Not So Wild Teens

Whew! Researchers claim that teenagers are having less sex....or fewer are having sex....or something.

I'd give you the figure for boys, but really I don't care what random boys are doing because I have a teenage daughter. I don't care as long as those random boys are not doing that random thing with her.

The new report on teen sex also means I am currently experiencing a conflict (say, up 2.8 percent from before reading the report) between the different sides of my brain, the scientist and the mother.

The scientist knows that a 2.68 percent decrease is nothing, and that the data also show that almost half of teen girls are having sex. But I also know that sex at, say, 14 years old, is very different from sex at 18 (and oh how I wish the researchers would take that into account). If she had sex at 14 I'd be very concerned, at 18 not so much.

I also have no idea which percent my daughter falls into because she, specifically, was not part of the study. So the data say nothing about her in particular. Nor are any data predictive of any individual case. They just predict the odds.

But the mother side of my brain is all awake, on alert, and it clearly won't turn off until she is 20.