Monday night, I was at my brother’s house to celebrate my nephew’s graduation from high school. (Yeah, Christopher!) During the course of the evening, my five year old niece–one of the Twinkies (what we call my other brother’s twins)–asked where baby kittens come from. As in…how do they get out of the mommy cat’s belly?
My sister in law thought she’d be funny and said, “Go ask your father.” This, btw, is not the sister in law who is the mother of these children. (You know, it would be easier if I used names…I have three brothers and they have three wives and altogether I have three nephews and three nieces. It’s a pattern.) Anyway…the father of the twin answered, “I don’t know.”
This meant she came back to me. I gave her the absolute most simple explanation I could, forgetting that though this child is five, she’s incredibly precocious and asked more questions. Luckily, I’d just gone through the talk with my own 11 year old, so I was able to be very simple and only answer what she asked. Anything more was her mother’s job! (Who, btw, hadn’t yet arrived at the party.)
It makes me wonder…how many of you got “the talk” from your mothers? I know I didn’t. What little knowledge I had about these things came from three sources–the nuns at Catholic school (who weren’t as uptight about these things as you might imagine…they were pretty scientific about the whole thing, to my recollection), romance novels and my older brother. And he wasn’t so specific–he just didn’t want me to start high school without knowing the things “boys will say” so he gave me a run down. (Which leads to a really funny story when I was a sophomore and my long-time boyfriend was a senior and he used…verbatim…one of those “lines” my brother warned me about, which resulted in an explosion of laughter on my part…and shortly thereafter, the relationship ended. But I digress…)
I was determined not to be coy with my daughter. And a few months ago, thanks to a book she was reading, she had some serious questions and I had to answer them all. It wasn’t as freaky as I thought it would be. I guess the romance writer in me makes me fairly comfortable talking about sex. Who knew?
So…did you have to give the talk to anyone? Son? Daughter? Niece? Nephew? Parent? Did you get the talk from anyone? How effective was that talk?
I know I’m not done with the talk. Over the course of her life, my daughter has gotten the amount of information she wanted and could handle…and not that much more. She knows a lot now…more than I wanted her to at this age…but hey, science is science and my discomfort aside, forewarned is forearmed. But it made me realize that my mother really never had any kind of talk with me until college. She was a product of her generation. I’m pretty sure her mother never said a word to her, either!
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By all reports, Julie Leto was a sweet child once, somewhat shy, preferring to play quietly in her room making up stories. However, being raised with three brothers in a loud, primarily Italian household did have its influences and Julie discovered her inner tough girl. That’s probably why most of her heroines kick serious butt. Writing sassy heroines has worked out, as she’s sold nearly thirty books to three publishers featuring strong, confident women. Julie lives in Florida with her husband, daughter, spoiled dachshund, enormous guinea pig and a wide range of relatives all within driving distance.
ANOTHER WILD WEDDING NIGHT
Hard to Hold
Love Me If You Dare
Wild For Him
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My mother and great-aunt were both nurses and I grew up on a farm. Nuff said. When my daughter was growing up, we still had the farm, and lots of cats (the dogs were fixed, the cats showed up already preggers) so when she asked questions at an early age, she got an answer. I think anyone who has grown up on a farm knows about the birds, bees, cows, pigs, dogs, cats and who knows what else from an early age.
One of my fondest memories growing up was going with dad to the NY State Fair the day before it opened every year while all the aniimals were coming in.The trip was guaranteed to trigger labor in any number of animals who would give birth and he would take us to watch. So how they came out was never a surprise and the answers to how they got in there were usually accomplished in the same way-watching mother nature at work (or play as it were)!
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My mom gave me the talk fairly early, LOL, and she kept talking. I learned from her and did the same with my girls! It ain’t easy!
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My mother never really gave me the talk. I have a 9 year old daughter who has been asking lots of questions. how do babies get in the stomach? How are you part your father if your not in his stomach. then the other day she came and we were watching tv and I’m quiet sure exactly how she said it but she said you guys are just going to hump I almost had a heart attack I asked where she herd that word and she said school. I know that I will have to tell her something I’m just not sure when and how yet.
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I’ve never had to give the talk to anyone, but have talked to my oldest and middle nieces about what guys will say to try to get them to have sex. Both laughed at a few of the things, but oldest actually had a boyfriend use one of the lines I told her, so she told me I was right. She reacted vey much like you, by laughing at the line.
My nieces have sex-ed classes in 5th grade(about age 10), so my sister had to have the talk with her 2 oldest(youngest is only 5) before they started 5th grade. Both girls looked at their dad funny for about a week and then they were fine.
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Oh, I forgot to say, my dad actually gave us the talk. I’m very close to him, so it wasn’t really weird or anything, plus my mom had passed away when I was 12, so it was him or learn stuff from friends(which of course I did anyway).
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When it came to my youngest we went to Blockbuster and got the tape “Where did I come from?” It is a free tape to check out that explains things in a way that a child can understand. My daughter was four at the time and after watching the tape I asked her if she had any questions but since the tape was so thorough, she had none. It was done in a cartoon with two cats rubbing necks and purring! It was a cute tape without giving more info than a child can understand.
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My mom gave me “the talk” (I think she also gave my brothers ‘the talk’, also). My dad would have been way too uncomfortable.
My boys know that babies grow in mom’s tummy. That’s really all they care about right now (they are 9, 6 1/2 and 4). I know my middle boy has already had a crush on a girl, but he likes girls as friends (and he is very protective of them, which is interesting).
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I love reading all these stories…it’s such a hard topic, but a crucial one. I’ve always been keenly aware of giving her enough foundation at each age so that when we finally got into the nuts and bolts, it wouldn’t freak my daughter out. Luckily, she’s a science kid, so she already understood about things like DNA and genetics.
Also, I tried never to say the baby is in the stomach, but in the belly. I didn’t want her to think I ate her! As she got older, I explained that there was a separate sac for babies…overtime, introducing the word “uterus.”
My friend Susan Kearney, who has two kids in their twenties now, gave me great advice that I listened to–she told me to tell them about sex BEFORE it meant something to them. If you wait until they are pre-teens, they may already have strong sexual feelings they don’t understand and the information of what’s happening is overwhelming. By doing it when they’re younger, you beat that. They can listen more dispassionately and process the information without hormones clouding their judgment. It was really good advice and I’m glad I took it! Not that I had much of a choice, LOL!
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I don’t remember much of a talk from my (very religious) parents–I think it was more along the lines of “don’t do anything, including kissing, until you’re married.” Hah!
A friend of mine who is a science teacher, used to teach middle grades and part of her job was sex education (for the girls–the guys had sex ed with a male teacher. In this century.). Part of the class was birth control–she’d take a condom and tell the girls boys were lying if they said it wouldn’t fit…then demonstrated by stretching it up over her hand and forearm. Granted, she’s very petite, but I think it got the point across.
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I can remember my mother giving me this book about it–which I barely remember. As I recall I don’t think we ever discussed the book. She just handed it to me and said read this.
I honestly didn’t know anything until my freshman year in high school. A bunch of kids were sitting around looking at the biology book and there was a diagram of the male and female anatomy and how they fit together for conception. Inside my head I was thinking, “No, no no! It can’t be like that. No way do men have those! I’m not doing that, uh-uh!”
But on the ouside I was cool.
Cher
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My parents never gave me THE talk. I had to figure things out on my own through reading books, talking to friends, and hearing things from older kids. I’m pushing 40 and I still don’t know some things.
My oldest is 11 and I’m preparing to have the talk with her. I just gave her the American Girl book about a girl’s body. She has been reading through that and coming to me with questions. I just requested a book from the library about how to talk to your daughter about sex. I want to be prepared.
Any suggestions?
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I don’t remember outright having the sex talk with either of my parents. I had sex ed in fifth, sixth, and seventh grade…but most of the information I got from kids talking around school.
However, my mom gave me this book when I was like 10 (The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls by Valorie Schaefer – in fact I just came across it in one of my boxes), and my mom and I would sit down and read it together and she would explain things as we went along.
I think once I got interested in romance novels that filled in any gaps…
<3 J
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My sister and I never got the talk about the birds and the bees. It has been a standing joke between the two of us that what we know we learned, we learned on the streets.
When my girls were still in elementery school, the school district offered optional sex education classes to any sixth grader with parental consent.
Along with the sex education course, I also had the talk with my girls about the birds and the bees. I also gave them both a book called “Girl Talk.” What a great book for pre-teen girls. I was turned on to the book by a libarian. My girls said that it helped to answer questions that they did not feel comfortable to asking mom or dad.
Oh, the joys of parenting.
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I got The Talk(tm) from my mother, a rather prim and proper teacher, the night before leaving for college. Family “conferences” were held in my parents’ bedroom–Mother in bed, Dad in his comfy chair, me parked on their boxy wooden dresser, heels drumming against the bottom drawer.
“Since you are leaving tomorrow, there are some things you need to know,” Mother explained. She wouldn’t meet my eye and her voice wavered nervously. I cut my eyes to watch my dad for a moment before nodding at Mother, hoping to encourage her. She sighed, gathering her courage around her like the bedspread covering her legs. “I hope you’ll wait until you get married, but if you can’t wait, make sure the boy is prepared.”
My eyebrows were lost under my bangs. “Prepared?”
She nodded emphatically. “Yes, prepared. Make sure he has a rubber.”
My dad made a choking noise. I’m sure the insides of his cheeks were bleeding profusely as he held the laughter in. I had no idea my mother even knew that word. I managed to nod and mutter something along the lines of, “Good advice,” before I fled the room. By the time I reached my room at the other end of the hall, I was crying. I barely managed to bury my face in my pillow before I completely lost it. At that moment, I knew exactly what “gales of laughter” meant.
The Only and I have an “open” relationship. She can ask me anything. We never censored her reading or TV/movie habits when she was growing up and there were times she’d appear to curl up at bedtime to ask for further clarification. Birth, life, and death has always been a part of our lives, which makes the conversations easier, I guess. Her father, on the other hand, sticks his fingers in his years, sings “LALALALALA” and emphatically states, “I. Do. Not. Want. To. Know!”
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Hm, I don’t think I ever really got the talk? Or maybe a sentence with the “don’t do drugs!” talk… I remember sex ed in school – first in… 5th grade? But they didn’t really talk about sex – maybe middle school? My science teacher was actually incredibly open about it – he had a “sex” unit; you could ask him anything. Write down anonymous questions etc, and he’d explain it all in an academic way. (Even the “dirty terms” etc.) I can’t remember if he said much *about* sex- but oh, he had pictures of effects of STDs that students could look at. I think that was sufficient to convince people to have safe sex.
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What a good topic! My children are long past the stage where this was necessary! My mother did give me a talk but when I look back on it I don’t know that she ever gave me any advice or information about sex. It wasn’t a word that got mentioned as I remember. We did have a talk about the biological changes that happened in my body, bare minimum info. I tried to be more open with my girls but don’t know how well I covered that. I learned some info from school when they covered the subject in Phys. Ed. and a lot more from my older cousins! Along the way you just discover more from friends and life!!
Thank heavens there is more information out there now to help parents educate their children.
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Did anyone see the “Oprah’ show a while back on “the talk”? I was curious about what others thought.
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My Mom never gave me the talk, but you can bet I gave it to my daughters.
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Never got the talk from my mother or anyone else. Yes it was a generational thing. My aunt came to the house 5 weeks before she delivered my cousin. I asked if she was pregnant (or going to have a baby) and you would have thought I had uttered a profanity. Everyone got flustered and denied it. The funny thing was they were at our house for her baby shower. The nuns at the convent where I went to school (as did my mother) wouldn’t even let you talk to boys let alone discuss sex. They were Dominicans and not any fun at all. I tried to have the talk with my kids when they were teens and was informed that sex ed at school had taken care of everything. I answered their questions as they asked them when they were growing up. Honest, scientific and not more than they need to know is the best route.
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My mother bought some book on the life cycle, but by time she got around to making us read it, we’d already learned IT ALL from friends. I tried to talk to my daughter, but she can’t stand listening to me discuss anything like that! I think she’s convinced she was the product of an immacualte conception!
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My daughter started reading THE CARE AND KEEPING OF YOU from American Girl over a year ago, but about six months ago, she read it cover to cover and we had a long talk. Didn’t cover sex…just the changes in her own body. It helps SO much that she’s so curious and scientific. She can be so dispassionate about things, she really would make a great doctor or scientist. Even the sex talk…well, because I wasn’t uncomfortable (on the outside!
) she wasn’t uncomfortable. She did think it was gross, but I figured at 11, I’m glad she thinks so! I promised her there would come a time where she didn’t find it all so distasteful!
Honestly, though, I think parents set the tenor. Yes, it can be very uncomfortable, but I’d rather have this discussion that a lot of other ones, if you know what I mean.
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Where I grew up (Bermuda) we had Health class at the ages of 12 and 13 or so. We covered things like the physical and psychological effects of drug use and the mechanics and physiological effects of sex and birth control and even pregnancy.
I learned the emotions of it all from books, but the hows and whys of it all I learned in school.
Nowadays I meet way, WAY too many 18 / 19 / 20 year olds who don’t know the basics. They know how they feel, but they don’t know what the right choices are, much less how to make them. And I am the woman telling them the details.
TEACH YOUR KIDS!!! (the collective you, not, you know, you you)
Your teens will have sex. Accept it and arm them with the knowledge to get out of it STD and baby-free.
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When my daughter was five she started asking how babies get in their mother’s stomachs. She had asked for several days in a row, but always at extremely inconvenient times, so I kept putting her off but then forgetting. After a few days of this, we were in the middle of an extremely crowded mall on a holiday, and she stopped dead in her tracks and screamed as loud as she could, “I am not taking another step until you tell me how babies get in their mother’s stomachs!” I managed to convince her that if she would just peacefully come with me out to the car I would fill her in asap, and I did.
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Hey Jules, sorry I was late to this one…great blog topic…
I never had the talk and everything I learned came from romance novels and health class…I probably would have died if my brother tried to tell me anything…
Peace and love,
Paula R.