Preteens and teens are suffering in relationships

When we are children, adults are constantly warning us about stranger danger and how little kids get kidnapped and sold. We all knew that if an adult tried to be friends with us or try to touch us to tell a trusted adult.  

But no one tells middle schoolers that a 20-year-old doesn’t think you are mature for your age and you don’t just ‘get’ him. No one tells high school boys that it’s bad to get a middle school girlfriend because girls your age don’t like you.  

Once we grow out of our little kid phase and into our preteen phase, adults stop protecting us and start blaming us. In sex-ed I remember being told a story about a 13-year-old who had a baby with a 17-year-old and the point of lesson? Absence. Just don’t have sex until you are married.

When I was a senior in high school, I remember the guys in my class joking about ‘freshman head hunt.’ This is how they would make bets or discuss sleeping with the incoming freshman girls. They would talk about how hot they were and rate them like it was a joke. Other people I have spoken to had similar experiences.  

Most girls I know, either know someone who was in a ‘relationship’ in middle school or as a freshman with a guy who was in his late teens or early 20s. They thought they were so cool and we thought they were cool.  

Often their parents were aware and boiled it down to them testing boundaries or just liking older people. Kids use the example of their parents age gap to make it okay for five-year age gaps in young relationships.  

No one is telling kids that dating older people and letting them convince you to have sex could be considered rape.  

At the same time, no one is telling kids that tricking someone or having to ‘convince’ them to have sex with you is rape.  

At what point does it change? When do we stop saying “adults are not supposed to touch kids like that” to “you shouldn’t have slept together.”  

Is it when we get our own lockers and personalized schedules or is it when we grow into our bodies and start wearing makeup? Is it when our hormones set in, is it when learn when sex is or is it when we start fighting with our parents? When do parents stop worrying about pedophiles and start worrying about teen pregnancy instead?  

Based on Nebraska Statute 28-319.01., only sexual penetration of someone younger than 12 by someone 19 or older or sexual penetration by someone 25 years or older on someone ages 12-16 falls under sexual assault in the first degree.  

As someone who has siblings in middle school and high school, I do not want my siblings to go through being manipulated by someone older than them. 

I want them to grow up with healthy expectation for relationships and to know when someone is manipulating them.