The Talk

Warning...this is post is for mature audiences. I share this because as I have mentioned this coming up to other moms I get one response..." I can't wait to hear how that goes." I understand, until I did this I was curious how it would go, and maybe this will help some other moms out there overcome their fears.

When Adam was just a baby, Joe was worried about him growing up and being a teenager. He heard about the book "How to Talk to Your Child about Sex" by Linda and Richard Eyre, so he bought it. We read the cover and then put it on our shelf until last month, when I finally read it. The premise of the book is that if you are the one to start the discussion about sex with your child and you do it in an open and loving way, then you open lines of communication between you and your child about sex and they will be more interested in viewing it in the same way that you do. They say that if you talk to your children about it and it is familar to them and they understand how special it is, then they will be more likely to wait to try it out until they are in a committed and healthy relationship, or married. All that said, they suggest you have a special night when your child is 8 to let them know. They even suggest some books to bring to have your child read.

Well, that night for us with Adam was last night. If you know my husband you know that he doesn't have any qualms about talking about sex, me on the other hand...I have a few. I was a little nervous about the whole thing, but since Adam is a boy, Joe got to lead the discussion.

It went well, but not at all like I thought it would. We went to Chili's, which was a great choice because we could get a booth and it was loud enough that no one could overhear our conversation. (We took only Adam, this was his special night). Joe told him about how he was old enough now to understand more about how the world works and we were going to tell him about how babies are really made. We asked him if he knew anything about it... no, our sweet Adam is completely innocent and naive. Then we had him read the book, "Where Did I Come From?" by Peter Mayle. It went fine, he was reading the book and nibbling on chips until he read the part, well, you know-THAT PART. He read it completely deadpan while he nibbled a chip completely non-phased. I looked up at Joe and he was laughing (quietly though). I lost it, I started laughing really hard that my eyes watered, however, I didn't want Adam to know that I was- so I had to look away. He never did figure out we were laughing, but it took a couple of minutes to recover. Anyway, he read through the anatomy part pretty quickly, not really that interested and then got to the sperm and egg part and was more interested (he really is my son). By the end, we explained a few alternative words for "making love" so he knew what people were talking about and explained he should come talk to us with questions, and told him this is a secret he shouldn't tell others about it. He was SO done, and was eager for us to change the conversation, he acted more bored with the conversation than anything else.

After dinner, we went and got ice cream and he asked only one related question...."so, after the baby is made in mommy, then Jesus puts the spirit in it through the Holy Ghost?" Really, we have a sweet child.

I was completely surprised that Adam was not at all interested in the mechanics of the process, but just the scientific part. I thought we were having a discussion about sex, but he came away thinking that we just had a discussion about how babies are made. This shocked me, and I wondered if we presented it too early, but then I realized that that is just the point. Now he has heard about it all and when the other boys at school talk about it, he will be able to say, oh ya, I heard about that, I understand that...it's not a big deal and he won't (hopefully) dwell on it and think about it in an inappropriate way.

I'm sure it will be a totally different experience with each of our children.