Parenting and Sex

So an interesting topic came up over dinner. I LOVE my gal pals. :-)

U brought her 10 year old daughter, M, to dinner with us. M brought over her craft supplies. She was making Valentine's Day cards for the kids in her class. She made some comment about how she had a lot of boyfriends and so sparked an interesting topic of conversation: Parenting and Sex.

Somehow we got on the topic of sex and how we learned about puberty and the birds and the bees. MN said in her family when a scenes on explicit scenes on tv would come on, the entire room would go quiet, and her dad would make some sort of lame joke then attempt to nonchalantly change the channel, as if it wasn't a big deal. But everyone in the room could feel the intense awkwardness.

Then U said her parents never once talked about it with her and when her body started to change, she started to freak out. She had to learn a lot about it through talking with friends and comparing experiences. That's kind of a scary thought if I were to have kids of my own someday. There are a lot of weird things that peers can share, which may or may not be accurate.

In my family my parents never talked about it either. I was fortunate to have sisters who helped me through it. But still...it's one of those things...why is it such an awkward topic, or is it really just a societal attitude that gets impressed upon us as if it's this super private, super personal thing that shouldn't be discussed openly? Isn't it just a fact of life, and shouldn't it just be approached as such?

I was fortunate that sex ed started in the 4th grade for me. It was a new curriculum at the time and I remember all the hissy fits some parents threw about it. Permission slips had to be signed to join in the class and some parents insisted on being in the classroom for the discussions. As adult, now I can understand the complexities of the concern, but I must say...if I hadn't had those classes, who knows what kind of misinformation I would have gotten from other sources.

As I spend time with my nieces and nephews, and even U's daughter, M, I see such innocence about all of that and it really amazes me to think about our exposure to such topics and when, where, and how our perspectives about all of it gets formed. I wonder, 'tho...sometimes I wonder if I got *too* much information in those sex ed classes. Could that be a bad thing? I don't know.

Oh, and what about those silly childhood beliefs? MN remembered that as a child the belief was if you touched a boy you'd get pregnant. Ha ha... I remember if you stuck your tongue out at someone and they stuck their tongue back out at you that was considered french kissing. Umm...ok. Kids are funny.

I wonder how I'll handle this when I have kids. It'll be interesting for sure!