Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Dreaded Sex Talk!

OK, so I get this note from Maddy hidden under the computer keyboard that reads:
"We need to talk about something that you probably
don't want to talk about until I'm a teenager."
I show the note to hubby and then it disappears, only to reappear hours later and read this:
"I'd really like to know where babies come from."
This time when I tell hubby, his response is, "So what are you going to tell her?" After laughing for a few minutes, I say, "WE are going to figure out exactly what WE are going to say to her, and how WE are going to say it!" Needless to say that I did some research, spoke to a few moms with grown kids, talked to a handful of women that remembered their sex talk, and many of them referred to books. Being that Maddy is an avid reader, as are hubby and I, this would make good quality family time and do what we all like to do together - READ! My #1 fan and boss suggested the book, "Where Did I Come From?" by Peter Mayle. And one of my co-workers recommended, What's Happening to My Body: Book for Girls by Lynda Madaras. I picked up a copy of both books from Borders on the way home from work on Friday. Hubby and I read the Peter Mayle book first since it was specific to what she wanted. All I can say is "WOW!!" There are illustrations, and he refers to "romantic sperm". I couldn't believe it, still can't, that this is the stage that we are at with her already...although everyone insists that this is the appropriate age to have this conversation. Hubby took the Lynda Madaras book with him to work to scout it out for us, and came to the same conclusion that I did: We can wait on that book! Why? Because while this one is broken down for just girls it explains everything from puberty to pubes, to menstruation to masturbation! Sooooooooooooooo not ready for that! Although, we do realize that we will have to address it before next fall when she enters middle school...hate that 5th graders will be in school with 8th graders!!
Anyhoo, fast forward to a few hours ago when we called her downstairs to answer her questions. First we asked her what made her want to know now. (We thought it may have been her friends) but alas it was one of those dang Y7 TV shows, iCarly or something, where at the end of one of the episodes, someone says, "Oh, yeah where do babies come from?", and they all made a face and repeated the question. (her words). This is why our children mature too fast, even with a show that has a rating of Y7 (meaning it's ok for children over the age of 7 to watch), there are undertones of sex, making out, relationships...UGH! Back to family time, we tell her we are going to read a book together and she can stop at any time to ask questions. We each took turns reading the passages from the book, and commenting on the pictures as we went along. Many of the terms she already knew like: penis, vagina, umbilical cord, breasts, hips...she stopped only a few times to clarify small things. We found it interesting that she completely glossed over the "making love" portion and mainly focused her questions on the baby being inside mommy's stomach and how it got out if it wasn't cut out aspect. We thought she would have had questions for days on the romantic sperm and the explanation of how daddy likes to "love" mommy, but she didn't. Afterwards we asked her what she learned and she repeated most of it. She then ran upstairs to get a life size 12week old baby that some fanatic slipped to her when we went to a street fair 2 weeks ago. Didn't even know she had it, but she was fascinated now with her extra knowledge on how tiny Linky was at 12 weeks. All in all, we were relieved that it went so smoothly. We asked her was she OK, and she assured us that she was, and that we had answered her questions. We told her we were holding on to the book, because knowing her it would end up in school and we'd get a call from an irate parent!!

2 comments:

Jen said...

Wow! That sounded like FUN! (not) :) Sounds like it went quite well, though! Glad to know I've got at least a few year left 'til then...right? :)

Chocolate Mom aka Blupoetres said...

@ Jen - I hope it's a whole lot longer than 9 years for you!!