English: sex education (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I, like most parents wondered how to talk to my son about sex. Do I begin when he is young? Do I wait until he is a teenager? Do I bring up the subject or do I wait for him to ask me? Truth be known, all this sex talk makes some of us parents squirm? It can all be very confusing, and intimidating. But after reading a few books, I learned that who better to teach my son about a loving relationship than his own mother.
Since my parents never had the talk with me, I decided I would do things differently. I didn’t have any blueprints as to how I was going to introduce sex education to my son. However, I did know that I didn’t want my son to ever feel awkward about anything, most importantly, coming to me for answers. I am the one who has been teaching him since the moment I gave birth to him. Why would I stop now?
As a single parent mother, I don’t think I ever planned to have the full version of the birds and the bees talk. That’s the one talk I was saving for his father. I gave my son the basics. I was laying down his foundation from which his father could build upon. I believed as a man, his father could provide details about his body that I could never fully understand. After all, I was born female. I understood females.
It all started when my son was five years old. We were sitting at the dinner table and my son informed me that he knew how he was born. He said it in a kind of matter of fact way as if “I” had been withholding information from him. One of his classmates told him how she came out of her mommy’s belly. “I was cut out of your belly, Momma.”
I pondered for a moment.
I had heard on one of those day-time talk shows that parent’s should not call their child’s private parts by a nick-name or code name. Previously, I referred to private parts as wee-wee and pee-pee. But after watching the talk show, I made the conscious choice to use proper reference names when referring to a male’s or female’s private area. I also explained to my son that women have breast and men have chest. I know this is not medically correct but I needed to let my son know that God made him different than He made me.
“No honey, some babies are cut out of their mommy’s belly. It’s called a cesarean. But you weren’t. You came out of my vagina.”
My son gave me this look and then said, “EEWW!”
The next round of questions from Jaren began with, “How did I get in your belly?”
This is a tricky question. How much should I really divulge to a five year old? So my explanation went something like this, “Daddy’s have the seed. Daddy’s put the seed into the Mommy. The seed grows into a baby until it’s ready to come out into the world.”
“How does the Daddy put the seed into the Mommy?”
“Hmm.” That’s another good question for which I have no good answer at this time. “Well I can’t explain that to you right now but when you are older, I’ll explain more.”
“Okay, Momma.”
I provided short honest answers, and he was okay with these limited explanations.
Fast forward a few years…. my son opens the front door and walks in with a condom in his hand that he found in the parking lot of our apartment building, “Momma, look what I found.”
Thank goodness it was unused.
Once again, he thinks he has discovered some top secret information and announces, “I know what this is used for.”
“Oh really?” I replied, “Please tell me.”
“It’s for sex and the woman uses it.”
“Actually the man uses it and it is for protection.” I remain quiet and wait for a response. Jaren draws a blank stare for a moment and then looks up as if the light bulb just turned on, “Oh!” He giggles.
From that point on, as questions popped up in my son’s mind, they popped out of his mouth too. Jaren felt comfortable asking me about anything and I felt more confident explaining what I felt was an appropriate answer. No, he didn’t know all the minor details but I began feeding him information on an as needed basis. When he came home from school and discovered some new particulars about sex from one of his classmates, I requested for him to repeat the new information he learned so that I may either validate or educate.
My son recently told me how several of the students became embarrassed in school during a lesson/discussion in his Sex Ed class. One student even walked out. Love and sex are both a very natural part of life and the human experience. All living species on our planet participates in sexual relations or procreation in some way. By parents discussing this topic with our children, it makes it less taboo. Do we want them getting misguided information about sex from their friends, classmates, other adults or teachers who may not share the same values as we have? Do we want them experimenting with their immature bodies and uneducated minds?
Not all of our children will participate in illegal behavior and yet we teach them right from wrong so that they will make the proper choices. We teach them about stranger danger and about inappropriate touching. Teaching our children about sex, in my opinion, is no different.
My son is now a freshman in high school and he still comes to me with questions or topics about sex. Now I will tell you that some things are off limits and I tell my son, TMI (too much information); so we each have our boundaries. But I know that one day, my son will engage in a loving relationship that will most likely include sex. Personally, I hope he waits until he is an adult and moves out of my house; maybe until he is married. I’m just saying. Ultimately it will be his choice. I’ve explained that sex comes with great responsibility and sometimes consequences (i.e. pregnancy, STD’s), and that “No”, means NO! As parents, we can take this time to bond and connect with our child so they know that they can talk to us about anything. After that, it’s up to them to make the right choice at the right time, cautiously, and respectfully.
Share your thoughts and comments.
One Woman's Choice 