Mother's Influence on the Sexual Behavior of Their Teenage Children

Multivariate techniques are used to examine the influence of mothers sexual experiences as teenagers on their teenage childrens current sexual behaviors. Little of the demonstrated relationship is transmitted through differential attitudes or communication patterns of mothers with differing early sexual experience. For girls there is a reason to believe that the correlation between the mothers early behavior and the daughters current behavior is transmittedd partly via their giological relationship. The population for this study comprizes junior high school students in an urban area of a southern state. The average age of the students was about 14 with age span of 11 to 17 years of age. By race 36% were white males 13% black males 38% white females and 13% black females. Cross-tabulations and correlations are used to explore the relationship between the mothers early behavior and the teenagers current behavior. This research has confirmed the hypothesis that the sexual behavior of the mother when she was an adolescent is related to he current sexual behavior of her child. For boys insisgnificant amounts of influence by mothers early experience are mediated either via the sons developmental atiming or via the mothers attitudes toward sexuality.