That's what I meant by my own personal discomfort. It doesn't compare to Sam's discomfort (and difficulty) sleeping alone.cybele said:
I'll respond to the rest when I can get to my computer. Right now I'm running around too much.
Carried over suspension: should I fight it?...
- Thread starter Avianmosquito
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I'll respond to the rest when I can get to my computer. Right now I'm running around too much.
<I>I</I> know that. Her answer, however, isn't very helpful. She always says "Then I'll just sleep with somebody else." and with that the conversation ends. We know that works, too, because she bunks with her friends, in her own bed, when they're over. She doesn't have any trouble sleeping then, and she's just as happy with them. (Actually with puberty she's much happier with them.)cybele said:
I'm just going to address this first, because I was there and my memory of my childhood is much clearer than I gather is normal.cybele said:
Note that I am speaking almost purely from my own personal experience, and the experiences of those around me at that time. Which means, yes, that I actually did all these things as a boy.
Before puberty, if you have sex, no big deal. (From a little boy's perspective.) It's a kind of play, with the added benefit of being physically pleasurable. But that's all it is. It's just play, it's not the most important thing in a relationship, it's not even in the top 3 most of the time. (For me, those were "personality", followed by "looks" and "convenience".) Most importantly, you never feel like you need it, and you can always say no. You can say no just as easily as if you were being asked to play catch.
Puberty takes all those things and throws them out the window. Sex has gone from feeling "really" good to "OHMYGODIHADNOIDEA" good, but if a boy of that age doesn't have the resources to manage his urges or the resolve to control them, he REALLY shouldn't know that. It's better than it ever was before or ever will be, and with that all the fun dies. Sex isn't fun anymore, it's now suddenly serious business. If you have sex at this time, it will feel so good you will never want to stop. Then, if you hit a dry spell, you'll crave it more and more, and your standards will plummet on everything that used to be more important than sex. You'll find yourself going to great lengths for it, doing it with girls normally too hideous to make contact with, or ingratiating yourself to skeezy little bitches you normally wouldn't tolerate long enough to ask the time of day. It's also why some boys of this age (thankfully, I was not in their number) willingly have sex with a teacher or other adult, because you can't get laid any other way, they talk you into it once and then you just can't say no anymore.
I'm assuming I don't need to point out the problems with that. I had it easier than most boys I knew, because I knew a number of girls who wanted it just as much as I did and were willing to it with me. The girl who was to become Sam's adoptive mother being the foremost amongst them, my girlfriend more than half the time, and somebody I knew from elementary and genuinely cared for. (And a tomboy, I might add. She enjoyed fighting and rough-housing, video games and action films. And although not the prettiest girl I ever met, she was up there.)
Eventually, the hormones die down, the pleasure decreases and your urges diminish from "crushing need" to "burning desire" and eventually fade from your mind entirely when it's not an immediate concern. Sex isn't as pleasurable anymore, but that's fine because it's not as serious and you can have fun with it. You'll never feel that overwhelming rush of pleasure again, but that's the price you pay for being able to say "no" again.
So do I, I just never was one myself and I was in their same age bracket. Not all girls react the way you describe, and the ones I went out with (I looked for a particular personality type, commonly known as the "tomboy") reacted to puberty in much the way I did. I've had long, unpleasant (to me) talks on this subject with Sam, and it sounds like she (also a tomboy in everything but appearance) had a similar reaction, although to lesser degree.
The same urges does not imply the same reaction, but alright, if you want to play that game, they do have the same "TYPE" of urges, even if not the exact same ones.
Oh, I know. I really, really know. I was there, driving myself insane, staying up crazy hours, missing sleep several nights in a row, wishing puberty didn't ruin my sleep schedule and have me crashing on my desk at school. I've been there.
Everybody knows and acknowledges this. (Except for those "teenagers are just evil" codgers, and frankly **** them.) Moving on.
It isn't about mental capacity at all. It's about the inconsistency of these urges. I have never met a girl who was not smarter then than she was as an adult. I'm including the basket cases here, as even they were smarter (if not as stable) then as adults. Adulthood doesn't bring any degree of intelligence, it just implies experience (which even that isn't always the case) and stability.
But if you deny those urges, you're doing just as bad. The best thing is to acknowledge and work with them cautiously, and think before you act. FORCE yourself to think if that's what you have to do. I was really good at this, and I'm doing my damnedest to convey that to Sam.
Crazy, yes. Wrong, no. Most kids lack in resolve and have a hard time controlling themselves. Resolve is just one of those things that comes with experience and success, and it closely related to confidence. Adults have more experience, in this and other things, so they tend to be more confident and have better resolve. Resolve is also, however, something that can be built.
This doesn't make any sense.
See above.
Breasts I'm not sure about. When I was a kid most of the girls I was with were thrilled to get them, very proud (however much sense that makes) of them and loved to show them off. Even now, Sam talks about them way more than I'd like. (What I'd like is if they were just never mentioned. But of course, I can't get that now can I?) Pubic hair sucks, it's something I refused to accept when I was a kid, and I'm sure that's the case for girls as well. The menstrual cycle ALWAYS sucks, by the word of every female I have ever talked to, ever, without even a single exception, full stop.
UGH.
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What are you implying here. What the heck am I reading here. By this, you're suggesting that you are allowing your 11 year old to sleep with her peers in your home, and not like pillow fights and toe nail painting slumber parties, but some dirty, sexual type feelings are being had while they do who knows what in bed together, in your home with your permission? I mean is that what I'm to gather here?Avianmosquito said:
Um, no. She's just less comfortable with me now. (Still WAY more comfortable than she is alone.) I check on her regularly, that's NOT what she's doing in there. Although I cannot read minds and thus cannot attest to what they're doing in her head, what their bodies are actually doing is just simple cuddling.Xero said:
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It's a relative statement, sir. If she's much less comfortable with me, that means she is much more comfortable with them relative to me. It's puberty that makes her less comfortable with me, so that's why it's mentioned.Xero said:
I have a question for you, where would you place Sam's sexual maturity?
Clearly you have very little issue with her sexual behaviour, and you view her as a teen even though technically she is not a teenager for another year, so where do you place it? Are you happy that she is experimenting so young? Have you educated her adequately on birth control and STI prevention? Have you explained to her the responsibilities of her behaviour (STI testing, contraception, pap smears and so on?).
Clearly you are going to defend her behaviour to the death, going as far as to compare the sexual maturity of a 12yr old to that of an adult, which is frankly, ridiculous. So what are you doing to make sure she is safe?
Clearly you have very little issue with her sexual behaviour, and you view her as a teen even though technically she is not a teenager for another year, so where do you place it? Are you happy that she is experimenting so young? Have you educated her adequately on birth control and STI prevention? Have you explained to her the responsibilities of her behaviour (STI testing, contraception, pap smears and so on?).
Clearly you are going to defend her behaviour to the death, going as far as to compare the sexual maturity of a 12yr old to that of an adult, which is frankly, ridiculous. So what are you doing to make sure she is safe?
Whoops. Sorry, I tend to assume the sex of the individual in an avatar and the sex of the actual person are the same, even if I know they're not the same person. (That is a boy there, right? One of your boys?)Xero said:
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I refuse to assign a year, as I believe age is a horrible indicator. Some people know how to handle it from the get-go, some never get the hang of it. A year is a futile unit of measure.cybele said:
Happy? NO. But I know damn well I can't stop it, because I was that age once and I know I couldn't be stopped. I also know it would ruin my chances of doing any good for her, in this and other things.
Yes. I did that a long time ago, in fact.
All of it. It took a while, but all of it I have covered in detail. And, I should note, I HATED doing that. I can't stand talking to her about sex, even for a moment, and talking to her about it at length was very, very difficult for me.
Can we please not get into that again?
Education and resources. She knows all of that, she has an adequate supply of contraceptives, and she has (for the most part, at least) managed to avoid getting caught or even leaving evidence while still being safe about it. And she's also been broken of her habit of telling me all about it. (Thankfully, because I do not want to hear the details. I really, really don't. She's 12, and even if she wasn't she's my daughter.)
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Alright, why not?Xero said:
She started lactating about a year before then, by her own word as I was not present (although I knew her LONG before then, we were separated at this time) and she doesn't know why either. Her lactation was maintained up to that point by adults, which I needn't explain as you certainly get that already. (I'm sure whoever she was with at the time was all over them once they started working.) Her feeding Sam also wasn't her idea, it was Sam's idea and she just didn't fight it. Sam was a fairly forceful toddler, and she had a tendency to do things like that. On a number of occasions, she'd tried to climb into the shirts of women, even complete strangers, and if she saw cleavage she tended to grab the woman's collar and pull. She even did this with women who weren't lactating, and sometimes with success. (Well, as much success as you can get there.) Kaori just let her have them.
Cheap ones, because my grandmother was (and is) a cheapskate. As for my ex, they were state-funded thus also cheap and likely some of them were the same people.
Yes, I know that was a mistake. It's the reason I do not leave her alone with strangers anymore. I would hope that more experienced parents would know better than I did at the time.
Good. I didn't have any available for those first couple years. The two I had watch her in the years after that (my younger siblings) I trust a great deal, but they weren't available then. My sister was halfway to Oregon and my brother was a minor.
Baby's insistence. My ex didn't like it either and shut her down the first couple times, but Sam jumped her first thing in the morning when she still hadn't had a cup of coffee and hadn't yet remembered how to say "no." Apparently, similar behaviour involving one of her other boyfriends and sex was the reason she came back to me in the first place.
This rant feels very kneejerky. Sorry, but it just does. I was a preteen once, remember? I was doing all of these things, frequently, and so were most (although no, not all) of my friends. If that's not enough evidence to call it "normal", I don't know what is.
I "need" to nothing. This is something normally kept under wraps, and while it is unusual that she's so open about it, and her getting caught <I>at school</I> is strange, in my experience (which has been first as a kid and then later as her father, and nothing else) the activities themselves aren't that far off.
All I will say is I'm not far from 30 but I won't be turning 30 this year. I don't see how my age is relevant, and I'm a bit touchy about it.
Oh. Whoops. It's really hard to tell at that age, from that angle. (Normally, with tiny children, the chest and shoulders from the front are the best identifiers other than the obvious.) I thought that was one of your kids. Now I feel really, really stupid.Xero said:
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Sammy's home. Home, huggy and in dire need of a shower. (I think she came by bus, because she's sweating like she just walked a ways.) I'm going to be fairly spotty in availability until I've made us dinner.
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I still should have spotted the rounder face, smaller pectoral muscles, (I would say larger fat deposits, but you've covered those) and narrower shoulders. You were an adorable baby, by the way.Xero said:
I don't have a car. I can't afford a car. For me, "picking her up" just means walking with her. Either that, or physically lifting her from the ground, which she's getting a bit big for.
I was planning on walking with her, but she never told me when she was coming, probably because she forgot her iPod here.
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I should note that I did used to have a car. It was a 2007 Honda Civic. I had to sell it to pay the bills when I lost my job, and to help my grandparents move back in. I can't say I miss it. I am savagely claustrophobic, I can't stand being trapped in a wheeled metal coffin.
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In hindsight, I also get laid off a LOT.
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My grandparents are paying the bills just fine, and I couldn't find one for a while, so they said either go to college or get out. I went to college, they're paying my tuition and I'm paying for everything else. (Books, bus pass, so on.) I don't have the time for a job, my classes are a full-time job already. (I get summers off to find seasonal work, but no dice this year.)Xero said:
Alright, fine. I'm 28. I was only a couple months short, so I took her for a couple months unofficially. It was a minor detail, I did not want to cover it because even though there isn't much of a gap between late august and mid december, it sounds really bad. She IS in my legal custody now, and has been since January of 2003.cybele said:
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