Hawaii Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Did you ever get a sex talk from your parents?
... or, even better an ongoing dialogue about sex and sexuality? I ask because I've been asked a lot of questions this week from boys in one of my grade eight classes. The questions bothered me, not because of what they were, but because they hadn't had those kinds of conversations already in their health classes or with their parents.
I never got a sex talk from my parents - but my good old Catholic school did a pretty good job of drilling in what the body parts are and managed to convince all of us never to have sex by showing us the Meaning of Life video (oh, live birth!).
So, how about you? Did you ever get one? Who did you turn to for your information?
Re: Did you ever get a sex talk from your parents?
My mom had explained periods to me when I was about 9. Well, sort of explained them. What I took from the conversations was not to freak out if I ever saw blood when I went to the bathroom, but to tell mom right away.
We also got a talk in school in both 5th and 6th grade. It was mostly about periods, though, not sex.
Then, when I was about 11-12, my mom sat me down shortly and gave me a book. I wish I still had it....don't remember the name of it. She said that she knew that asking questions was sometimes embarrassing, but that I should be able to ask whatever I wanted. In case I was too embarrassed to ask, the book would be able to answer a lot of my questions.
I actually loved this book. I was a reader as a child, and I read it cover-to-cover, and well as looked things up occasionally. It was very frankly written, and had good pictures and diagrams. It had info about birth control, and it also touched on the emotional issues that come with being sexually active. I would have been waaaaay too embarrassed to ever ask anything, so this was a good way for me to get information.
I was born in SF in the 70's to hippie parents. In the 80's my dad became a born again Christian so yeah...never heard about sex from him except don't do it until you're married.
My mom, on the otherhand, whose home I was raised in, was very open about sex from the time I can remember. It was basically an ongoing dialogue...always age appropriate. Growing up in SF I never even knew that some people had strong objections to homosexuality...until college when I was in Oregon and they were trying to pass Prop 9 (back in the early 90's).
Anyway, my mom was super open with us...she even acknowledged in high school that she knew were were sexually active and therefore wanted to be sure we were safe. She bought condoms "for the household" and allowed my steady boyfriend to stay the night, in my room, the last semester of our senior year. She figured I'd be off to college in 6 months and needed to know how to handle that priviledge and the responsibility of it as well.
In retrospect, that is not a parenting choice I'd make...the letting the bf stay the night. To be fair, she did talk to his parents about it first and all parties agreed that it was okay. Pretty progressive (I also stayed the night at his house, in his room)...they knew we were sexually active and all agreed they'd rather have us at home then getting it on in a car somewhere...LOL!
But overall, I am grateful that she was SO open with us about sex and sexuality. Not just the mechanics of it all, but the emotional aspects of it as well as well as making us feel that there was nothing to be embarassed about....we could ask anything we wanted which led to some interesting conversations over the years about everything from masterbation to oral sex to homosexuality, STDs, pregnancy, etc. I plan to be just as open with our children in that way.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
I never got "the talk" because my mom was totally honest and open about gender, pregnancy, and sex. I never thought babies came from the stork, cabbage patch, or out the belly button like my friends that were having siblings. I remember being really interested in her pregnancy (I was 6) and probably was interested in my step mom's pregnancy before that (when i was 5) so I had a illustrated children's book that was actually kind of neat - my pediatrician gave it to us. It was much like a pregnancy week by week book so I could always follow along with what the baby looked like inside the belly - I remember it gave little facts too - like when the baby could hear because at that point I would start talking/yelling directly to my mom's belly all the time. They had said the ultrasound revealed she was going to be a boy (I was dissapointed!) ... then obviously she wasn't! So when I got to the hospital to meet her for the first time the nurses all got a kick out of it because I insisted they show me her girl parts to make sure no one was trying to trick me!
I like that nothing ever caught me off gaurd. I never needed the scary mestruation talk because at some point my mom had explained pads and tampons when I asked about them in the bathroom. I felt bad for my friends that started and didn't know what was going on. (We had school sex ed in 6th grade I think... and by then some friends had started). I think when real life experiences are used as a learning tool it makes everything natural.
By high school I had a serious boyfriend so my mom talked to me about birth control, I had an open enough relationship with her (again probably because of how natural/normal everything had been presented to me) so I just told her it wasn't an issue, and I didn't plan for it to be for some time and we dropped it. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that she also discussed the emotional side of things with me too. I had a strong belief that sex was special and meaningful and not just a physical act.
She has never told me how things went down with my sister (as far as the birth control, sexually active bit) but I know they must have did something along the same lines because my mom indicated she knew my sister was having sex and that they had discussed it all and she knew she had to be ok with it, but she was kind of sad at how kids these days treat the whole experience.
Nope, never. I learned from my older sister how babies were made (I didn't believe her because at that age, I thought that was disgusting).
Somehow, I always knew where babies came from, but I don't know how. We had sex ed talks from grade 5-8 ranging from puberty topics, periods, to sex.
There was a really popular radio show (Z 95.3 for Vancouver ladies!) that had a sex therapist (not sure what her exact title was...), who had her own segment where callers called in with questions. I was in grade 6 or 7 at the time, and would listen to it at bedtime, and the next day we'd talk (giggle and laugh) about all the "weird and gross" questions callers had.
Even thought we mocked the show, I think we can all still remember "Rhona" (the sex therapist)'s voice urging us to always use protection, and other safety tips.
DH is a middle school teacher and he's pretty surprised at how one 13-year old will know so much about sex, and another one won't know a thing.
Since my parents were divorced, my dad never really did much in the way of "the talk" beyond once gently telling me (once he was pretty certain that I was sexually active) that "men are pigs" and that I should always be with someone who respected me. Surprisingly, that was some of the best sex advice I've ever gotten! My mom, on the other hand...*sigh* YES. And I really wish she had gone about it differently.
First, she is a conservative, born again Christian, so clearly it was all abstinence only talk in terms of safety - in fact, I remember she freaked out when a doctor recommended that I go on the pill to treat my horrifically heavy periods (we're talking regularly overflowing doubled up, yacht-sized pads) because she was convinced I'd suddenly start running around and humping anything that moved if I was on birth control. Riiiiight.
Anyway, as far as physical mechanics, she's a very straightforward person - I remember asking her where babies came from when I was 5 or so, and she sat me down and drew me a diagram of a uterus and explained how it worked. So from that point of view, I think she did a good job - maybe a bit too thorough for my age group (I'm not sure how many of the big words actually sunk in lol), but I never had any confusion about how babies were actually made.
Then, when I was 11, she took me away for a "special weekend" (she did this with all three of us kids). Now, I know some parenting books recommend this approach, but I would NOT recommend it to anyone. The weekend consists of doing something fun (we went to the San Diego Zoo), staying in a hotel, eating out, etc., and then having a BIG, hours long sex talk at night. It's supposed to be special and fun, but it was just awkward and extremely uncomfortable for me.
First, as I said, I already knew the mechanics. Second, and far more importantly, it put waaaaaaaaaay too much emphasis on sex. I know sex is a big deal in a way, but having an entire freaking weekend specifically declared to be dedicated to discussing it makes it kind of...it makes it TOO big of a deal, if that makes sense. It makes it this big, scary, mysterious, forbidden thing instead of just something that everyone on the planet does (but that you should still make informed choices about).
I would have much preferred a 3 minute, "OK, here are the basic facts of life, here's a book about it, feel free to ask me any questions that you have" approach. Something more casual and open and inviting, not quite so THIS IS SEXXXXXX. That weekend made me NEVER want to ask her questions about sex - then or ever in the future - which I think kind of defeated the purpose.
I was handed a book around age 12 and told "let me know if you have any questions". Umm...ok?
Other than that, we had sex ed class in grade 6. We got to ask questions by writing it on a piece of paper and sticking it in a box. Then they were answered openly, but no one knew who asked.
My school did this too! Someone asked, "why do people have sex?" and our 50-something teacher yelled out, "BECAUSE IT FEELS GOOD!!!" We probably laughed about that for a good 15 minutes after she said it.
We did too! I remember that so clearly - it was SO helpful I thought.
Alyson & Phil | Planning Bio | Married Bio!
Dates & Quinces Blog