Well, there comes a time in the life of all parents when they must ask themselves: how are they going to talk to their kids about sex and puberty? A defining question in parenthood, to be sure.
For my grandmother, this meant giving my mom a book on how cows reproduce. I think my mother was udderly confused (HAR! Ghost of Grandpa Alan!).
In my case, my mom pretty much core dumped everything while she was drying my hair one night. She used to blow dry my long hair in the kitchen while I sat on a small folding chair. I remember crying - it was so confusing. I think I was 12 or 13?
When my sister was around that age, my mom announced that she was really so done with all that. She told me to Go Talk to my sister. I was 20 so I figured, OK fine. Well, my sister was going to a school that was experimenting with inner city busing, so her friends Carmen and Carla had already told her everything and then some. Her questions for me had to do with gay sex and fetishes. I felt so much more educated after that talk.
And now here I am with Sarah. I think there has not been a time when we have not at least talked about our bodies. The girls see me undressing all the time and ask lots of questions. So we were good to go with all the physical changes.
Then one day in 3rd grade, Sarah's friend was upset on the playground. Sarah asked her friend what was the matter and her friend proceeded to tell her that she had walked in on her mom and an "uncle" engaged in adult activity. So at age 8, Sarah and I had a talk about what that meant... of course she was thoroughly grossed out and declared she was never going to have sex or have a baby. It was going to be chastity and adoption for her.
I guess I figured this was coming, so I wasn't exactly unprepared for this moment (except maybe for the "uncle" part). As someone who has to study pop culture for a living, I know how early kids are exposed to images of sex and how early they hear about it on the playground from some other kid with a smarty pants older brother.
So when Sarah's Girl Scout troop was getting together a seminar with a pediatrician on puberty and sex, I figured, heck, this is good, it's good to keep the lines of communication open. Maybe she's heard things she's wondering about and just hasn't gotten around to asking me. So we signed up. Pediatrician runs this practice:
http://www.healthychats.com/
As with many things in life, I suppose I did not really think through all the implications of this beforehand. Suddenly there we were with 10 other moms and daughters and a pediatrician with a Powerpoint presentation, and a demo of panties and pads! I will say that at least half of the other moms had not had any kind of discussion with their kids whatsoever - and some of these girls were 11 or close to it. There was a lot of this:
It must be a lot to take in if you have never heard it before. I suppose you get to feeling like an alien life form.
- your feet are going to grow
- you are going to have hygiene problems
- you are going to cry for no reason
- you are going to bleed every month and spring leaks in class
- you are going to need a bra
- you are going to break out
- you are going to feel attracted to boys (whom you now hate!)
- your body is actually releasing eggs, which have been in there all this time, you just didn't know it
Some of the moms looked just as traumatized as the kids. The pediatrician said things like, "I can guarantee that every girl in this room has started puberty" and "every mom in this room has had her period". The girls looked at the adult women like, WOW, you guys have your PERIODS.
Sarah did not seem shocked by any of it, but she was Not Happy at the news that she had already started puberty. The pediatrician went into a lot of detail about periods and the reality of them, which is really good, lots of stuff I would not have thought to say, but is probably the practical nature of what girls worry about (what if it starts and I don't have supplies with me? will other people be able to "tell" I have it? etc.). Of all of it, periods were the worst to hear about... probably because the pediatrician emphasized that it's actually against the law for kids to have sex, but that periods were going to happen to everyone, and you can't really predict when.
Though Sarah did redeclare her desire to remain chaste and adopt.
And now, every bad behavior is being blamed on puberty. Lest I remind her that she was lippy and grumpy when she was 7...