Monday marked the start of the much-anticipated 5th grade Family Life Education unit, aka sex ed.
I say “much-anticipated” because in many ways it really feels like a right of passage, a marker that one chapter is closing and another is opening. By this time of the year all the testing is done, kids and teachers are talking about the transition to middle school and everyone’s abuzz with field trips and spirit days, concerts and ceremonies. Family Life Ed is an important element in the crescendo that is the end of 5th grade. A sign that “yup, you’re growing up.”
M.’s friend had just completed the Family Life unit and so over the weekend, while driving them somewhere, I was able to listen in on the backseat debrief. Her teacher had prepped them by saying that everyone receives this information in different ways…that some would giggle, some would hide their faces…and that it was okay. The first day they talked about friends and making good choices. The second day focused on boy’s development, the third on girls. On the fourth day…well M.’s friend never got to that point. Conversation devolved into what pictures showed hair growing where. I was pleased to hear the whole thing discussed in the most-matter-of-fact way.
I’ve always taken the matter-of-fact approach. Perhaps it came from having two curious verbal girls and living in a small house with one bathroom for many years, but from a very early age certain things were just “out there.” One thing seemed to lead to another. Explaining what those tube-y things next to the sink were led to menstruation led to how babies were made. And not just egg meets sperm but yes, that goes in there. Birth control pills. Viagra commercials. All part of the ongoing conversation.
So I was astounded at how many otherwise educated moms were flummoxed by things reproductive, who couldn’t bring themselves to use proper and specific anatomical terms, and instead resorted to the blurry “bottom” or silly diminutives. I remember one mom (who I respect a lot) recounting how her purse spilled in front of her 3rd grade boy, and when he asked what a tampon was she had hastily shoved it back into her purse and changed the conversation. She wanted to “preserve his innocence.”
Another time I listened slackjawed as a mom explained how she and a friend were going to take their sixth grade daughters away for a weekend to have “the talk,” and furthermore she was going to tell her daughter that “oral sex was like licking a toilet.” Excuse me, did I hear that right? Licking a toilet? Surely she wasn’t serious. Yes, she repeated, that’s what she was going to tell her. All I could think was “hello future sexual dysfunction.”
At that point that I decided that talking about sex with kids was going to be my next freelance article.
My premise was that in an age of early onset puberty, in vitro fertilization, same sex parents, rumors of middle school oral sex and Fergie’s Humps, parents were living in la-la land if they thought that there was somehow a golden age between “you have a wee-wee just like daddy” and “the talk” at, oh, around age 13 or 14.
I started doing some research and hit on my two favorite resources: Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They’d Ask): The Secrets to Surviving Your Child’s Sexual Development from Birth to the Teens and The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls by American Girl. I even garnered something of a reputation as a sex ed straight talker. One day out of the blue I got an e-mail from a mom at school who I knew only glancingly, who had been told by another mom that she should talk to me about resources.
So on Monday, after M. had her first Family Life Education lesson, we were again in the car driving and I asked how the class had gone. Just the talk about friends and good choices, she replied. And then she said, “You know, I think you did a really good job in talking to us about sex, mom. I mean you used the actual words and weren’t weird about it and stuff. “
Bowl me over with a feather. Mark the calendar. My daughter actually said I did a good job.
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Our son has already thanked us too. His cousin told him something she does on the computer and not to tell her Mom (it’s not bad – just my sister is very overprotective and limiting). He then told us he was glad he didn’t have to lie to us and he could ask us anything.
Excellent! Do you know any good books for boys? My son is 8, and because I teach 4th grade I know he’s going to start hearing a lot at school next year. I’m a single mom, so I get to handle this pretty much by myself.
Hmmm, I’m afraid I can’t give a recommendation on a suitable boy book that would be the equivalent of that American Girl book. Perhaps some others who read this would like to weigh in. There’s always the reviews on Amazon. Good luck!
My son was a very early reader, and one time I was changing his diaper in a public restroom (he was almost 3) and he looked up at the dispenser machine on the wall and asked in a very loud voice “what is a tampon?” and then he wanted to know what it was used for and if he could have one. Of course, the restroom was full of women who were laughing by this time. This is the same kid who asked, at age 6 in the supermarket checkout line after seeing a magazine cover, “what is female circumcision?” and expected an answer.
We’ve also been pretty matter-of-fact, used the correct language, and also to let our kids know what slang terms are used (and what type of connotations they may carry).
My son liked the book “What’s Going on Down There?: Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask”
And for related social situations there is “No B.O.!: The Head-to-Toe Book of Hygiene for Preteens” and How Rude!: The Teenagers’ Guide to Good Manners, Proper Behavior, and Not Grossing People Out
My son was accelerated in math/science (by three years) and in our school, basic sex ed starts in fourth grade. He would always get sent back to his regular classroom for “the talk.” He had no clue why he was being sent from the classroom, and it wasn’t until this had happened for the third year in a row, that he got the real answer from the teacher. When it was finally his turn to get “the talk,” it was a huge letdown for him.
I’m a big believer in letting kids know exactly what the deal is. We never bothered with cutesie-pie terms like “muffin” or “wee wee.” At least IMHO, it’s a zillion times easier to explain to a three-year-old what the reproductive functions of a penis and a vagina are than it is to explain that to a thirteen-year-old. For one thing, three-year-olds are far more mature about it and less likely to giggle and act silly.
I am HORRIFIED by the oral-sex-as-toilet comparison. Horrified. How insulting to either men or women, heterosexuals or homosexuals. Yikes. And yick.
And I’m nothing but sorry for her spouse.
There’s been a lot of hoohah in the media recently about middle and high school kids not thinking that oral sex is real sex, upticks in gonorrhea of the throat and all that. I read a popular young adult novel not long ago in which it was assumed that having oral sex with someone you’d just met was a perfectly okay thing to do. So, while I don’t agree with the comparison with a toilet, and I have no idea whether the hype is justified, I understand the mom’s concern to discuss it with her daughter before she started hearing whatever the kid-gossip-level version of the hype is.
Helen
Although–newsflash–this just in from Newsweek (May 23, 2008):
The Oral Myth
For a decade parents have fretted about an oral sex ‘epidemic’ among young teenagers. But a new study rebuts that notion.
You can read it here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/138444/