Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex

Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex

AMY T. SCHALET

University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

Amy T. Schalet
is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

©
2011 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2011. Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schalet, Amy T.

Not under my roof : parents, teens, and the culture of sex / Amy T. Schalet.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73618-1 (alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-73618-0 (alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-73619-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-226-73619-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Teenagers—Sexual behavior—Netherlands. 2. Teenagers—Sexual behavior—United States. 3. Parent and teenager—United States. 4. Parent and teenager—Netherlands. I. Title.

HQ27.S2567 2011

306.70835—dc22 2011003357

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments / vii

ONE
/ Raging Hormones, Regulated Love / 1

TWO
/ Dutch Parents and the Sleepover / 29

THREE
/ American Parents and the Drama of Adolescent Sexuality / 53

FOUR
/ Adversarial and Interdependent Individualism / 77

FIVE
/ “I Didn’t Even Want Them to Know”: Connection through Control / 107

SIX
/ “At Least They Know Where I Am”: Control through Connection / 131

SEVEN
/ Romantic Rebels, Regular Lovers / 155

EIGHT
/ Sexuality, Self-Formation, and the State / 181
CONCLUSION /
Beyond the Drama / 203
Methodological Appendix / 213

Notes / 225

References / 261

Index / 279

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Looking back on the almost epic journey from the inception to comple- tion of this book, I am filled with gratitude for the mentors, colleagues, and friends who contributed in ways large and small. I want to start by recognizing three people who were especially important at different points along the road: at the very beginning, during the long haul, and in the final stretch of the research and writing process. In the Social Studies Concentra- tion at Harvard College where I conducted my earliest research on adoles- cence in Holland and America, Suzanne Kirschner gave generously of her time and insight to guide me through the uncharted territory of gathering and interpreting my own data. At the University of California at Berkeley, where I conducted the bulk of the research for this book, Ann Swidler was a fantastic advisor. Unwavering in her enthusiasm, commitment, and, dare I say, love, Ann welcomed my intellectual autonomy
and
turned out to be right about every bit of important advice she gave. Finally, as I completed the book at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Robert Zussman’s ex- cellent judgment, gentle insistence, and generosity of spirit have been true and precious gifts.

At Berkeley, I benefited greatly from additional mentorship from Raka Ray, who deftly combined the roles of skeptic and fan, and from Kristin Luker, who provided astute observations and, together with Jane Mauldon, helped solidify the research design. Jorge Arditi and Gil Eyal gave valu- able suggestions about how to best think through the project’s theoretical framings. Everywhere, my friends have been among my greatest teachers. In the early phases of the project, Justin Suran did me the tremendous favor of taking his unrelenting red pen to drafts, leaving me forever the better as a writer. Fellow Berkeley graduate student and friend, Teresa Gowan, joined my intellectual quest, offering a wellspring of insights which have become

an organic part of my own thinking. Hilary Abell, Phillip Fucella, Anna Korteweg, Greggor Mattson, Rachel Sherman, Millie Thayer, and Ann Marie Wood also shared their thoughts generously and have left imprints on the book.

I want to thank my Dutch friends Floor Bouhuijs, Marina Millington- Ward, and Annelou de Vries for helping me find housing and make re- search contacts during fieldwork in the Netherlands. I am also grateful to my Dutch colleagues Christien Brinkgreve, Sanderijn van der Doef, God- fried Engbersen, Evert Ketting, Trudie Knijn, Olga Loeber, Ariana Need, Janita Ravesloot, Ali de Regt, and Paul Schnabel for helpful comments and enlightening conversations. Geert de Vries and Cas Wouters both went above and beyond the call of collegiality. At many points, Geert was ex- traordinarily engaged, intellectually and practically, and Cas tirelessly pro- vided thoughtful comments from across the ocean.

I am very grateful to the late Charlotte Ellertson, Sarah Holcombe, Cyn- thia Harper, and Philip Darney for institutionalizing the Charlotte Ellert- son Postdoctoral Fellowship in Abortion and Reproductive Health at the University of California at San Francisco’s Bixby Center for Global Repro- ductive Health, which was designed to advance interdisciplinary research and help social science researchers become better public intellectuals. At UCSF, I learned a great deal from Carole Joffe, Jillian Henderson, and Tracy Weitz about the politics of abortion and about the significant barriers to young people’s access to abortion and contraception services in the United States. Through the fellowship, located at the School of Medicine, I learned how to relate my research on adolescent sexuality and culture to questions and concerns of health researchers, policymakers, advocates, and profes- sionals, which has made it possible for me to participate in broader sets of academic and public conversations about adolescent sexual health.

I have had the privilege of presenting my research at a range of seminars and conferences where I received and integrated input from many different audiences. I enjoyed exchanges with Dutch colleagues in seminars at the Royal Tropical Institute and the universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Nijmegen. In the United States, I benefited from opportunities to present this research at, among others, the Comparative Research Workshop at Yale University, the Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the American Sociological Association, the Pacific Sociological Association, and, closer to home, the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center and the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Center for Public Policy and Administration. I also benefited a great deal from interprofessional exchanges during presentations at, among others,

Acknowledgments / ix

Emory University’s School of Medicine, the University of California at San Francisco’s School of Medicine, the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC’s National STD Preven- tion Conference, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the National Coalition for STD Directors, and the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Conference.

Crossing boundaries in research—whether between countries or be- tween disciplines—usually requires outside financial support, and my expe- rience has been no exception. I am grateful for fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, the University of California at Berkeley, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Berkeley Chapter of Sigma Xi, the Center for German and European Studies at Berkeley, and the anonymous donor who supported several cohorts of Charlotte Ellertson Postdoctoral Fellows. I want to express special thanks to the Ford Foundation for grants which have made it possible for me to disseminate my research among medical professionals and educators, and to learn more from them about youth populations other than the ones I had studied, as well as to ask questions about the practical tools necessary to improve adolescent sex- ual health outcomes. These opportunities for interprofessional exchanges have yielded several extremely fruitful collaborations with, among others, Veenod Chulani, Kaiyti Duffy, and John Santelli, who have each shaped my thinking about adolescent sexual health, especially as it is impacted by health and education professionals.

It has been a great pleasure to work with editors at the University of Chicago Press—specifically with Doug Mitchell, Timothy McGovern, and Richard Allen, who all command such an impressive way with words. Communicating with humor and grace, Doug’s e-mails have invariably been feasts for the eye and ear, and Richard’s engagement and precision have been sources of joy and comfort in the final editing. I want to thank Chicago’s anonymous reviewers whose challenges and enthusiasm for the book’s potential have strengthened it in equal measure. Thanks also to Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, who helped me think about how to organize a book so that it could speak to academics and nonacademics alike. Finally, I have been lucky to have had two outstanding research assistants, whose roles in editing and manuscript preparation cannot be overemphasized: talented and dedicated, Paula Partee and Sarah Miller have been dream assistants, and I hope that they will receive similar support when they write their own books.

All good things must come to an end. And as I neared the finish line, my colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Naomi Gerstel, Joya

Misra, and Don Tomaskovic-Devey—all of whom read the entire manu- scriptatleastonce—helpedmefigureouthowtoputontherightfinishing touches. I am deeply grateful to friends, family, and those who have been like family—Dana Blackburn, Anna Branch, Sally Curcio, Jillian Hender- son, Greg Jones, Mariette Leufkens, Arden Pierce, Robin Prichard, Melissa Rodgers, Kate Thurston, Ben Schalet, Melissa Wooten, and James Wilson— for their confidence and company in moments of doubt and jubilation.

My final words of thanks go to the parents and teenagers who allowed me to interview them about such intimate parts of their lives—and to the teachers, counselors, and community members who made it possible to reach them. I have lived with their company for many years, poring over transcripts and marveling each time at how much I love working with this material. Listening to their words over and over, I have learned so much, not just about culture and difference, but about love, growth, and letting go. I hope that as I release this long labor of love, youth, parents, and parents-yet-to-be will find it a resource for insights of their own.

Some of this research first saw the light of day in an article entitled “Sex, Love, and Autonomy in the Teenage Sleepover” (
Contexts
9, no. 3 [2010]: 16–21).

ONE

Raging Hormones, Regulated Love

Karel Doorman, a soft-spoken civil servant in the Netherlands, keeps tabs on his teenage children’s computer use and their jobs to make sure neither are interfering with school performance or family time.
1
But Karel would not object if his daughter Heidi were to have a sexual relationship: “No,” he explains. “She is sixteen, almost seventeen. I think she knows very well what matters, what can happen. If she is ready, I would let her be ready.” If Heidi were to come home and say, “Dad, this is him,” he says, “well, I hope I like him.” Karel would also let Heidi spend the night with a steady boyfriend in her room, provided he did not show up “out of the blue.” But Karel thinks that he would first “come by the house and that I will hear about him and that she’ll talk about him and . . . that it really is a gradual thing.” That said, Karel suspects his daughter might prefer a partner of her own sex. Karel would accept her orientation he says, though he grants, “the period of adjustment might take a little longer.”

Karel’s approach stands in sharp contrast to that of his fellow parent, Rhonda Fursman, a northern California homemaker and former social worker. Rhonda tells her teenage son and daughter that premarital sex “at this point is really dumb.” It is on the list with shoplifting, she explains, “sort of like the Ten Commandments: don’t do any of those because if you do, you know, you’re going to be in a world of hurt.” It comes as no surprise therefore that Ronda responds viscerally when asked whether she would let her fifteen-year-old son spend the night with a girlfriend. “No way, José!” She elaborates: “That kind of recreation . . . is just not some- thing I would feel comfortable with him doing here.” She ponders her re- action: “I tried to be very open and modern . . . but I am like, no, I’m not comfortable. I don’t think I want to encourage that.” She has a hard time