Letters to the Editor
-
If she asks, we tell her
My three-year-old asked her father the other day what his penis was for. He told her that it was for peeing and for making babies. She replied: "But babies come from coochies!"
-
Drug Talks are worse than Sex Talks
Actually, I have been rather surprised by how few questions I got. Mind you, the sex-ed program in the local school system hereabouts is truly excellent. Unlike, say, the drug-ed curriculuum, where I basically had to tell my kids that what they were being taught was total crap, and here is the truth. And in some ways I found this more uncomfortable than talking about sex, because I wanted to be honest, which meant revealing rather more than I wanted to about my own personal experience.
But with the sex, it wasn't so much of an issue. I did suggest to my son soon after he took up with his first serious girlfriend that it might be a good idea to have some condoms on hand, just in case-- he blinked at me. A couple of days later in conversation at dinner, he mentioned that he had seem someone at the local drugstore, then turned bright red and practically bolted from the table, with the spousal unit and I trying really hard not to smirk.
Incidentally, giving a detailed full description of a blow job to a small child strikes me as rather inappropriate. They don't want to know that much, all they have to be told is that it is a sex thing grownups do, and that would be enough. Maureen Lyon is dead wrong, you should not be talking to your kids about sex from the moment they can talk. You shouldn't be hiding it, but you should be providing information appropriately to their understanding and interest, and not ever forcing it down their throats (um, bad joke not intended). My mom did that to me, sat me down in early adolescence and told me a bunch of stuff I already in fact knew; it was excruciating.
-
Man, my sister's dealing with this, and I'm trying to get her to say something
She has a child, my niece, by a sperm donor. Her partner has a child, my nephew, by the same sperm donor. My niece just turned 6 and I was shocked over Christmas to find out that my niece (the older one) doesn't even know about sperm & eggs.
"Well, you didn't find out until that one time...." My sister said.
"No, no. That's when I found out about the sexual act," I replied (we both remember the experience to which she referred). Explaining further I said, "I found out about sperm and eggs when I was about 3."
When my sister didn't believe me, I laid out the memory I had: mom sat next to me on a couch and drew a picture of the womb and fallopian tubes (I know I must have been young because it didn't occur to me to ask how the sperm got to the eggs).
My niece, the 6 year old, is smart. I worry that some kid her age will transmit some half-understood information to this girl that will leave her confused. And the girl has already started saying things to my sister like, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here," which saddens her other mom (the total stay-at-home, mommy mom; the one the kids come to when they've got skinned knees and want to make cookies).
I have no idea how to broach these subjects, so I'm hoping my niece & nephew's parents have a better idea (although I did already call on my own mother to pressure my sister & her partner to have The Talk).
"When a man and a woman love each other..." just doesn't cut it in this case. "When a woman loves a woman and wants to make a baby, they go to a clinic, where a man's frozen sperm is kept, and they chose the one that's best, and use that to try to make a baby."
Actually, just writing it out, it doesn't seem insurmountable. Then again, I'm not the parents of these children.
-
Children aren't curious about it and don't want to hear it
Until they get to puberty, by which time they've quit listening to you.
But we've told our kids the truth anyway. They're in the "latency stage", ages 6 to 11, where any mention of sex is met with "ewwwww!!" But when a question comes up that they don't know is sexual (we got hit with the "what's a blow job?" question a few months ago), my wife and I explain in the simplest (but most direct) terms, and go on to finish the explanation even after they've plugged their ears.
Another question, from my daughter, then age 8: "What is rape?" I said, "It's when you force someone to have sex when they don't want to. It's considered a very serious crime." She plugged her ears at mention of the s-word (she prefers the term, "physical touchment"), but I think she heard us all the way through.
-
Be Frank but
A child of 11 or older could be told what a "blow job" is but anyone younger, I would tell them to askagani when they are older.
The big question is why was a child allowed to watch a TV program where they were talking about blow jobs.
-
babies and cement
A friend's son asked how babies were made when he was about 4. My friend explained it in a straight forward manner, sweating, hoping he was doing okay. Without missing a beat his son asked "so then, how do you make cement?"
That was years ago and it still cracks me up every time I think of it.
-
When I was a kid
I asked my mother what a sex change (heard it on the Simpsons) and a sperm donor (saw a poster on the doctor's wall) was. I think I was about 8 and already had some idea of what they were, I just wanted the specifics. My mum got rather flustered and gave me a simple explanation BUT what followed was worse. Several weeks later, while at her friend's house for dinner, she said in a very amused tone "oh my god, she asked me what a sperm donor and a sex change were last week!", while I was sitting right there!
So fucking embarrassing. My dad understood, at least.