With no experience to draw from I often wonder how I will handle the inevitable 'sex talk' with my future children. I know I want to be straight forward and just use the real words in an age-appropriate way. But I believe it is just as much about HOW you say it as what you say (kids will pick up if you are sweating with nerves and awkward about it.) Being uncool myself the suave sex-talk just doesn't seem likely to be something I'll excel at. Basically what I want is for not to have THE talk and that is it, I want everything to be open forum in my household.
Such a contrast from how I grew up. I don't actually think that my parents are total prudes who would avoid questions about sex but we just never talked about it. Somehow I picked up very early that asking about sex was embarrassing and awkward and I found anything I needed to know from my friends long before my parents thought to bring up the subject. Not just sex but (the possibly more uncomfortable) puberty topic.
The one conversation my mother and I ever really had about sex or puberty:
Mom is outside vacuuming the van and I go to offer some help.
Me: Would you like some help?
mom: Sure. So....do you want to talk about your period?
me: No. (turns and goes back inside).
I was about 11 and already had the info. Why can't we be more like Europeans? This topic came up while I studied and eavesdropped on a a gaggle of undergrad girls recounting how they learned about sex/what their parents told them. It seemed like the only one with a completely comfortable experience was the one who spent summers in Germany with family where everything was just matter-of-fact-of-life type stuff. Oh my poor first child...
1 comment:
do you mean no sex-experience or no kid-experience? because by the time you have kids to talk to about sex, you will have had both...
i think you'll be fine. your kids will laugh at your awkwardness, and you'll cringe and wish you were the cool mom you wanted to be.
and your kids will love you anyway.
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