monogamous from the start.

I agree girls and boys need to learn to be friends first. That is why they hang out together first before the single dating thing starts. My Mom insisted on this approach. I also grew up with lots of boys in the neighborhood and my Mom seemed to repeat the mantra of having boys as friends. It makes a huge difference. But so does the young girls expereiences outside the home and today's world is pretty scary - even for the adventurous type like me.

My stepdaughter is way past the teen years but has not been able to attach herself to any man for more than a year max. I wonder frequently why this is. Could we have gone too far in the direction of boys as friends? Her biological parents had a very amicable divorce and both sets of parents are quite friendly and admiring of the other. The worrying doesn't stop at the teen years. You still wonder what you could have done better.

Lynn, my mom always said that we were always her kids no matter where we lived. Just because we moved away from home didn't mean we moved away from her heart!

With a son now ten-plus hours from home, I know what she was talking about!

Weird how some of the things Mom said through the years, take so long to have true meaning for us, isn't it?

yeah...like always wear clean underwear in case you are in a wreck. Three years ago I had one and would you believe the first thing that went thru my mind was....you guessed it...ack!

I also found a "thank you" card to send to Mom AFTER the wreck for all the care she provided...it said "don't worry Mom...open card...I had clean ones on..."

No joke...