I found out the other day, quite by accident, that a girl my children associate with in one of their extra-curricular activities is giving blow jobs to boys at her school. She’s 15—two years older than my oldest child. I know, taken by itself, this information is not especially shocking—15, boyfriends, blow jobs. The thing that makes this different than other news stories is that I KNOW THIS GIRL!

I consider myself a pretty savvy parent. I feel like I’ve got a good handle on this parenting thing and keep tabs on the problems that may come up in the future. I’ve pondered and debated about my own children and their future sexuality and how I’d handle it if I found out they were engaging in risky behavior. I’ve been outspoken about my personal philosophies on the subject and called wrong by others on many occasions. I’ve been accused of being naïve and I’ve been told I’m in denial about kids today. But I say that kids today aren’t much different than kids yesterday, teen sex has been around since the beginning of time and we can learn from the past to help prepare our own for the future and we’ll just have to agree to disagree about this and move on.

But, what I have been naïve about is that I’d care if my kids’ peers were doing these things. Oh, I guess I had some free-floating notion of them as some nameless, faceless blobs in a distant tomorrow stamped with “KIDS’ FRIENDS.” But, I didn’t envision these future hooligans as being real people, people I like, people who goof around with my toddler and talk to me about a grade she got on a test. It certainly never occurred to me that I’d have to look a sweet little girl in the face and know exactly where her mouth had been earlier that day and feel shame for both of us. It’s been brought home, into my world and I don’t know what to do with it.

I feel shame for the child, because she is a child, but she doesn’t know she’s still a child, she thinks she’s some world-wizened woman now. I know that, because I used to walk around in those shoes, too. She’s ignorant of her ignorance. I feel shame for myself, because these days I am a world-wizened woman and I feel I should be doing something to protect this kid from the cruel world she thinks she’s conquering from down on her knees. I feel shame because I know this thing about this girl and I’ll never look at her the same again. Some of her innocence is lost and so is mine, in a way, since I share in her guilt just by knowing about it. She doesn’t know I know, which makes the dynamic even more unbalanced. It’s weird, I know, and I’m surprised I feel this way.

It’s not that I think less of her because of issues with promiscuity. I’m not thinking: slut, whore, sinful siren. It’s not along that line. I worry about her. I worry since it’s blow-jobs I know about and not full out intercourse, that she is just being subservient because of low self-esteem. I worry she’s letting herself be taken advantage of for someone else’s pleasure, and not just enjoying her own sexuality. I worry that she’s not taking precautions to keep her body safe. I worry that she’ll get diseases, or pregnant or raped if she’s not being careful with her selections. I worry that the next time I see her I won’t be able to stop myself from bursting into tears and pulling her into a protective hug. I want to mommy her. I want someone to mommy her. I want to tell what I know, not to hurt her in any way, but to be sure that there is someone guiding this girl. Keeping her safe while she experiments and reminding her that she’s lovable no matter what. I don’t know where the boundaries of communal responsibility for this sort of thing lie.

But, I’ll keep quiet. I’ll keep my guilt to myself, feeling like a useless, voiceless part in some bigger scheme that’s out of my control, conspiring as it always has to lure us from the nest. I’ll let the world spin as it will, but I’ll also pray that if some other woman ever comes across this same information about one of my daughters that she’ll be a braver, better person than I am being now, and tell me about it.

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