A Conversation With An 11 Year Old
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
So…here’s the conversation I had with my 11 year old the other day when I picked her up from school.
“How was your day?”
Grunt. “Okay.”
“Do anything fun?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all, huh?” (typical conversation here…)
“Well, we watched a movie.”
“Oh, was it a good movie?”
“We watched THE movie.”
Lightbulb goes over my head and I start to shift uncomfortably. I’ve done this a couple of times now, but my youngest daughter is the very analytical one and isn’t a bit embarrassed talking about anything. (This is the one who already wants to be a coroner.) So I’m prepared for some pretty direct questions. “Well, did you understand it?”
“I knew all the girl stuff.”
Yes, she did. As soon as I mentioned the whole puberty thing starting a year or so ago, she dug through her sister’s shelves, found the American Girl “Care & Keeping Of Me” book, and came out and announced that she could be starting her period any time now.
Oh joy.
(BTW: I think she’s been PMS’ing since that moment. )
Then she says, “But we also had to watch the boy stuff. Gross.”
I nod in commiseration. “Yeah. Gross.”
The conversation goes on… “What if you’re wearing white pants or khakis and you start? That’d be so embarrassing. Boys are lucky.”
“Well,” I point out, “It’s kind of tough to be a boy because they can’t always control things and it’s very obvious when something’s going on.” (Wondering if she knows what I’m talking about here.)
I should have known better.
“Yeah, like in Anchorman.”
Curse that Will Farrrell. 
“Exactly. So, uh, you totally have it all down, huh?”
“Well…one thing I’m not sure of…”
Okay, here it comes. I’m ready for the I know boys have this and girls have that, but how does it all come together? question. So I say, “Do you have questions about the sex act itself?”
She scrunches her nose. “No, I do not.”
I see she already knows.
“So what aren’t you sure of?”
I’m racking my brain wondering what she’s going to say, and am struck into silence by her response:
“Why do they make pads with perfume in them?”
