TALKING DIRTY
“When should I tell my kids about sex?” The twenty-four-dollar question with the ten-cent answer.
Most certainly when they ask. Most certainly when you observe their curiosity.
The nonsense about the stork can’t still be an answer when the cat has kittens or the dog has puppies.
Our pet’s procreation provides an excellent opportunity to go beyond the birds and bees – that old-time theoretical perspective – the silly evasive lip unservice confusions for kids.
Here’s the funny one and, as yet, I haven’t heard from any parenting class participants what they did about this: when it’s late at night and cats are having sex and lot a howling is going on.
One mom laughed almost uncontrollably when I threw this “action” out for discussion. When mom got control of herself, she shared what happened in her home.
“First, I just told my son our cat was hurt but then he wanted to go out in the dark to bring it in so I had to think of something else.”
Mom said she then explained that sometime when cats are hurt they want to take care of themselves. But her smart kid, and most of our kids are pretty smart, wanted to know why, then, had they spent the little money they have in the household taking “Kitsey,” the cat, to the vet other times.
Mom was laughing again, and through bursts of guffaws she admitted it would have been so much easier just to have told things as they are.
“But, Ms Shirlee,” she said, “Of course, I knew the truth but I didn’t know how to tell it!”
Hands went up throughout the group of 35 parenting class participants. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, had a story equally as crazy, including the mom with the 4-year-old who had witnessed a couple having sex.
In this age of instant access via the internet, the kids probably KNOW, including the 4 year-old.
So what is the smart and age-appropriate conversation we should be having with our kids?
Give me some feedback. And I’ll be back with what the “experts” advise and what my take is on the subject, including how I answer the folks in my classes.
I’m waiting to hear from YOU!
This Post Has 2 Comments
The time to talk sex is when they ask. You should keep it age appropriate, and only answer the ask question. I remember I bought a book on sex it was geared toward 6-9 year olds and it even had pictures very basic ones. It was printed by the people who did Life Magazine. I sat with my two older chidren and explained the pictures, and read the book with them answering their questions as we went along. Feeling very smug that I had done my duty as a parent and that my children were very well educated regarding sex. Well one evening after picking them up from school and as I drove into the driveway the children saw two dogs going at it down the block, Very loudly they started screaming Look Look they are having sex as I looked around my neighbors were peering out the window looking at me like I had raised two sexual deviants. So we had another chat about not talking out loud about sex in public.
The main thing is to teach them that sex is a major thing between two consulting Adults , not the ‘ feel good so DO IT ! ‘ ‘ razza-ma-tazz they’ll see on television and hear in the street .
As mentioned , I too took the time to sit with my Son when he came to me to ask a question .
I then took him to the drug store and showed him the prophylactic display and we chose one as a Woman Clerk looked on quietly , I wanted to teach him there’s no shame in it .
Some time later a girl as his school asked him to have sex with her , he was 12 and came home to ask me what that was all about .
Once more life lesson I was glad I got the chance to teach him instead of ‘ you can get preggers from a toilet seat ‘ B.S. the Middle Schoolers all seem to believe .
Luckily for me , he waited until he was with a nice girl he really cared about before taking that step .
Because , as it turned out she was in fact trying to trap him to get out of a really bad home situation , he got out of bed , got dressed and came home , nearly in tears but NO BASTARDS were created that evening .
Whew .
-Nate