Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

It's spring. 

The world is rubbing its sleepy eyes and stumbling out of bed. The birds are singing from budding tree branches and (when it gets a little warmer) the bees will begin their rounds. 

It's time to talk about sex. 

Not how babies are made.

As has been tradition at least since I was a child, in the spring of fifth grade students gather together at school to sit in uncomfortable silence while a teacher explains the basics of puberty and human reproduction. 

Body hair, growth spurts, and menstrual periods, oh my. 

I knew my son would get these lessons this school year, and I wanted to get ahead of it. By talking with him beforehand, I hoped to make him more comfortable while also giving him solid, fact-based information before he could hear rumor, innuendo, and falsities from his friends or classmates.

Unfortunately, I held a lot of untrue and unhelpful ideas about sex and sexuality when I was young. And I didn't know all the parts of my own anatomy until a college health class. 

It's not that my parents didn't try to teach me about the facts of life, because they did. But, like scores of parents before them, they did a truly terrible job. When I was 5 or 6, they handed me the 1972 bestseller The Joy of Sex with no explanation. 

Don't do this. It is *not* a book for children. 

My brother, who was 8 or 9, charged his friends a quarter to go into our closet and page through it. I, on the other hand, found it too gross to look at.

Not long after the book incident, we watched a rerun on PBS of Nova's award-winning 1983 documentary The Miracle of Life, which detailed the development of a baby using images taken through laparoscopic photography. 

After the viewing, I got the idea in my head that sperm were airborne. I was afraid to sleep next to my brother when we pretended we were camping out in the living room, lest I become pregnant.

Then, when it came time to discuss transitioning into womanhood, my mom let the fifth-grade school talk lead the way. I came home with a brochure and a complementary maxi-pad, and that was about it. 

I want my children to have more information and be better prepared than I was. 

From their earliest days, my husband and I made sure to use the correct names for body parts and to teach them not to be ashamed while still maintaining a bit of privacy. 

It's a tough line to walk, especially as they get older, and I'm still working on it - things like why boys can go shirtless but girls can't, or why everyone is required to follow the Downstairs Pants Rule and wear bottoms when in the main living areas of the house. (This goes for my husband, too.)

I also want my kids to feel free to ask questions and talk to me, instead of seeing sexuality and reproduction as a taboo thing only to be whispered about using euphemisms.  

But, not having been raised that way, I had only a vague idea of what to tell them, when, or how to do it in an age-appropriate way. I felt I needed help from a book that could guide me, but I didn't know where to start on that either.

Like any recovering journalist, I delved into researching it. 

After numerous of Google searches, I settled on a book called It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health. Written for kids 10 and older, it's one of the most highly recommended for its wide range of scientific but understandable information. 

The book has undergone many updates since its initial release almost 30 years ago. Because I am detail-oriented, I borrowed from the library both the 20th anniversary edition and the updated 2021 edition, and compared them to see which felt right for us. 

"The Book"

Ultimately, I purchased the 20th anniversary edition. 

Over Christmas break, my husband and I took turns reading a chapter a night with our son. We covered  puberty, different ways to make a family, intercourse, the reproductive process, healthy relationships, internet safety, and more. 

I fully admit that despite our openness throughout the years, some of these words were hard to read out loud. And the accurate drawings were a lot to take in. Yes, it was embarrassing for us both. 

More than once my son said, "This is me outside of my comfort zone!" and smashed his head into his pillow. 

When we got to the mechanics of how babies get into bellies, my sweet almost-11-year-old looked at me with brown eyes as big as the moon and said the phrase parents everywhere long to hear:

"DID YOU AND DADDY DO THAT? EEEWWWWW." 

Still, he was eager to learn this new information, asking each night if we were going to read more of what he now calls The Book. And I feel he will be less shocked and appalled next week when his class endures the first of its lessons on puberty and reproduction.

I don't know about his classmates. During the parents' meeting where teachers reviewed what will be discussed, one mother - holding her 4-week-old baby - told everyone that when her oldest daughter asked where babies come from, she said prayer. 

"Mommy and daddy prayed for your sister, and that's where babies come from," she said.  

If that mom ever wants a little help, I know a book she can use. I won't even charge her a quarter.