Where Do Babies Come From?
October 23, 2006
Okay so I gotta talk again about Mir for a second here. I know, I know, Mir’s SO Smart, Mir’s SO Special…but really she is so smart and so special and if you want a good model to go by when you have to have the dreaded Sex Talk with your child(ren), at least go over to her most recent post and see how it’s done right. Seriously Mir, I’m so very impressed. Your medal is on it’s way.
Now Mir’s post got me thinking about what I knew about sex at Mir’s daughter’s age. I was 16 before I even started my period; oh shaddup, I saved a lot of money and crampage - although I didn’t get out of gym class as often as you did, you lazy wench. By the time my uterus caught up to my calendar age, I was braced and ready with a tampon in one hand and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
In Grade 6, I had changed schools and my mother made me wear things like tracksuits, vests, and my reversible skirt that my grandmother (my fathers‘ mom, not my Granny)had lovingly sewn for me. I’d show you pictures, but I’m pretty sure I burned them with all those very clothes in a sacrifice to What Not To Wear.
I love my grandmother, but this skirt was hideous. It was two different shades of red: bright Santa Claus red on one side, and a cranberry red on the other. It was quilted. QUILTED. Clothes should never be quilted, right? Also, it had an elastic waist and white lace trimming the bottom. I’m pretty sure if you had placed me on a shelf in Woolco back then, some little old lady would have scooped me up and placed me on a stack of Cottonelle in her spare bathroom. Hi! I’m Karen! I’d be happy to perch on four rolls of 3 ply for the holidays! And if you get tired of this bright red, flip me over and I’m a Whole Other Pattern!
(Thank goodness my grandmother doesn’t have access to a computer, because she might cry if she knew how much she ruined my tween years. Course back in 1985, the word tween wasn’t born yet. Oh and neither was my self-worth because dude, I left the house in this skirt at least once a week. Look! It’s Karen! The Toilet Paper Cozy! Aunt Kathy, you are sworn to secrecy!)
Anyway, back to the horror that was Grade 6. 1985. There were 2 cool girls in my class: Kristen and Heather. I remember wanting the attention and friendships of these two popular girls, but they were more interested in the kissing contests they had at recess with their boyfriends. Now I know why they were popular. Ha! I think they both got pregnant before they were 15, too. Thinking about it now, we were like, 11 years old. That’s pretty young to be timing a necking session to see which couple could kiss the longest. Whatever. Both of them dressed like 1985 Madonna, though Not So Much Like A Virgin, more like all bangles and see-through tops, and fishnets. Come to think of it, that is exactly how my mother dressed too. Yeah.
Anyway, I wanted to be in their crowd. I wanted to dress like them, but there was no way my mother would buy me those sorts of things, so I was forced into homemade clothes from hell. Boys didn’t kiss girls who looked like they ought to be at a craft bazaar, admist tables of needlepoint, doilies and trinkets.
One day, Kristin and Heather cornered me on the playground. They grilled me on what it meant to come. Of course I played it off like I knew what they were talking about and said, “It doesn’t mean to come here, it means to come here,” and pointed at my nether regions. Course in my mind, I still thought it meant to come closer, (ha ha - here, kitty kitty kitty) but I also thought that men and women had sex so they could ensure the woman’s vagina would be a big enough hole for the baby to come out. How dumb of a kid was I?
As much as my mother was out ~ ahem ~ gallivanting, (and I use that term loosely. Heh. No pun intended.) she sure as hell didn’t fill me in on any details. The one and only sex talk (if you could call it that) was when I was setting the dinner table one night, and she looked up and scowled, “You need a bra,” in front of my step-father. I was mortified, and further confused at the resulting shopping trip that weekend. She barely said a word as we picked out a AA cup.
Luckily for me, I left home at 14, and my best friend’s mother helped fill in all the gaps in my knowledge. She was patient, answered silly questions, and made me feel alot less dirty and alot more normal.
I hope that Daren and I can do the same for our kids. Sure, it can be a weird talk, but being honest should do the trick. Plus, we have already laid the groundwork. Case in point:
At 3 years old, Dylan asked us where babies come from. We sat him down together and gave him the cartoon version which included the phrase “Daddy’s seed.”
So when we asked him to kind of explain it back to us, I asked, “And where does Daddy’s seed come from?”
He rolled his eyes and sighed, “Fwom da gwound.”
So, we’re definitely on the right track.
What misconceptions did you have about sex when you were younger? Were your parents forthcoming? But more importantly, what piece of clothing was YOUR red, quilted, lace-lined, elastic waisted, reversible skirt?
October 23rd, 2006 at 1:08 am
My favorite misconception: my friend Bill told me in 7th grade that blowjobs involved blowing. Ok then.
Parents? Forthcoming? Not at all. I had sex at a fairly early age to find out what sex was like. Not recommended. Educate your kids.
My best outfit: green checked polyester pants with an elastic waist and a green polyester short-sleeved sweater. Have I mentioned that green makes me look like death? Combine that with my octagonal wire-rimmed glasses that changed from light to dark, but never completely either way, giving me a shady, shifty look.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:01 am
See, my opinion on the subject is different. I started talking to my twins about the facts of life WELL before they were in elementary school. As the daughter of a doctor, I was brought up knowing that sex and procreation are facts of life, just like illness and death. Everyone does them, everyone seemingly likes them, and it’s just a natural thing. No embarassment, no judgements, and no “When a man and women are MARRIED” which is find judgemental and downright disgusting. Plus, we all know it’s a lie. I don’t even think you should say “when a man and a woman” because that discounts gay lovers. When you’re talking about sex, honesty is the ONLY policy in my opinion, and honestly, men and men, women and women, and men and women who aren’t married have and enjoy sex.
You also don’t need to be married to have a baby, and telling a child that you do is another lie.
My parents were extremely forthcoming about sex, and hence my attitude. My parents discussed it with us often, and always answered any questions we had, regardless of how inappropriate they might have been.
My children, who are now 14, do the same thing. My daughter has been somewhat sexually active, as have most of her girlfriends, and my son is a total neophyte. That doesn’t mean that they don’t ask all sorts of stuff. Recently my daughter wanted to know what a sodomite was. That’s a routine question in our house, and she got her answer. Because I’m matter of fact about it, and don’t make it out to be a horrible embarassing and secret thing, they’re really not judgemental about sex at all. Nor are they afraid to ask because I might be embarassed or tell them it’s for “grownups”. Another lie.
I don’t get why people think it’s fabulous to lie to their kids about sex. Mir lied, plain and simple. I don’t see that as anything other than questionable parenting at best.
As for discussing menstruation I can remember exactly when we had the first conversation about it. My kids were 2 and my DD had found a tampon and had pushed it out of the applicator. She showed it to my son and he said “It’s for shabbat” because he thought it was a candle. I then explained what it was for and showed them how it worked (I didn’t insert it, I just showed them how it was pushed from the applicator into the vagina). Because I was so matter of fact, and because we talked about it so many times later, whenever I had my period in fact, that when my DD got her period at 10.5, it was not a huge deal to go to Walgreens and explain the different choices to her and let her pick out what she thought she wanted.
Honesty, people. That’s what makes sex not scary, not tainted, and not a judgement as to who is doing what to whom.
October 23rd, 2006 at 2:05 am
Oh, and one more thing. Last night at dinner my daughter was telling a friend who was sleeping over that when she was younger, her brother told her that girls had penises too. He was so secure in the fact that she said “I checked”. We were all laughing our butts off. I said “so, what did you find?” and she said, “I found that my brother is a liar.” When sex is a comfortable topic in a household, you get conversations like this at the dinner table.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:39 am
Wow, I managed to do something margalit had a problem with. What are the odds of that?
Um, just for the record, I’m not going to go into every nuance when my kids are 6 and 8. If you want to peg that as lying, go ahead. We all lie to our kids all the time when they’re little, via sins of omission, because the whole truth isn’t always age-appropriate. If you come back and find me telling my kids that when they’re teenagers (I won’t) then feel free to wave your judgemental flag, I guess, but until then, perhaps if you weren’t so busy finding fault, you might have to acknowledge that I did the best I could with STARTING what will be a SERIES of discussions, keeping the information bite-sized for now because they’re small and easily overwhelmed. But whatever.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:55 am
I was just about to come in here and say something about the age of your kids Mir. So thank you. I think it’s a personal choice when you’re having the sex talk, to discuss marriage. Given Chickadee’s age, Mir felt it best to say it that way. This was the first discussion, after all. To call that questionable parenting is quite harsh, in my opinion.
While we’re on the subject, Dylan asked us when he was 6 whether two boys could get married. We were honest with him then too. (In Ontario, gay marriage is legal AND we both are in support of gay marriage). That’s a whole other can or worms though. Maybe this whole thing is a good subject for Parenting Debates! (www.parentingdebates.com)
Karen
xo
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:37 am
Let me preface my input by saying that I do not have children of my own, nor do I see children coming into my life for five or six years at least.
However, when I do have kids, I plan on sort of taking the middle ground: I plan on answering questions honestly when they arise. However, I also plan on keeping the answer intentionally brief until they’re nine or ten.
My sex ed was pretty much what I learned at school, but my school district was surprisingly liberal when I was in school, given the fact that I grew up in a blue-collar, ultra-rural Republican mountain town. We had sex ed in third, fifth, seventh, and tenth grade as part of health class, and the curriculum was pretty age-appropriate. Third and fifth grade, the boys and girls were separated and we discussed the differences between boys and girls in puberty. Seventh grade, we talked about sex and STDS, and I remember very clearly our teacher showing us the “how-to-use-a-condom-with-a-banana” thing. Tenth grade, we redid everything in seventh grade (the abbreviated version) and got more into the social/political side of sex. I have no idea if that’s still how they are teaching at my district, but it was very honest and frank with info (except for discussing homosexuality).
My parents basically waited until I started my period, and gave me a book to read. It was OK but now that I look back at it, it’s a little male-centric (the sperm rates multiple cartoon renderings, but there’s no drawing of the egg.)
Abstinence ed?!? Pah. A pipe dream. You should tell your kids that it is an option to wait, and that their body is a very special thing to share with someone and that they need to make sure that they choose to share that with someone they truly, truly love…but kids are going to experiment and most people lose their virginity by the time they are eighteen or nineteen anyway. I had sex for the first time when I was sixteen and the boy was fifteen…but we had dated for almost a year and we both felt incredibly strong love for each other. Having sex young was something that I never regretted. That boy ended up being my husband.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Happy click and comment Monday.
October 23rd, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Wow, Karen, I was so caught up in learning about what you went thru as a child and teen. I had a very messed up child and teen hood as well, and it spilled over into early adulthood. frankly I am still pretty messed up, but I wear my freak flag with pride.
Anyway, the sex talk, my mother was frank about it with me at an early age and I always respected that. Not that it helped me with self esteem issues or making intelligent decisions, but we can larf about that over a bottle of wine…
We are frank about sex with our girls as well. But it seems to be an ongoing education as more doors get opened up.
Oh, and my hideous item of clothing…well, as I developed early it would have to be the fact that I wore a hideous bra in grade 7. Add to that my pimples and awkwardness and you have a not pretty picture of teenhood.
Thanks for letting me reopen those memories I had safely stored;)
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Well as a kid I never quite understood what the hype was about girls wanting to kiss on some guy. I was the second of 4 kids at the time. My older sister always had boyfriends and I just didnt understand why she wanted them as anything more than a friend to push around the dirt with, yep i was a major tom boy. The idea of kissing anyone to me was down right revolting until around the age 14. But hell it still took me a few more years to let any guy get that close. Sex to me was just not something of interest, though I had heard the talk several times because my parents were so scared that said older sister, would end up pregnant.
As for clothing, I had this dress that my mom made, that now I look back and think it was beautiful. But then I was a tom boy, and a dress was sinful. It was black and white, had a poofy skirt, and a scooped neck. But the part that got me was around the ruffles of the poofy skirt, there was ribbons tied into bows and lace! It was like making me wear a crime. Now though, I look at the pictures and think I was a kind of cute kid. Though I was the kid with the hair cut off much like a boys cut! Crazy but it was my style. Then again I did have the purple MC Hammer parachute pants! I was so not cool!
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:20 pm
My grandmother made me a poncho, then made me wear it to my great-grandmother’s funeral.
It was orange.
BLAZE orange.
Paisley.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
I’d love to see you in that skirt now. Ha! You’re my wittle toilet paper cover. That’s a vision that will never leave me. Well my misconception was that all dogs were boys and all cats were girls (not that I wanted to have sex with either). And that was just last year. It’s amazing that I birthed 4 kids during my lifetime.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Are you laughing at me? I’ll cut you.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:08 pm
I don’t know where puppets come from. Daddy’s seed?
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
I eventually learned that there were boy dogs and girl dogs and that all black dogs were boys and all white dogs were girls. Orange cats were girls and grey striped tiger cats were boys. See I’m schmart.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Please can you find a picture of your quilted skirt? Please? Oh wait, I know what I can get you for Xmas now! Woo Hoo!
October 24th, 2006 at 7:25 am
My mom’s plan for “the talk” was to keep an open running dialogue and make it as mundane as possible. I didn’t even get into kissing until 16, because no one really wanted to kiss me and I was just like, “what’s the fuss?” With DD, who’s 7, I started with the biology text talk about eggs and sperm and promptly got asked, “So how does the sperm get there anyway?” I made the guppie face and then I told her. Our faith has some pretty frank guidelines about who can have sex with whom, so we went over those, as well as who can touch her body (nobody without her permission, and she always has the right to say no even if she previously let someone touch her body) and what changes she can expect in later years (body hair, periods, etc.)
My mom made me a denim jumper and the only school shoes we could find that year were little old lady loafers with a 2 inch heel and gold buckles, and I wasn’t allowed to wear pantyhose so I had to wear kneesocks with it. I was tall and fat and it was just tragic.
Maybe that was my mom’s secret plan for birth control?