WWCOJ do? Birth Control (Page 3)

My 2 cents.

The niece needs a relationship with an adult that is positive.  The niece needs to learn that sex (does not =) love.  The niece should not get pregnant until she is ready and wants to have a child.  The niece needs to learn how to take care of herself.  Your relationship with your niece and your relationship with your SIL are independent and not related.  As a minor you owe your niece as you are a part of the "village" that is raising her.  Your SIL is an adult and you cannot and should not try to raise her.  Parents need to learn/give the final lesson and that is at some point it’s time for children to grow up, and when children do grow up parents stop being their parents and guardians and are instead just another peer in their life. (This is possibly the hardest lesson for the parents to learn and the children are all too quick to want to learn it.)

Given these, there are some that you can help with and some that you cannot.  The problem is that at this point the niece has a bad relationship with her mother.  She is leaning on you to provide her with a positive adult relationship.  Relationships are built on trust, and if you tell, or threaten to tell, her mother something she told you in confidence the relationship with your niece will be damaged. 

If your niece continues down the path she is on she may make a permanent mistake.  The problem is that 14 year olds are not little adults and their brains are still developing.  Your niece has ventured into a set of lessons, sex, that she most likely is not really capable of processing.  So to some degree she may need to be protected from the consequences of her actions until she is really ready to learn the lessons.  Ideally, she would confront her mother or deal with it herself.  However, if she is not ready for that she probably still deserves someone to look out for her and protect her, and you're part of her village and she is leaning on you.

You may decide that she really needs to talk to her mom and work this out for herself under the she is old enough to have sex she is old enough to talk about it philosophy.  I don't subscribe to that theory, but it's not to say it's not valid.  You may decide that you need to take her to get birth control.  You may yet decide to tell her mother.  I would, if I were in your unenviable position, make my decision based solely on what was in my estimate the best long term solution for your niece.  As hard as it is I would disregard the SIL as she is an adult who can and should take care of herself.  Since the SIL has not, then that is the SIL’s fault and the niece should not be the one to pay the consequences.

Very true and a simple phone call would clear that up.

I say, tell her you will take her, but that PP will not put her on BC without her mother's permission.

Go with her, sit through the educational stuff, and talk to her about it again after.  Now that she has heard all the scary stuff about sex, does she still want to start taking BC?  This is where you offer to go to her mom with her or for her, and give her mom the straight story. 

There's also the option to take her to a regular old doc, but I am assuming that the legal guardian requirement would still prevent you from getting her on BC.

Honestly, a couple of descriptions of unsightly diseases and watching a video of a baby being born will probably give her a better perspective on what she's getting into. 

This. Excellent.

There is lots of advice in this thread and a lot of it is good.

However, Iam surprised everyone thinks a 14 year old girl that is already having sex and has a challenging home life is responsible enough and has the forthought to take a birth control pill every single day at the same time.

I was on the pill at too young of an age. Having sex at too young an age. I had birth control pills available to me for free, had no desire to get pregnant and still wasn't disciplined and responsible enough to take them every day.

Of course there are a lot of things needing to be adressed here and Travljini is doing an amazing job but I am against her getting this girl on BCPs without her mothers conscent. BCPs have very real consequences just read the packet insert. We don't know the family history, don't know if this girl has any physical concerns to be taken into consideration before going on BCPs she needs to be examined by an OB-GYN to help determine what kind and if BCPs are OK for her. What about STDs? BCPs are not going to help with that.

Planned Parenthood is the last place I would take a 14 year old girl but that is my own personal opinion, not a fan.

Lots of reasons to think about being on the pill. My one daughter really was having dysmennorhea; the other was going out of the country for a summer program, and did not want to have the hassle of dealing with periods. Severe acne could be another reason. Polycystic ovaries is a fourth.

As a parent, I wanted to have a "legitimate" reason to have my daughters on the OCP, while preserving my beliefs about their sexual lives as adolescents. I know secretly that my one daughter is almost certainly sexually active, just as I know the other is almost certainly not.And frankly, I don't really want to know more than that they (a) are protected if they are active, (b) know about using barrier methods to prevent spread of disease, (c) have the resources available beyond a parent if they have concerns or questions that they do not want to ask a parent, and (d) have judgment to make good decisions for themselves.

What would I tell a parent? That there are more reasons than just having sex to be on the pill; that having access to birth control does not statistically speaking increase the frequency of teen sex, but it does reduce the frequency of teen pregnancy; and that if you don't trust your kid to make the choice to abstain on the pill, why would you expect them to come to you if they are sexually active, or to refrain from unprotected sex? That last point is critical in exposing the doouble standard of thinking - I either believe my kid can make good decisions, and talk to me about difficult ones, or I don't. In which case, I need to make sure they are protected.

Why would you want to make a 14 y.o. tell her parent (who is apparently not very open) she is having sex? Rhetorically, I would ask you if you would have told your parent you are having sex if you were still in 8th grade? And how many of your friends would have done so? I would think the numbers are diminishing small, even for people who were themselves born to parents of a very young age.

I quoted the law for the state where the OP and her niece live.  That seemed the most relevant to this discussion.

My concerns as well.................and the more and more I let all this advice marinate the more I fall on the side of declining to take her to PP.  She obviously already is aware of PP by bringing it up to me. I spoke with a friend's 17 y/o daughter (and mom) who'd been and there's not a lot of monitoring.  The best scenario wo/b for 14 y/o to go to a private practitioner if her mom will take her. 

We'll see how the ole "You need to talk to your mom about this" slash "Mom you should take daughter to doctor" conversation goes! 

(PS-Keri, she apparently read the BCP insert b/c she told me "did you know you can't smoke when you take these b/c it increases the risk of blood clots" sometimes she surprises the hell outta me)

There are lots of options besides taking a pill every day. I think emphasizing to your sis that there are other reasons to be on BC, and helping your neice with talking points could be successful. Good luck.