Mother's attitudes toward adolescent sex, family's dating rules influence teenagers' sexual behavior

Teenagers' sexual behavior is moderately influenced by their family background, especially by their mother's attitudes about teenage sex and premarital sex and their compliance with parental rules on dating, according to a cross-sectional analysis conducted among San Diego teenagers aged 14-16.(1) Overall, family background variables explained about 30% of the variance in the adolescents' sexual behavior. Young Hispanic women were significantly less likely than the other study participants to have engaged in sex, even when the effects of a number of demographic variables were controlled.

The 384 male and female study participants were recruited from primary care clinics and through announcements in churches, schools, shopping malls and health fairs, by newspaper and radio ads and by word of mouth. To be eligible, the youths had to be single, not pregnant, planning to live in San Diego County for at least two years and free of major psychological or medical illness.

The respondents' mean age was 15.3 years; about 45% were male and 58% were Hispanic. Virtually all (98%) of the Hispanic teenagers were of Mexican descent. Nearly six in 10 teenagers (58%) were from families that did not own their home, and one-quarter (24%) received public assistance. Two-thirds of the adolescents (67%) said that their mother had a high school education or less.

To assess the teenagers' sexual practices, the researchers developed a continuous scale of sexual activity that followed the sequence of most adolescents' experiences. In the course of lengthy, confidential interviews, respondents were asked a series of yes-no questions about their sexual history; scale items represented the following: 0--no sexual activity; 1--kissing; 2--petting above the waist, outside of clothing; 3--petting below the waist, outside of clothing; 4--petting above the waist, inside of clothing; 5--petting below the waist, inside of clothing; 6--petting above the waist, clothing above the waist removed; 7--petting below the waist, clothing below the waist removed; 8--vaginal intercourse; and 9--oral or anal intercourse, or oral-anal contact.

The researchers also collected information on a variety of demographic variables, including age, gender, ethnicity, mother's education, religiousness, acculturation and single-parent status. In addition, participants were asked about several family variables, including a measure of parental role-modeling (e.g., expressions of love and affection and the teenager's perception of whether his or her mother had had intercourse before marriage), a measure of parent-child communication (for example, how often family members had talked about sex), and

measure of parental attitudes about adolescent sex and rules about dating. (Teenagers' compliance with those rules was also measured.) Since more than 30% of respondents had no father living in the home, parents' attitudes used in the analyses were limited to those of the mother.

Overall, 28% of the respondents, including 36% of non-Hispanics and 26% of Hispanics, reported having had vaginal intercourse at least once; four teenagers also reported having had anal intercourse. The adolescents' average score on the sexual activity scale was 4.5 (the equivalent of participating in petting inside clothing). Non-Hispanic females reported significantly greater sexual experience than their Hispanic counterparts, with mean scores of 5.6 and 3.1, respectively; there was no ethnic difference among males (scores of 4.9 each). The researchers reported a significant interaction between gender and ethnicity, with young Hispanic women being significantly less likely to have had sex than any of the other three groups.

Respondents had relatively little communication with their mothers about sex. Of those who reported making a decision about using contraceptives, for example, only 12% had discussed it with a parent, and just 30% of respondents said that one of their parents had given them any written material about sex. Teenagers were generally not comfortable talking with either parent about sexual issues, but non-Hispanic parents were significantly more likely to have discussed both general and specific sexual topics with their children than were Hispanic parents. Additionally, non-Hispanic teenagers reported more frequent demonstrations of familial love and affection (means of 5.2 for females and males) than did Hispanic adolescents (means of 4.2 and 3.8 for females and males, respectively).

The mean scores of all groups of teenagers suggest that many believed that their mother had probably had sex before marriage; on a 0-4 scale in which 4 represented certainty that their mother had had premarital sex, scores were significantly higher among non-Hispanic females and males (means of 2.7 and 2.5, respectively) than among Hispanic adolescents (1.8 and 2.0, respectively). Females, particularly Hispanic females, were significantly more likely than males to describe their mothers as opposed to premarital intercourse. Hispanic females were also significantly more likely than Hispanic males to report that their mothers were generally conservative about adolescent sex.

On a 0-6 scale of the number of family-imposed rules about dating and drug use (with 6 representing having the most rules), means ranged from 2.4 among non-Hispanic females to 3.3 among Hispanic females; the investigators characterize these responses as relatively liberal. However, teenagers also described their families as strict compared with the families of their peers. Hispanic respondents, especially Hispanic females, were significantly more likely to report that their parents were strict. Most adolescents disagreed with their parents' rules and reported only a moderate level of compliance, with no significant differences by gender or ethnicity.

When the researchers included the demographic and family background variables in a multiple regression analysis, they found that the respondent's age and the degree of the mother's opposition to adolescent sex were the variables most strongly related to the teenagers' sexual experience. Respondents whose mothers had a more conservative attitude were less sexually experienced; conversely, adolescents who believed that their mother had had premarital intercourse and those who failed to follow their family rules had more sexual experience than other respondents.

The variables in the regression analysis accounted for 32% of the variance explained in the teenagers' sexual behavior, most of it represented by five variables: age, mother's general attitude about teenagers having sex, extent of compliance with family rules, mother's belief that the adolescent should wait until marriage before having sex and adolescent's perception that his or her mother had had sexual intercourse before marriage.

Demographic variables alone explained approximately 16% of the variance in sexual activity. All variables (except having two parents in the home) were individually significant, with age being the strongest individual variable. When family background variables were added, a total of 30% of the variance in sexual activity was explained; mother's attitudes about sex, compliance with family rules and mother's attitude that her child should postpone sexual intercourse until marriage were the family variables that contributed significantly, but age was again the individual variable that accounted for the greatest amount of the explained variance.

When the researchers conducted separate regression analyses for non-Hispanic and Hispanic youths, they found no significant differences, with one exception: Gender was a significant predictor of sexual activity among Hispanic adolescents, but not among non-Hispanics. An analysis of variance showed a mean sexual practice score among Hispanic girls of 3.12, significantly lower than the combined mean of 5.13 for all other ethnic-gender groups.

The researchers note that while their study found relatively little family communication on sexual issues, it did not examine the content of family communication on sex, contraceptive use or AIDS. They observe that "in the absence of additional data, there is little evidence that family communication influences adolescents' sexual behavior." In addition, they note, the fact that living in a single-parent household was not related to teenagers' sexual experience suggests that adolescent sexual development "is so strongly determined by other factors (e.g., peer pressure) that even two-parent families do not have much influence."

Because maternal attitudes toward adolescent premarital intercourse and family rules about dating, sex and drug use were among the factors that had a significant influence on teenage sexual activity, the researchers observe that "families who maintain relatively conservative attitudes and evoke high standards of compliance with social rules of conduct [may] delay the sexual experience of their adolescent."

Reference

1. M. Hovell et al., "Family Influences on Latin and Anglo Adolescents' Sexual Behavior," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56:973-986, 1994.

Copyright The Alan Guttmacher Institute Jul 1995
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