let’s talk about sex
By annemarie on October 1, 2009 | Filed Under faces & places
I must say, talking about sex with my kids doesn’t top my list of fun things to do. But when we ran our two articles on Meg Hickling and Saleema Noon and Body Science I realized it wasn’t something I could keep shying away from. And in a stroke of coincidence M’s school had arranged to have Noon come in and spend a day with the kids talking sex (or body science). When Noon does these presentations she meets with any interested parents first to talk about what she’s going to cover and answer any questions they might have.
The parent evening was fascinating, in part hearing what and how she’d teach the kids and in another part hearing her answers to our questions. Obviously most parents struggle with questions about what their kids are doing and if their behaviour around their bodies is normal. It was very reassuring.
Her incredibly straight forward, un-icky approach to the whole thing took away a lot of the mystique and her advice to not get flustered and embarrassed when your kids ask you about sex is something I’ll take to heart. I have struggled with how to balance caution with fear when teaching my kids about strangers and dangers, but I can totally get behind how she likens teaching kids about sexual predators to doing fire drills or earth quake drills. “It’s not something that’s likely to happen, but you need to be prepared if it does.”
Of course hearing some of her hilarious anecdotes – she’s very funny – reminded me of some of the ones we’ve faced with the girls.
The first was when I was pregnant with L and M was about two. My sister was home for Christmas and was determined that M would use “proper” words so rather than saying “Mummy has a baby in her tummy.” Nada tried to get her to say that “Mummy has a baby in her uterus.” Nada worked hard over the entire holidays to drill this into M’s mind so I felt vindicated when Nada said to her, “What’s my name M? What’s my name? Who am I?” and M pointed at her and crowed proudly, “Auntie Ute-er-us!”. I meant to get a t-shirt printed for Nada saying that. Hmm…I’ll add that to my holiday gift list.
Then last year while driving home in the dark from a Christmas event in the dark with just M in the car she suddenly asked me, “Mum, does it hurt?”
“Does what hurt?” I asked.
“When they break you apart to get the baby out?”
Erm. Wasn’t quite the seasonal question I has expected to deal with and nor was I particularly prepared. I did address it as best – and scientifically as I could – but it showed me I needed to be bringing up these sorts of things earlier than I’d thought and be more direct and exact
than I’d thought.
What Noon said that I also liked was that your kids won’t take in anything they can’t handle. They’ll absorb what they’re ready for and the rest will go right over their heads, ie. you can’t tell them too much.
If you can catch one of her presentations I’d highly recommend them. And if you and your partner can both go it’d be even better. The earlier we start demystifying sex/body science for our kids, the more likely they are to stay connected to us as they navigate the waters or ‘tween and teenhood. And that’s a connection I want to keep strong with my girls!
What about you? What’s the funniest, or most stressful, or most interesting question your child has asked you about sex or their body? Use the comment functionality below to let us know!
