How This Cautionary Tale Can Help Your Teen Daughter
As challenging as it was to teach classes virtually this past school year, two things are evident:
- As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it hasn’t changed the pressure many teen girls feel to have sex to please a guy.
- God continues to show me that young ladies need to hear the message He’s given me to share regardless of how it’s delivered.
The letter below from a young lady who heard me speak virtually a few months ago demonstrates both points and is a great cautionary tale for you to share with your daughter.
The person I lost my virginity to pressured me until I felt like it was what I was supposed to do with him. We were both virgins and we were on and off for about a year. All that time, he showed all the signs of him not truly caring about me, just telling me what I wanted to hear (like ‘I love you!’)
After I gave in and agreed to it, I found out that he was cheating on me for about a month. If I had just waited a few weeks, I would have never lost my virginity to him. This all happened three weeks before my 17th birthday.
Soon afterwards, I started talking to someone else and fell in love with him. It’s crazy to hear myself talk about it, but he was the first person that made me feel more confident in the relationship.
Long story short, I had sex with him a month later. I don’t think I felt pressured or manipulated, but I think I did it because I felt I had nothing to lose since I had already lost my virginity. We ended up breaking up a few months later and my emotions went downhill for about six months.
The biggest lesson I learned from those experiences was I didn’t love myself, so no one else could love me (and having sex made me think someone loved me.)
The worst part is, every time I did it, it was not for my pleasure, because I did not enjoy it.
A year later, I have been talking to someone and because of the talks you had with our class, I realized I’m in the same situation I dealt with before. He does not respect the fact that I don’t want to have sex. So, the same day I heard you speak, I had to tell him I could no longer talk to him because of the pressure I feel.
Does this letter break your heart as much as it did mine?
To read that teen girls are putting their lives and futures at risk for something they don’t even enjoy is beyond sad!
Yet, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Unfortunately, I’m seeing more and more young ladies who believe the goal of sex is to satisfy a guy, whether they enjoy it or not.
How do we change things?
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but in my experience, teens don’t always believe that it could happen to them until they see or hear it from someone it has happened to.
When I ask students to tell me what had the biggest impact on them, the most common answer I get is ‘hearing letters from other students’…
“I think my favorite part about your visit was the letters. I liked how you showed the letters of other kids because it let us know that this stuff is real. Anything really can happen.”
As you discuss the above letter with your daughter, following are key points for her to glean from this young lady’s experience so she can avoid making poor relationship choices herself.
Actions speak louder than words!
This young lady said her first boyfriend’s actions showed all the signs that he didn’t care for her, yet she fell for his words (“I love you!”) instead of listening to his actions. And the first sign that they don’t love you is if they ask you to have sex. Because love does what is best for you and sex as a teenager is never what’s best for you.
Most teenagers are dating their future ex!
Notice how all three of this young lady’s relationships ended? Every time you date someone, that relationship typically ends one of two ways: you either marry them or break up with them. As a teenager the chances are much, much greater that the person you date will be your future ex than your future spouse. And just like with this young lady, the consequences tend to last longer than the relationship.
Make choices that prove you love yourself!
This young lady acknowledged that the root cause of her choices was that she didn’t love herself. And I agree with her! Because when you love yourself, you protect yourself. When you love yourself, you don’t make decisions that could ruin your health and jeopardize your chances of reaching your dreams and your goals.
The third time’s NOT the charm!
Early initiation of sexual activity tends to lead to a higher number of sexual partners for the very reason this young lady decided to have sex with her second partner. It’s so much easier to have sex with the second partner (and third, fourth, etc. partner for that matter) after you’ve crossed that bridge the first time. Like the young lady in the letter, many girls don’t think they have anything to lose or anything to protect after losing their virginity. And this couldn’t be further from the truth.
My Secret Weapon to Help Teens “Get It”
I was thrilled to read that this young lady broke up with her current boyfriend after hearing me speak.
And I’d like nothing more than for your daughter to learn from this young lady, so she’ll never find herself in this situation.
Which is exactly what the girls who attended my 7 Secrets Revealed Masterclass were able to do after hearing from a young lady who was a teen mom:
“Thank you so much Ms. Jackie. [Morgan’s] story was more than a cautionary tale, it was impactful because we could relate to her and it wasn’t some distant story. Like us, she is a girl who is smart, from a two-parent household, and had a religious/strict upbringing. She relayed her story and message very well and it was insightful and powerful! Without hearing [Morgan’s] story, we would not have seen the true realities of teen pregnancy.”
“I’m so glad I got the chance to hear these stories, they impacted me and allowed me to actually understand that it’s honestly not worth it. I’m glad I can learn from others. Even though I feel horrible they had to experience this, I feel even more motivated to not let their stories be wasted. One thing that really stuck with me was when [Morgan] said, ‘I thought It would never happen to me.’ This was a wake-up call because I catch myself thinking this way at times when that’s so unfair because the same girl you’re looking at and saying that about, is the same girl who said those same words and ended up in her predicament.”
I use real-life stories of regret from teens and young adults like [Morgan] as a secret weapon to show girls what CAN happen to them with just one poor decision.
In addition to the young lady’s letter above, feel free to use this secret weapon with your daughter so she can see and hear for herself what’s REALLY at stake when she makes decisions about love, sex, and relationships.
And just do what I do—share the message with your daughter and leave the rest up to God.
P.S. And please share this post so other parents can utilize my secret weapon with their daughters too. 😉
