Stork! Stork!

The Talk

2008-05-19T22:21:00.002-04:00

The phrase "having sex with" seems to have sudden entered my sons' lexicon and, therefore, my daughter's. As I sat my bleariness down for a bagel and some caffeine Sunday morning, the five-year old girl came in to the kitchen to announce that her brothers were having sex in the living room. "We're not having sex!" they screamed back.

As I got up and peeked around the corner to make sure no actual sexual congress was taking place, I called out a general question to the troops. "Do you know what that means, 'having sex'?" The boys, who were in fact wrestling on the floor, left off trying to strangle each other long enough to answer in the affirmative. The girl followed me back to the kitchen table and stared at me. She shook her head.

"Okay, you remember about the mommy eggs and the daddy seeds, right?" Vigorous nod. "Well, the daddy puts the seeds inside the mommy so they can find the eggs and make a baby." Less vigorous nod. "To do that the man puts his penis inside the lady's vagina." Uh-oh. "That's just for grown-ups. But that's what people mean when they say 'have sex with.' Any questions?"

My middle child called out from the living room, "Mommy, did you just have The Talk with Mouse?"

It Begins

2008-05-12T22:19:00.002-04:00

My oldest starts public school fifth grade sex ed next week! Oh wow, now I get to see what all the excitement is about. What I remember of sixth grade sex ed was that we got to put anonymous questions in a box. I don't remember anything about it making an impression on me, but my mother had already done all the groundwork. I can hardly wait to see what the boy makes of it.

The Long Haul, Part 1

2008-04-26T21:36:00.002-04:00

I don't think there's a way to prepare kids for how long they're going to be grown-ups. Everything moves so fast for them in that mad rush from womb to dorm room that they can't conceive of decades upon decades of relative sameness. If I sound like I'm working through my own mid-life issues, that's because I am. Ah, the years weigh heavy on me tonight!

Setting The Talk About Sex aside for A Very Special Episode perpetuates the myth that the sexual drive is somehow outside the realm of regular moral choice or practical consideration. One practical consideration on my mind tonight is that responsible adult life can be uniquely dull for long stretches of time. I say this as a woman who reminds her kids daily that only boring people get bored and means it. The fact that boredom represents a failure of imagination doesn't change the fact that some things are just, well, boring.

Forget the debate about abstinence education vs. comprehensive sex ed in schools - how you train your kids to cope with Teh Boring will shape their sexual morality and behavior more than whether they learn about contraception in school.

But Of That Day And Hour ...

2008-04-06T21:50:00.002-04:00

Astrodon Johnstoni's lament calls to mind a conversation I had recently about sex ed with an acquaintance who was shocked, shocked, to discover that her fifth grader's teacher had touched on abortion as a politically significant issue in an election year. This acquaintance was considering keeping her son home from school for the rest of the elections unit. To my suggestion that she consider this a teachable moment for her or her husband to convey their beliefs about abortion to the boy, she replied, "But that was a decision I wanted the chance to make for myself, in my own time."

Go find me a fifth grader who has never heard the word "gay" or "abortion." I defy you to find me a one who (a) exists and (b) learned either word when his or her parents thought it was time.

House Rules

2008-03-30T09:53:00.001-04:00

I had a lovely three days as a guest blogger over at Karen Rayne's site on adolescent sexuality (http://karenrayne.com/). Having to put something out there every day really focused my thinking, both about the topics I covered and about what I'm doing here at Stork! Stork! Addressing teens and their needs is a different challenge from talking to younger kids. That being said, one of the many pluses of talking to your kids early and often about sexuality is that it helps establish a habit of communication that should make your teen more comfortable about talking to you.

Storks Don't Hibernate

2008-03-25T06:02:00.002-04:00

... but bloggers sure do. Geez oh man, I've been falling down on the job. But all that's about to change. For one thing, Karen Rayne has invited me to guest blog for her starting tomorrow! I'm very excited about this opportunity to hold forth on adolescent sexuality and reclaim my blogging mojo.

Fear Itself

2008-03-03T11:57:00.002-05:00

One big reason to tackle the birds and the bees with your younger kids is the need to protect them from predatory adults who might take advantage of their innocence to molest them. A child who can name his or her private parts and knows that it's safe to raise questions about them with Mom and Dad is a safer child than one who can't give a name to his or her problem - or is afraid to. But a recent post at Virtual Mystery Tour and a question from a local mom at Mamasource reminded me that it's all too easy in protecting your kids to forget where most of the real threats to their safety come from, and it ain't random strangers on the streets or the internet. Remember as you teach your child caution with strangers that she or he does need to know how to distinguish adults who should be trusted to provide help in a crisis from the rest of the grown-ups out there - and your child also needs to know that you are willing to listen when he or she has something negative to say about an adult who isn't a stranger. Tragically, kids are at the greatest danger from those closest to them, no matter what economic, religious, or cultural context they live in.

I spent some time musing on how to deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse in an earlier post. But how to figure out that your child is being abused? Older kids will often respond to abuse in ways that mirror adult responses to trauma: depression, suicidal proclamations, self-destructive behavior, changes in personal hygiene. In younger kids, there are some warning signs:

Urinary tract or yeast infections. These can happen for other reasons, including too-tight underwear or too long between diaper changes, your child's blood sugar or body chemistry, or mild dehydration.* But at a minimum, these infections - especially reoccurring ones - should prompt you to ask your child if anyone has been touching their privates and remind him or her that only Mom or Dad (or Grandma, or the doctor if Mom or Dad is there) gets to look at or touch those parts, and then only to see if they're clean or check them if they're sick.
Unexplained bleeding or swelling around mouth or genitals. Unless your child is being treated for disorders I've never heard of with hormones, these either indicate medical problems that need medical attention** or the distinct possibility of abuse.
Stated desire not to be left alone with a particular adult.
Copying adult sexual behavior.***
Change in child's overall behavior (a previously talkative child becoming withdrawn, for example).
Obsession with secrets.***

* You can minimize risk of UTIs and yeast infections in toilet-trained little girls by making sure they don't sleep in underpants - pj pants or loose shorts, sure, but no undies. Just trust me on this.

** Except with newborn girls - read one of the baby instruction manuals for further information.

*** A little captivation with secrets is normal, and it's not uncommon for kids to play kissing games or touch themselves. The warning signs are when the kid is mimicking adult sexual responses or sounding unhappy about having a secret.

Children, older and younger, are usually "groomed" for abuse for a period before the actual abuse occurs. Watch for some signs that an adult may be grooming your child as a potential victim:

The adult wants to spend time alone with your child. It's one thing when you hand off the kids overnight with your brother or mom for some couple time with your spouse, but adult-child sleepovers for fun? Playing in the child's room with the door closed? Be wary.
The adult treats children as his or her emotional and social equals. Again, it's one thing when your best friend takes a woman-to-woman tone in talking with your ten-year-old girl; it's quite something else when the adult considers kids his or her best friends and talks to them about his problems in adult life, especially when the person's relationships with adults seem limited or dysfunctional.
The adult gives the child gifts or allows him/her to engage in activities forbidden by the child's parents. This frequently lays the groundwork for introducing pornographic or other inappropriate materials to the child later on.

All I Need Is Love

2008-03-01T20:54:00.003-05:00

Hey, thanks to Kate Shatzkin of the Baltimore Sun's Charm City Moms for linking to this site. I guess this means I will have to add some new content, but not tonight. Tonight I am watching weird Japanese cartoons with my sons and sewing monsters.

Boys Will Be ... Men. Someday.

2008-02-24T22:13:00.000-05:00

One comment I hear often when I broach the subject of sex ed is, "I'm glad I have a son, I don't have to worry."

Insert sound of skreetching tires here.

Um, yeah, boys can't get pregnant, but they do actually face choices and risks and responsibilities in the arena of human sexuality. They also get messages about what it means to be a man that are just as whacked out and conflicted as the messages girls get about womanhood. The boys need the same attention from their parents as they prepare for adulthood that girls do. That includes:

Accurate information about their bodies and how they work. This includes, as the child ages, information about how their bodies differ from those of the opposite sex and how (and why) their bodies will change as they approach and pass through puberty.

Accurate information about how humans reproduce. Logically, this should include information about how humans don't reproduce. A kid might legitimately be confused about how the Virgin Mary managed to get pregnant but his own parents fail to produce a younger sibling.

Accurate information about your family's beliefs as they should apply to sexual behavior. What do you and your faith believe about sexual activity before or during marriage? Contraception? Abortion? What constitutes appropriate behavior in your eyes? What standards of behavior do you expect your child to follow?

Contrary to popular belief, boys don't just have one thing on their minds. They want and need to know about love and what goes into building a healthy romantic relationship. They want and need to know what girls their age are thinking and feeling. They want to know what will make men of them; they need to know that making decisions based solely on their immediate wants is what little boys do.

The third bullet should answer problems raised by the other two, not replace them. You can let your kids know that a thing is "normal" (within the common range of human experience) without endorsing it as something that's morally right. Face it. Whether you think contraception is morally acceptable or not, the fact that it is possible to engage in regular coition and prevent pregnancy through use of family planning methods remains. Whether you think masturbation is okay or not, it's a physical impulse common to human beings and other creatures in the animal kingdom. Providing complete data to your kids on the first two points will only serve to bolster your authority with your kids. Lying will serve the opposite purpose.

Grab Bag

2008-02-18T22:09:00.003-05:00

Pain meds are still making me slow-witted, so I will confine myself to reacting to other people's blog stuff today.

In my continuing quest for how-to tips on teaching kids about human sexuality, I often find myself back at Karen Rayne's website. I haven't added a permanent link to her, since I'm ambivalent about her laissez-faire approach to teenage sexual activity, but she keeps making sense. So it was with her recent series on Parents and Sex Education.

The Advocates For Youth people have lots of good resources for parents, but there's a big gap on their Abstinence page - they don't provide information about "What If I Have Sex And Don't Use Birth Control?" beyond a link to "emergency contraception." Uh, yeah, how about some data on the rates of conception and STIs among people who aren't using contraception? That would be more useful and way less distasteful than telling the little rats, "Don't worry, you can get rid of it if you're knocked up."

Hey, speaking of this last, that reminds me of an important issue in raising kids that I'm trying to broach now as mine get older. How old is grown-up? This question applies in sexuality education but has major broader implications - when do you as a parent expect your child to be responsible for his or her own economic support and/or housing, for example? What level of post-secondary education will you fund for your child and under what circumstances? As you help your kids develop their values, it's worth remembering that your ultimate goal is to produce a good adult human being who can fend for him- or herself in the wild. When childhood ends is one of the limits that children should be taught.

(Hurrah, I did come up with some original content. Now I can go to bed. Yay me.)

Technical Details

2008-02-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

I had a hysterectomy on Thursday after two years of not life-threatening but increasingly troublesome reproductive health issues. It was a fine teachable moment in terms of anatomy, and it will forever put to rest the question of whether my kids should expect another younger sibling.

Prom By Any Other Name

2008-01-18T21:22:00.000-05:00

The annual rite of passage known as prom is coming. None of my kids are affected, seeing as how the oldest is but 10, but I see the prom magazines emerging at my grocery store's check-out shelves. I remember pouring over the pictures of dresses and imagining how great it would be to be a teenager, almost a grown-up, and go to a ball like a princess. I also remember thrilling when I was older at how easy it would be to get permission for once to stay out all night instead of having to meet my parents' usual (objectionably early) curfew.

Come to think of it, I remember lots of things about prom. Never mind.

What got me thinking about prom was reading about the concept of a purity gala. Now don't get me wrong, I heart paternal involvement, but the idea of a father-daughter prom thingie where you wear a pretty white dress and dance with Daddy and vow to remain celibate until marriage strikes me as too little, too late. Daddy's role in shaping a girl's self-respect and moral formation - of which sexuality is a component - starts from the day she's born. How Daddy treats Mommy and the time he spends with his girl are critical to the success of her relationships with others as an adult. That's reflected in the role fathers play in debutante balls or cotillions, where Daddy is an important figure but the ostensible point of the event is introducing a young woman into adult society under the protection of her family and social cohort. Where is the young woman's burgeoning adulthood reflected in the purity gala?

Prom takes the place of a cotillion or debut - or purity gala - for most girls, but without the underpinnings of family involvement it offers little more than an opportunity to dress up and stay out all night, preferably while enjoying as many red carpet accoutrements - fancy dinner, limo, hotel suite - as possible. Prom is a celebration of conspicuous consumption and self-gratification. Prom is the practice ground for overblown, overpriced weddings. Prom is - oh, I'm sorry, was that out loud? While you can argue that prom lets kids celebrate their entry into adult life, it does so in a bubble where they can enjoy adult freedoms without adult responsibilities.

Any time we fail to discourage our kids from dwelling more on the material aspects of an occasion than they think about the meaning and long-term implications of the occasion, we are doing them a disservice. Prom or Purity Ball, we need to make sure the little rats grow up knowing what their choices mean. Oh, and speaking of what choices mean, I wish I could kill "abstinence education" as a phrase in favor of "chastity education." For heaven's sake, no one I know is positing abstinence as the end state we're recommending for our offspring once they enter adulthood. Chastity, by contrast, implies sexual behavior corresponding to one's age and marital status. Isn't that the point we're trying to teach our kids?

Cover The Piano Legs?

2008-01-14T22:39:00.000-05:00

I read Karen Rayne's post "Prudes or Caretakers" with great interest and commented at enough length that I figured I might as well use it as blog fodder. Bottom line: we can’t lose sight of the fact that the transition from child to adult depends on the ability to sort through mixed messages. The question I’m asking myself is, what can parents do to teach their kids discernment enough to filter out all the crap that’s being spewed their way?

Looking For A Voice

2008-01-11T22:16:00.000-05:00

I'm having a problem with picking links. The sites I can find that address my chosen topic are invariably liberal and secular. The sites I find that link to my intended audience are, well, not about my intended topic. The link about modesty has certain charms, but it doesn't lead where I want to go. So I think I'll throw out a bunch of stuff from all over the ideological landscape and work from that. And maybe someday, someday, I will get comments from someone who doesn't know me personally. Heck, I got up to five visitors on the site the other day, at least two of whom weren't me ...

I'm finding a lot of fodder for thought at the RHRealityCheck blog on sexuality education, for example. But when one of their prominently featured pages is "About The Right" and religious considerations are addressed in sneering tones, I can be pretty sure that the conservative-leaning folks I think I'm targeting are not going to treat the RealityCheck as a credible knowledge source. Call it a hunch. What bugs me in some of their posts is not the concept of comprehensive sexuality education, it's the absence of the role of parents. A school can no more give your children a comprehensive sexual education than it can raise them for you. And teenagers, let's all repeat again, are still being raised by their parents until they reach majority and often beyond. The school has an important role to play, sure, but I don't understand the primacy public discourse gives to the role of the school. This isn't just a liberal failing - check out this abstinence blog and tell me if you see anything there that tells you what in Sam Hill parents are supposed to be doing.

Crossing Lines

2008-01-07T23:15:00.001-05:00

One argument I've heard posited against sex ed for kids is that once the kids have the information, they will rush out to put it into practice. By that logic, once you let your kids be exposed to information about violence, they will rush to the nearest bell tower for target practice.

I don't know how a parent copes with the sexual violation of a child, and I hope I never find out first hand. What I do know is that whatever a child sees, does, or is made to do, parents still have the responsibility to provide him or her with the tools to make informed and, yeah, moral choices about sexual behavior. For a child who's been abused or inappropriately exposed to adult sexual behavior, the fact that Mom and Dad (or whoever the appropriate grown-up is) can talk about what happened and give it some kind of context is a vital ingredient in the healing process. Preteens and teens who are sexually active need to hear what their parents think about their behavior - not just the sexual parts but the relationship parts too. I'm not trying equate abuse by adult with consensual activity between kids, but the fact is that teens up to voting/draft age are legally kids, and kids are their parents' responsibility. The fact that your teen looks like he's 25 and behaves maturely does not mean his emotional development is complete at 17!

The point here is not that parents should make their kids feel good about what was done to them or what the kids have done - the point is that these are defining moments for a child's emotional and physical development, and a parent's best opportunity to convey the values he or she considers most important is address these moments head on and as calmly and lovingly as possible. Just as the discussion of sexuality and its proper role in life shouldn't wait until these moments, neither should it end with them!

Innocence

2008-01-01T21:19:00.001-05:00

Whether you're controlling your kids' environment carefully or taking a laisser-faire approach to their social and cultural formation, sooner or later they're going to be exposed to influences you didn't choose for them. This can range from exposure to language or images to the most shocking betrayals of trust.

I was lucky. While I was exposed too early to pornography (my father didn't realize he needed to put the girlie mags on a higher shelf until he found me gazing at them in wonder one Saturday morning when I was four or so, nor did he realize that the higher shelf would cease to constitute much of a hiding place once I was nine), porn was not my primary source of information about human sexual behavior. My mother gave me a lovely book and a lecture when she announced that I would have a little sister (also when I was about four), and whenever I had a question she had an answer (except when I asked her, "So tell me more about this period thing" when I was six and we were waiting in line at the Jack-In-The-Box, at which point she suggested that polite people discussed these matters in private and that not everyone wanted to hear about personal bodily functions while waiting for lunch to be served). They allowed me to read anything I wanted, even when I was reading novels like Airport and The Bastard at 10, but they restricted my movie and TV viewing until I was 15. I got loads of inappropriate information and ideas, but my parents made their feelings clear about what I was seeing and hearing, and they didn't predicate their expectations for my behavior on what they were letting me read or see.

And me? Well, my oldest came home at the age of seven asking to know what a "dirty ho" was, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Okay, this is going to take a minute to explain.

Boy: (stares)

Me: First of all, a hoe with an e at the end is an instrument for breaking soil. But a ho without an e is another way of saying whore. A whore is a prostitute. Do you know what that is?

Boy: No.

Me: Well, when God made mating for animals and people he made it feel good so people would do it and make babies and forget about how hard it is to take care of babies and how much having babies hurts. A person who gets paid to mate with, have sex with, someone else is called a prostitute.

Boy: Okay.

Me: And dirty would be like yucky.

Boy: Yeah.

Me: So it's not a nice thing to call someone and I don't want to hear you talking like that.

It would be very easy to talk about preserving children's innocence if this were the toughest thing a parent might encounter. Unfortunately, this is the easy stuff. What's hard is when a child is exposed to sexual situations and behavior before he or she has the tools to understand them. What does a parent do with that?

Ripped From The Headlines

2007-12-21T22:35:00.000-05:00

Unless you have succeeded in walling yourself off somewhere, you are probably aware that Britney Spears' younger sister is pregnant at 16. When I heard the news earlier in the week, I was in my car en route to work after dropping the youngest one off at day care. It followed on a news piece about the impact of sex education on when boys and girls became sexually active and whether or not they used contraception. The upshot of the latter piece was that the younger kids are when they learn the facts of the life, the more likely they are to defer sexual activity. Now that Lynne Spears has decided to put her book on hold, I guess it will be a while before we find out when or if she raised these issues with her daughters. But we all know people in similar situations, when you get right down to it.

A lot of people who aren't comfortable in their religious beliefs or who are co-parenting with someone from another religious tradition say that they're refraining from indoctrinating their kids in one faith or another until the kids are old enough to decide for themselves. The thing that gets lost in this approach, unless the parents actively expose the kids to religious practice and discuss the moral choices they make in light of their faith, is the connection of religious practice to day-to-day life choices and behavior. By the time a child is old enough to choose a religion, what will she do with it when so many of her habits and preferences have already been formed without it? This is why they teach us Church Ladies that the best predictor of whether a child will become a religiously active adult is the extent of his/her early childhood exposure to religious practice.

When I mention sex education to people with younger children, they sigh with relief that "all that" is years away. But if the kids don't begin making connections between what they see and hear in the realm of human sexuality, what the facts are, and what their parents expect of them, how will they be prepared to rise to the challenges of adolescence and young adults?

I read the section of the Focus On The Family website where they give parents advice on handling their teen daughter's pregnancy. I thought it was useful as far as it went. But starting early with the discussions of what makes a baby and how human bodies prepare to make them is a good long-term investment in your children's chastity.

Languishing

2007-12-09T21:40:00.000-05:00

Yours truly is falling down on the blog job. So in the absence of my own content, can I ask you a couple of questions?

First of all, can you recommend anything good for me to read on my chosen topic?

Second, how am I supposed to feel about abstinence-only education? I wouldn't feel like I was being intellectually honest with my kids if I didn't include the parts where people choose to limit the size of their families, but I don't know that I want the little rats being offered condoms by the guidance counselor at high school, either. Someone please tell me there's a middle ground in there somewhere.

Bible Stories

2007-11-20T22:00:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers (or "imaginary friends," as Mr Y likes to call them) wrote about her daughter overhearing the portion from the Torah where Jacob first kisses Rachel and asking why they were smooching when they weren't married and hadn't even been introduced. This pales in comparison to Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's daughters in terms of Bible stories that are difficult to explain to kids, sure, but it poses a lot of the same problems. I mean, they're in the Bible, for cryin' out loud - you're not supposed to have to worry about what your kids see in the Bible! But they're not setting an example you want your kids to follow, and they're doing things that seem pretty hard to explain without putting unwelcome ideas in your kids' heads.

Whether you're parsing the week's parsha or confronted with realities in your day-to-day life, there are two kinds of questions that inevitably arise in discussing these situations with kids. Questions of definition ("what is that?" or "what does that mean?") call for minimalistic answers couched in age-appropriate language.

Kid: "What were they doing in Sodom and Gommorah that made God so angry?"

Parent: "They were doing things with their bodies that God told them they weren't supposed to do."

Kid: "Like what?"

I might tell my five-year-old that they were looking at and touching each other's 'privacy' (her word for all the body parts we're not supposed to go around showing people) when they weren't supposed to. I would tell my 10 year-old (who knows that "mating" produces offspring and that most adults think it feels good) that they were spending too much time playing with their mating parts and not enough time doing the stuff they were supposed to be doing. When one of them eventually busts out with "what is sodomy?" I will start with "things some grown-ups do with their mating parts that God told them not to do" and get more specific depending on circumstances.

In some ways, it's harder to explain what a biblical hero is doing breaking the rules about kissing strange girls than it is to answer any "what is that?" type of question. Every "what" question has a straightforward, dictionary-style answer. "Why" is a lot more treacherous, and not just in the realm of the birds and bees. Why does Jacob do something he knows he's not supposed to do? For that matter, why does Aunt So-and-so have a baby when she's not married? Why doesn't Grandpa live with Grandma anymore? Why did Uncle Whatsit hit Cousin Whosit?

1. Don't deny the obvious. Jacob wanted to kiss Rachel. Uncle Whatsit got mad and lost his temper. Aunt So-and-so made a baby with someone. Grandma decided she wanted to live alone, or Grandpa decided he wanted to live with Miss Judy.

2. Judge the choice, not the people. Acknowledge that you can love someone and still be angry at him or disappointed in her.

- "It's bad to go around hitting people, no matter how mad you are."
- "You're not supposed to make babies unless you're married."
- "Once you get married, you can't quit just because you're bored or you meet someone you like better."
- "But we love (whoever) and (s/he) is still our (whatever)."

(Don't get me wrong. "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer in some circumstances, as is "I can tell you about it someday when you're older." Just bear in mind that there are few better opportunities to articulate your beliefs in a way that's relevant to your kids than answering their questions about what you think. If they hear non-answers to awkward questions too often when they're little, they'll be far less likely to bring you their questions and concerns when adolescence strikes.

Potty Mouth

2007-11-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

When it comes to teaching your kids about their bodies and where babies come from, God's best teaching aid is toilet training. I don't mean to be gross here, but the essential parts are co-located in such a way that when you're explaining where pee-pee comes out, you can also talk about where the Daddy seeds come out or where babies come out of grown-up ladies. If that sounds way too early to be bringing these things up, bear in mind the great advantages of this approach. First of all, you're tying their reproductive parts to reproductive purposes right from the outset, so they get in the habit of thinking of their stuff as having some point beyond how it looks and feels. Second, they're still at a stage where they're inclined to take your word on things, so you can introduce ideas about modesty and privacy and safety without worrying that you're "giving them ideas" or bogging down in debate. If you tell a two-year-old things like "don't put things in your butt" or "only Mommy or the doctor or maybe Daddy should look at your piska " (an all-purpose Russian word designating the parts whence cometh pee and other bodily fluids) you are introducing valuable life safety concepts to your child without introducing the other questions that would immediately occur to an older child (like what could I put in my butt? or "why would a grown-up want to look at my private parts?) The bottom line is that having lots of little talks with your kids from their early childhood about how God made them is a lot easier and more effective than saving up for one awkward Big Talk About Sex When They're Old Enough To Understand.

Do As I Say, Not As I Did

2007-11-06T21:57:00.001-05:00

Those of you who led blameless lives before and after becoming parents should skip this post and go about your regular business of making the rest of us feel inadequate and/or hypocritical. Thanks. See you later.

Are they gone?

Okay, good. For the rest of us, one of the pitfalls of telling the kids about the birds and the bees is the fact that, sooner or later, the kids will want to know what we did when faced with the choices that will confront them. Sooner or later, the oldest child will learn enough calendar math to figure out that he couldn't possibly have been conceived on your wedding night unless he was the world's first 9-lb preemie. One of these days, your kids will find the photo album from your first wedding or get an earful from drunk cousin So-and-So about what a ladies' man old Dad was back in the day. Me, I've got to get the high school and college diaries out of reach of my kids before they take it in their heads to start rooting around in boxes in closets.

I guess this applies whether the topic is sex or drugs or honesty - we want to equip our kids so they make better (safer, more moral, less embarrassing) choices than we did. If we lie to them about our experiences, we lose credibility when they inevitably find out. If we launch unbid into an account of that one time at band camp, we run the risk of glamorizing our bad choices. What's a parent to do?

First of all, it's important to spend some time thinking about your own choices and experiences (positive and negative) and how you might explain them in light of the values you want to pass to your child. I say "might" because the point of this exercise is not so much what you're planning to tell the kids about what you did as it recognizing how your attitude about your experiences will communicate itself.

Second, remember that the earlier you begin communicating your expectations and beliefs to your child, the more natural it will seem to your child to talk in terms of expectations and beliefs later, like when your 12-year-old wants to know why she can't have boys at her slumber party. The older the kids get, the more appropriate it becomes to discuss how your own experiences formed your expectations and standards. (Of course, there's no reason to be overly specific in describing your experiences to your kids, either. "I waited until I was engaged" is a perfectly valid statement without adding the fact that you were engaged three times before you got married.)

Young Love

2007-11-01T22:34:00.001-04:00

My 10 year old boy has announced that he "kinda likes a girl in a mommy-and-daddy way." Cue cinematic scream here. My little boy! It's starting. Can the horrors of adolescence be far behind? He already eats his own body weight in snacks each day, and he's the same height as his teacher, plus he's all moody and stuff like Mr. Spock in pon farr. The day my mother promised me ("someday you'll have a child just like you!") won't really come until the five-year-old girl comes of age - but it just got a lot closer.

So what does one ask one's 10 year old son about the object of his affections? I started with her name. Then is she nice? Is she in the same classes with you? (Oh, who am I trying to fool, that came out more like is she smarter than you, or dumber, or about the same?) Does she know you like her? And, quite unbidden, from the depths, is she pretty? (The boy's answer to this last was surprising. "Not yet, but she will be in middle school," he told me. I don't know how I feel about that as a reply, but I do admire his originality.)

I can see in retrospect where my mother's interests were when I recall her reaction to my many childhood crushes. I don't remember what she asked me about my crushes, but she always made three points:

1. You will have a lot of crushes before you fall in love with the man you marry.

2. You cannot get married until you finish college.

3. You better not get pregnant until you can afford to take care of a baby because I am not planning to raise your children.

If pressed, Mom would offer up some additional thoughts and moral considerations to accompany these points. But the prime directive was clear: my job was to stay focused on my education and not get pregnant. When I reached puberty, she added more emphasis on a fourth point. "If you do get in trouble, we are going to yell at you and get mad, but we will always love you and help you. You can tell me anything. I can't promise I'll like it, but talk to me and I will try to help."

You know, I wish now that I'd heard a little bit more about chastity and honesty in relationships when I was growing up. But a lot of what my mother did was spot-on. She was honest. She clearly and frequently communicated her expectations. She drew a distinction between her love for me and her approval of my choices. That was important, since my parents were not "free-to-be, you-and-me" kinds of parents. They tolerated a fair amount of verbal dissent, but they held us to a pretty high standard of conduct. Except in a couple of social justice arenas and my father's military service, the 1960s totally passed them by. There were no co-ed sleep-overs. There were no boys allowed in my room. If my boyfriends came to call, they had to pass parental inspection and were usually supervised by my younger siblings. I knew in advance what their opinion would be when it came to teh hanky-panky. But I also knew that their love would be at least as strong as their disapproval and that I could turn to them. (I wish I had figured that out a lot earlier about God, actually, but that's a topic for another time. Though my parents had a hard time talking about His love, they were mercifully good at modeling it for me.)

The oldest is not ready to declare his feelings to his crush. That is fine with me. Dating and mating are still a ways, off for now. Still, the boy has given fair warning that I need to have something better to say than is she pretty? the next time. I don't know how much longer I have before he stops overtly seeking my approval, so I want to make use of the time I have.

My next conundrum: how do you raise kids to be chaste when you, uh, totally weren't?

Terms of Engagement

2007-10-27T21:17:00.000-04:00

I'm Catholic. Specifically, I'm a show-up-for-Mass-quarterly-but-volunteer-every-week-and-drag-the kids-to-religious-ed Catholic. My parents fed me the faith of my fathers with the same zeal they fed me lima beans and about the same result - I grew up knowing they were good for me and being able to participate in public occasions without spitting them out, but I didn't develop any enthusiasm for either until I was in my 20's. But throughout that period of my life, I was blessed with friends from various Christian and Jewish traditions who didn't reject me out of hand for my worldly excesses and helped me recognize by their examples how God could be a real and powerful presence in a human life. The openness to God they taught me paved the way for a conversion experience that set my relationship with the Lord apart from my newfound appreciation for succotash.

The Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews who shared their faith with me left me with great admiration for their ideas on modesty and chastity. Nonetheless, I live in the secular world, and my kids go to public school. I don't plan to keep them out of the public school's sex ed programs when the time comes, as it will this year for my oldest. Life sciences belong in the curriculum of any school, in my worldly opinion. But parents have a unique responsibility to prepare their children for adulthood that goes beyond breaking out the charts and telling them the names of body parts and what they do. If you don't have an example of how to do that, it's tempting to leave it to the schools or just leave it alone. Neither is a good option.

One of the challenges I face in teaching my kids about these topics is conveying the right amount of information for their level of interest and understanding. What I have found very effective is answering their factual questions in the simplest, most limited fashion I can manage, then opining on God's role in creating the fact in question. If they ask more questions, I add one new piece of information at a time and repeat the process. If not, I back off. Example:

Child: How did the baby get into Mommy's tummy?

Parent: Daddy helped put the baby in Mommy's tummy. God made it so every baby needs a Mommy and a Daddy to get started.

Child: How did Daddy help?

Parent: Daddies have special seeds in their bodies for making babies. Mommies have special eggs in their bodies for growing babies. When a Daddy seed and a Mommy egg come together, they make a baby grow. God can make a baby out of just a little tiny egg and seed.

Child: What does the seed look like?

Parent: It's really small, and you can't see it except under a microscope.

Child: Does it look like a watermelon seed? We saw seeds inside a watermelon once. Remember?

(This is why it's best to start talking about bodily parts and functions with your kids from their earliest childhood, by the way - it takes a lot of micro-conversations like this over a number of years to convey information about human reproduction without over-sexualizing it.)

Ew, Mom, That's Gross

2007-10-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

I was blessed with a mother who frankly answered every question I ever asked about the birds and the bees and gave me a moral framework in which to digest the information. Now I have three children of my own, ages 5, 7, and 10. I work to strike a balance between satisfying their curiosity and protecting their innocence as I prepare them for their teen years and adulthood.

The "where do babies come from" talk was deceptively easy with the boys. Since they are being raised in part by the narrators on "Animal Planet," they were familiar with the concept of mating yielding offspring. All I had to do was add in the "God made the humans like the animals, but He gave us the power to make moral decisions (and conceal estrus)" part and color in details about the mommy eggs and the daddy seeds and where the babies grow (regularly illustrated by my own swelling belly) and how they come out as circumstances required. I thought I had it made until the day that the oldest told me and his younger brother and sister about how he was brought by a stork.

"Stork! Stork!" exclaimed the children in delighted chorus.

"You know perfectly well you grew inside of Mommy and came out of Mommy's body when you were born," I insisted to the oldest. "You were all covered in goo."

The boys' eyes grew wild. "Stork! Stork!" they exclaimed in horror.

Only time will tell how my kids turn out, but in the interim I know there are a lot of parents and guardians out there wrestling with when and how to tell their kids about puberty and reproduction without sending them the wrong messages about human sexuality and morality and family life. Not all of us are comfortable talking about these topics, but better we should do it ourselves then leaving it to strangers in the entertainment industry or even the schools.