When did you (or do you) talk to your kids about s-e-x?

[Alice28]

The topic hasn't been brought up in my house (yet), but my DS6 often watches a Baby Story with me and is very interesting in seeing the babies being born. I plan on being pretty open and honest with him, but not overly graphic (I'll never forget when I worked at a school age daycare and I had to talk with one of the girls and her mother because this 10 year old was telling the younger ones about oral sex, but using the slang word for it!!! ---her mother said she told her daughter all about it---that was a bit too much for me, but to each her own). My mom is a labor and delivery nurse and she was always very open with me about sex and birth control cause as she put it, "I have seen too many 13 and 14 year olds having babies and I sure as heck don't want you EVER coming to me telling me you're pregnant unless you're married." She didn't condone pre-marital sex at all but she promised me that she would help me get birth control if I chose to do that...and she kept her promise...I respected that a lot.

 

[aprilgail2]

My daughter has asked about babies coming out and we have a book that shows her from the first "special cuddle"(they don't show that though) and then has a lift the flap part where each month she sees how the baby grows in there and then they actually skip the coming out part....my daughter sees my scar all the time so she is fine right now thinking all babies get cut out but I will tell her the truth in the not so far future. She already knows about getting your period (I didn't get to use the bathroom alone until she turned 4 so she knows all that part!) and as for sex I will certainly tell her before she is out of grade school since by 6th grade there are kids already having sex and I want to get the jump on that part! Even if you think "never my kid" you may be in for a surprise kids don't always do what you think, even if they are raised in a "Christen House". My mom never told me ANYTHING, she let the school show the puberty tape and figured that was good enough for me....I always said I will NEVER do that to my daughter I will inform her of things and let her feel free to discuss is, not like it is a taboo subject.

 

[WilmaBud]

Merry Poppins, LOL!! Your son sounds a lot like mine! After I explained what sex was, he said, "Oh, well, could you and dad do it again? I want another sister."

On another note, kids of 11 or 12 definitely need to know the facts of life IMHO. Even if they're not hearing it from you, they're certainly hearing about it from their peers.

 

[NHAnn]

Originally posted by MerryPoppins
I did almost die when DS asked me if I'd like another baby. I said,
"maybe" and his answer was "Then how can we get Daddy to sperm you?" LOL! He's 16 now and would freak if he knew I just told you guys that story!

Reminds me of when DD (now 17) was in first grade...a classmate's mom had a new baby which they brought to school one day as a newborn. Driving DD home that day she was commenting about how teeny tiny this baby was...but HOW exactly did it get OUT of the mommy's tummy? So explained as simply but accurately as I could...and then almost crashed the car when she asked how it gets IN there to grow in the first place. When I vaguely reminded her of the movie we'd seen at Epcot a few months earlier (that Wonders of Life thing with the cartoon sperm and such) she was very persistent as to wanting to know HOW the sperm from the dad gets into the mother. So I told her...again as simply as I could. Her response was "Huh?...ew... gross...doesn't that HURT??" I told her to hold that thought til she was married LOL. But seriously, I've just always tried to answer the questions with as much detail or accuracy as she could handle, and she has always been very persistent and inquisitive and detail-oriented. Maybe too much though--in fifth grade when her school had the health curriculum where they would separate boys and girls for some of the classes....the teacher gave a true/false "pre-test" to gauge the girls' level of knowledge about their bodies and sex and so forth. DD aced the test...NONE wrong....the teacher asked her privately how she knew all this stuff. She told the teacher "well, my mom can't give a one word answer to a question". The teacher told her that that was great and something to be proud of and that she should ALWAYS keep asking me questions and talking to me about stuff. She was not real happy with the answer I gave her, after the "I'm a woman now" excitement of her first few rather irregular periods wore off, and she asked "how long" does this go on. I told her that she'd settle into a pattern of once a month for 4-7 days, except of course during pregancy.
"No, no", she says, "I mean for how many YEARS is this going to go on...when is menopause?"
"Um, not until your late forties/early fifties, dear".
"AAAAARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!...this is going to go on for 35 or 40 YEARS????????"


Sorry for the long post...this got me caught up in memories LOL



I am puzzled by the comment that 9,10, 11, 12 is too young to know some of this stuff......my feeling is that is too OLD not to know some of the technical basics - certainly by then kidswould also have a sense of their parents value system on those issues as well.