[Christien]

Perhaps I'm playing devil's advocate, but is 17 years old really too young to be drinking and having sex, so long as it's safe? How old were any of us our first time? I was 17 and but for the lack of certain things, I would've been 16. I don't think I was too young at the time. (ftr, I'm 32 now, married with a 1 1/2 year old daughter.) I'd be much more concerned about drunk driving.

If you've raised him right, and from what it sounds like you have, he'll know to treat her right, be responsible and get home safely. At both my high school proms (I went twice - once in grade 12, then again for grade 13, which here in Ontario used to be an optional university prep year) we were all very responsible about drinking and sex. I'm sure there might have been someone driving drunk, but it wasn't in my circle of friends. 1st prom I was the DD. It was boring and crappy. The 2nd was much better - for the after-party, I remember they rented a school bus, because it was outside the city on a farm. If memory serves (and it's definitely foggy) it took many trips back to the city to drop kids off at different times. I don't think anyone took a car, now that I think about it. Was there drinking? Yep - JD straight out of the bottle. Was there sex? Yep - on my parents' front lawn, at about 3am. Were we safe about everything? Absolutely. Not that I want to think about my own kids doing that, but I know they will, and if they're responsible about it like I was, I really have no problem with it.