Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex by Amy T. Schalet Page B

embarrassment from creating alien- ation in the family.
    Notably, this process of normalization differs significantly from patterns observed by American sexuality and gender scholars. Unlike their Ameri- can peers, Dutch parents do not describe girls and boys as engaged in “an- tagonistic gender strategies.” Insisting that girls listen to and act on their sense of readiness, several Dutch parents clearly recognize their daughters’ capacity for sexual subjectivity and agency. And with regard to the sleep- over, many Dutch parents hold their sons to the same standards of self- regulated and relationship-based sexuality as they do their daughters. But
    when parents run up against sexual behavior that is not self-determined or embedded in egalitarian relationships, they can be at a loss for words. In- deed, for all the desire to have sex not be a source of words left unspoken, normalization entails notable silences about the internal conflicts, conflicts of interest, and conflicts over power that can shape sexuality.
    Both the premises and the silences embedded in normalization are products of a distinct experience of the transition from the pre-1960s to the post-1960s social order. As we will see in chapter 4, the Dutch par- ents interviewed for this book are part of a generation—born roughly be- tween 1945 and 1955 and adolescents during the 1960s and 70s—who have drawn on a particular model of individualism in raising their own children. One reason that this generation of parents was able to embrace the falling away of old taboos is because they had at their disposal cultural templates for understanding and instilling self-restraint and social cohesion within the family and within society at large. Striking is the faith that un- derlies not just normalization but this model of individualism: faith in the self-regulatory capacities of teenagers, faith in teenagers’ aptitude to form healthy relationships, and faith in parents’ own ability to overcome shame and embarrassment—and control their own emotional impulses—so they can accept change.
    A more tangible disposition than faith underlies this normalization: trust. 23 Parents convey that they trust their children—and their children’s judgment about when they are ready and about whom to (learn to) love. They also express trust in the relationships they have with their children and an expectation that the relationship will continue despite the shocks and shifts wrought by the inevitable changes of maturation. Trust extends beyond the intimate sphere to institutions outside the family. Unlike their American peers, the Dutch parents do not describe themselves as under as- sault by a commercial media culture that overstimulates their children and takes away their control as parents. 24 And concerns about sexuality becom- ing too normal notwithstanding, they take for granted that professionals in health care and education will assist them when necessary in making adolescent sexuality the normal experience that they want it to be.

    THREE

    American Parents and the Drama of Adolescent Sexuality

“The Next Thing You Know It Will be Too Late”
    One afternoon, a few months after her daughter, Stephanie, started dating a new boyfriend, Cheryl Tober, a dental hygienist, met Stephanie for lunch in a café outside of Tremont. Their talk quickly turned intimate. Cheryl and Stephanie had always been close, and Cheryl prided herself on raising her daughter with an understanding of all her options in life. Cheryl is “pro- abortion,” for instance. “I think that every woman has the right to make that decision in her life,” she confides. “And my daughter has been raised in a household where she knows that’s one of her choices.” Her relatively liberal position on abortion notwithstanding, Cheryl was unprepared for the turn their conversation took.
    “Mom, I think I’m ready,” Cheryl recalls her daughter telling her. Cheryl disagreed. “I don’t think so