Not My Kid: What Parents Believe about the Sex Lives of Their Teenagers

Methods Appendix

>> 157 Methods Appendix The aim of this book is to provide a detailed look at parents’ inner worlds— the “processes of interpretation that give meaning to everyday lives”1 —and to examine parents’ understandings sociologically, as shaped by and in conversation with larger discourses around teen sexuality. Thus, in addition to conducting in-depth interviews with parents of teenagers, I also focused on what was being said and done publicly about teenagers and teen sexuality, and observed school-based sex education classes. Here I describe in more detail the methodological decisions I made regarding the interviews and observations that ultimately shaped the contours of this book. Because activist parents dominate the public discourse on sex education, I intentionally chose to interview non-activist parents. The challenge was to find parents who, for whatever reason, are not visibly or vocally apparent in this debate. I resolved this dilemma by recruiting parents through their children’s health classes in three high schools and one middle school, and, in so doing, accomplished a second goal: to nestle parents’ responses within institutional discourses of teen sexuality. 158 > 159 particular race, ethnicity, or social class. My interest in these factors was on how they mattered to the study participants. Forty parents indicated a religious affiliation, with Catholic the most common (n = 16), followed by Christian (n = 11) and Baptist (n = 5). Most parents who identified a religion said that they attended religious services regularly. Perhaps reflecting Americans’ sense that political discussion is best avoided because of its divisiveness,5 over one-third of parents identified as politically moderate (n = 11) or said they were undecided or apolitical (n = 8). The remaining parents identified as “somewhat conservative” (n = 13), “somewhat liberal” (n = 8), “very liberal” (n = 5), “very conservative” (n = 1), and “libertarian” (n = 1). Regarding the parents’ relationship status, two-thirds identified as married (n = 31), eight as divorced, four as separated, two as widowed, and two as single. All study participants identified as heterosexual. Interviews lasted from one to two and a half hours and were generally conducted in parents’ homes although occasionally at the parent’s workplace or in a public setting. I began with open-ended questions, such as “How would you describe your children?” or prompts, such as “Describe your child’s typical day.” In-depth interviews, emphasizing meanings, dynamics, and processes,6 enabled me to explore why parents say what they say, how they feel about it, and how they perceive the dynamics of family sex talk. My effort throughout was to elicit parents’ stories about their teens.7 All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. To situate parents’ narratives in the larger social context, I paid close attention to how teen sexuality was being talked and written about over the two-and-a-half-year period of my research. In addition to the Texas school board debate, which provided a rich arena to explore public conversations about teenagers, sexuality, and family life, I followed sex education debates in the local and national media, as well as reports pertaining to teenagers, adolescence, or sexuality. I also observed sex-education classes and presentations at Taylor and Eastside High Schools in the fall of 2006. In the state where I conducted my fieldwork, sex education was offered in health class, which, at the time, was a required subject, although students could take it at any time between seventh and twelfth grades. Even though sex education is included in the health class curriculum, health teachers, in collaboration with their school principals, have a fair amount of discretion about the actual content of the sex-education unit. Ms. Fox, the health teacher at Taylor High, spends two weeks on the topic, covering abstinence , sexually transmitted infections, and contraception. I observed two classes daily during Ms. Fox’s sex-education unit and attended one of the 160 > 161 Relationship Status Teenage Children Religion Political Affiliation separated daughter (19) son (16) Catholic moderate separated daughters (16, 18) son (14) non-denominational don’t know/not political married daughter (16) Methodist somewhat liberal married son (16) Episcopalian moderate divorced daughters (15, 17) son (19) Christian don’t know/not political married daughter (14) Unitarian somewhat liberal single daughter (14) Baptist don’t know/not political married daughter (13) Christian moderate separated daughters (13, 16) son (14) Baptist somewhat conservative single daughter (16) none somewhat liberal married daughter (14) Jewish/Unitarian don’t know/not political married daughters (13, 16) Methodist somewhat conservative married grandson (15) Scientology don...