My son is being castigated for having consensual underage sex

I am distraught and I am finding myself in a situation I never thought would happen – that my family are accused of being immoral. My son, now 16, has been going out with a girl in his school since the age of 13. At first I was very worried for him as he is so young, but they have always been good together and have lots of fun. So his father and I came to accept it and have settled into complacency with it.

Last summer, my son was invited to go on holidays with his girlfriend and her family and we said yes as it was an opportunity for him to go abroad while we are struggling a bit financially. He also started spending a lot more time at her house and he stays over quite a bit. When his girlfriend stays in our house, I always insure she has her own room – my son sleeps on the sofa those nights and I thought something similar was happening at her house. But in the last two months things have gotten out of hand.

It seems that they have been sleeping together in my son's girlfriend's house with her parent's knowledge. Over Christmas all this came out because my son has decided the relationship is over and he is now in receipt of a lot of anger. 

The girl's parents have threatened reporting sex abuse to the Child and Family Agency, and the school has been told, so everyone is talking. My son is being treated as a criminal and there is all kind of gossip and bad comments about him. It is really breaking my heart as he is such a good kid and I liked his girlfriend very much and can't believe this is happening.

The issue of underage consensual sex is a difficult one as it can be construed as abusive, and indeed the Tusla (the Child and Family Agency) have a mandate to investigate it. In this situation, it seems as though your son is the target of misplaced anger on behalf of his girlfriend’s parents due to his rejection of their daughter. His reputation, still a very fragile thing at his age, is at stake and it seems that his whole community is involved in the situation.

We have stories of entrapment going back to myths and fairytales, and often the victim has to suffer for some time before emerging from the situation with his integrity and reputation intact.

Of course you do not want your son to suffer. But it seems that this is already happening, and perhaps the way to proceed is to support his dignity and his mental health in this difficult situation. As an adolescent, the ending a long-term relationship is probably the biggest decision that your son has made in his life. He will need to be assured that many decisions may result in unwanted consequences, but not every decision results in such dramatic outcomes.

Even though it was he who ended the relationship, your son will most likely experience sadness and grief, which may get mixed up with any anger that he might be feeling about the current circumstances. Your son has been in a relationship from a young age and presumably this will have taken up a lot his social time. There will now be a void in his timetable and you will want to support him to develop new activities.

Family leadership

At this time, you and your husband will need to take care of your own health and wellbeing so that you can be strong and show leadership to your family. You may well be disappointed that your son broke the bond of trust by hiding the fact that he was sleeping with his girlfriend. It is important that he is aware that the boundaries of trust have been broken, but that he still has your confidence.

The hope is that reasonable people, from the school community to the Child and Family Agency, will prevail, and that the focus will be on the wellbeing of the two young people and not on anger and revenge. The school has a role in managing the gossip and bad comments circulating, and perhaps you could put forward the suggestion that they provide education and guidance, particularly to the class in question.

Education is a powerful tool, and this is one of those situations where the crisis can offer some real understanding of the importance of not judging too quickly. Mediation between the two sets of parents is also a possibility, and the school could possibly broker such an opportunity. No doubt the school would like both students to remain, and mediation might allow this to happen.

Mediation aims to reach an agreement where all the issues can be aired without fear of what is being said being used later in a formal manner. It does not prohibit any further investigations but allows protected and real conversations. See the Mediators' Institute of Ireland at themii.ie.