When the pediatrician told me that she thought it was best for my 10 year old to get the HPV vaccine, I said, “Isn’t that a sexually transmitted thing?” And she responded with unchecked wide eyes. Was she surprised at my nonchalance? I couldn’t tell. She said to me: “Yes. It’s sexually transmitted,” and then paused before she continued, “and in a perfect world…” Then, shrug.

Oh, I get the idea that my daughter has her free agency and that I’m unaware of the way wayward teenagers might be, but it was larger than that, really—bigger than the idea of a shot or not—and what I found really puzzled me as the day went on is what I might suggest to my daughter by having her vaccinated. Am I inadvertently condoning something I don’t want for her? Because let me be clear: I don’t want her to have sex before she is married. She might, but I don’t want her to.

And is this naïveté? Or is this trust?

She I give my sons condoms just in case?

What I feel right now as my children’s accountable years become more visible on the horizon is that I don’t want to preempt their personal responsibility and that initial choice. In anything. I don’t want to prepare them for the worst. I want to prepare them for the best even with a mindfulness that bad happens.

It happens. I can’t help it. But sometimes they can—and shouldn’t they be responsible for that?

Related posts:

  1. Just Doing my Best
  2. (Don’t) Take Me Out to the Ballgame
  3. “… but if ye are prepared…”


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