Several studies indicate that there are intergenerational patterns of early sexual experience and childbearing. For example, a national study of children born to young mothers shows that an earlier age of maternal first sex was associated with a greater likelihood that adolescent male and female children would have their sexual debut by age 14 (Mott et al., 1996). Teenagers in a Philadelphia survey who had mothers that were younger at their first birth were also more likely to have initiated sexual activity than adolescents whose mothers were older at their first birth (Widmer, 1997).