I am very rarely lost for words. In fact, some people would tell you I could talk underwater. Then during one car trip, my nine-year-old asked me what the ‘birds and the bees’ meant. I choked on my mint and turned the radio up.
Preparing to share all the gory details with my son reminded me of when I had the ‘chat’. Anne Mahoney (aka Mum) sat me down on one of the chairs in the ‘good’ living room (not the one with the TV in it), and pulled out a book. My mother had obviously realised I was a mature and grown up young woman (even at the age of nine).
Well I was, until we turned the page and two people were naked in bed having a ‘special cuddle’. The text underneath the cartoon read ‘Mum and Dad’. I broke into hysterics and couldn’t stop laughing. Mum promptly snapped the book shut, declaring I wasn’t ready to know how a baby was made and perhaps I should go to my room. Chat over.
Still to this day, Anne and I have never finished ‘the chat’ and like most of you out there based on the number of children my parents have, I like to think they’ve only ever had a ‘special cuddle’ three times.
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Top Comments
Sounds like you did a great job, and he sounds like a wonderful young man. Only one thing to correct about: "we were all made the same way". Where assisted reproduction is concerned, that's not the case. And more people were conceived through assisted preproduction than you'd probably imagine. One in six couples struggles with fertility. I would suggest your son has more than one friend made that way. It might have been too much to cover that day, but it's something for you to think about, if you update him later. My dad told me about our aunty's IVF when I was about 10, and I had a basic understanding.
Heterosexual intercourse was easy at 4 then came homosexual male sex at 4 and finally at 6 while driving with my mum in the backseat we had the lesbian sex talk.
She was horrified at the thought of a doodle in the fafa which was interesting at age 4. She pondered “how does the doodle get in the other boys doodle” which told me she understood the mechanics and I needed a little more work on that one.
The lesbian sex was an interesting one that even I was not sure how to answer. I did a little bit of adlibbing, knowing what I knew from friends.
All in all she’s 19 now and a well rounded young lady who gets mortified every time I share the stories and her reaction.
I was attacked, vilified and shunned by some of the work mums, school mums and dance mums along the way for my honesty with her. They thought I was asking for trouble being so honest. Looking back I’m glad I was honest I made a vow never to lie to her and so far I’ve been able to keep that. It’s proved to be a great decision. While I had a child that was mature during the Sex Ed classes because she was well informed. Other children were left embarrassed, giggly, bewildered, shocked and hurt that their parent had not shared information with them.
We are closer than most parent/child relationships, but not too close that there is a lack of boundary and respect. Looking back I wouldn’t change a thing about my penis in vagina talks. We still have some now more with a bevvy and a giggle though.