I see both offering and getting the Pill as responsible steps.
I think by saying to a daughter "You can go on the Pill when you become sexually active" you are telling her that you realise she is coming to be an adult with normal feelings and that if she's going to explore those feelings she needs to do so responsibly. You are also opening the pathways of communication with her so IF she wants, in the future, to go on the Pill, she knows it's ok to talk to you about it. I think getting the Pill and condoms (i don't know about in Aus but in the UK they give you 36 condoms for every 3 month script of the Pill you get from the Family Planning Folk - you can even choose the kind you prefer) show a level of maturity which i'd want to see in my daughter (and myself) before i engaged in sex. I had sex with my first boyfriend once and then abstained until i was on the Pill. We used condoms anyway but i knew they weren't failsafe so i wanted to be sure i was doubly protected before we had sex again. I was in my 20's before i had consensual sex without a condom, after STD testing, with a long-term partner. I have had condoms break on me (or rather, in me) and at the time i was happy to be worrying about MY health, MY life, MY relationship and NOT have to be worrying about another person (baby) too. From that point of view being on the Pill made a big difference to me as a teen. I felt that if i got an STD it'd potentially ruin my life but if i got pregnant it might very well ruin the baby's too. I took it at 9am everyday without fail. I knew exactly how it worked and how to use it. I was young but i was not stupid.
I'd much rather my daughter feared STD's and teenage pregnancy than sex. Sex is a natural part of life and it feels good. I would not want Smee to have sex prematurely or for the wrong reasons but equally i don't see the point in telling her horror stories or highlighting the bad bits since this will just make me out to be a liar when she does finally have sex (unless she has a disastrous sexlife forever which is hardly something i'd hope for).
In my home as a kid sex was not discussed except in general terms (mum was an HIV/AIDS worker and always manned the health stand on World AIDS Day but this only ever meant there were stacks of condoms in the house - sex was still something other people's kids did, not hers). I was able to get the Pill myself at 14 (confidentiality is across the board, not from 16 onwards, GP's can only break the hippocratic oath if they know a crime is being comitted and even then they can face official reprisal fo it) but, and this was SO much more important, i had NO-ONE i could talk to about sex. About what loving sex is, about what sex should be for and about, about how the mechanics and emotions are supposed to tie up. There is no-one who will tell our children these things if we do not.
Soul, what you said about you asking your daughter if she got butterflies when she saw him make me want to cry - what a wonderful mother to talk on that level!
I personally think teaching celibacy to teenagers is relatively pointless. Teenagers have the reputation of being moody, selfish, confused, mysterious creatures. They have to be nagged to get up, go to school, come in on time, put their dirty clothes in the right place, have a reasonable conversation about something. They are capable of blowing up massively over something one minute and hugging us and saying "love you mum" the next. And we expect these emotionally labile, sometimes volatile, self-concerned (quite naturally) people to ignore a basic physical need until...when, consent, maturity, marriage?
As Sammi and Soul's stories both prove, offering one's child the Pill doesn't mean they'll accept it. It is good to teach that it's ok to wait, but IMO not useful to act like they must or will.
Bx
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