THE Talk

A few years ago I was told that these days it is important to talk to our kids about the "birds and the bees"  at the age of 8. I agreed that is important to talk to our kids before they hear it from other, less desirable, sources. Then my own daughter turned 8....

I started getting books from the library that were recommended by LDS church leaders...one by Linda Eyre called "How to talk to your child about sex" which was goofy in a way, but totally great as well. Teaching from the perspective of sex being an amazing, special wonderful thing at the right time. I have every child book on hold from the library about changing, bodies and how babies are made, and I swear I was getting cold feet....

I decided to start with the basics. My daughter is having a lot of emotional breakdowns lately and we started puilling out the deodorant. So I figured we could start with out body changing talk and work up to the big "s' talk a few weeks later! We are very comfortable talking about our bodies in a polite, respectable but open way at our home so it was closer to my comfort zone than telling my baby about sex...seriously weirded me out to think about it.

BUT...I took a few classes on sexuality and sociology in college and it was disturbing to see how many people do not talk with their children about it ...ever. It means they experiment, or get taken advantage of, or just feel clueless. I never got any talk about anything and pieced things together for years through teen magazines, movies, kids at school...it just breaks my heart ot think of my daughter feeling so confused and a bit scared. So no matter how uncomfortable it was to think about, I would have never just ignored it and left it up to someone else to "teach" my child.

As I studied my books and set a date for our "special talk" different opportunities came up that made me realize that it really was the right time. My kids don't really hear stuff at school and don't watch anything that isn't PBS or clearplayed family movies, so they probably aren't picking up things anywhere else yet. BUT as we assembled our chicken coop we were discussing about how we aren't allowed to have roosters in the city, and we just want eggs not chicks anyway. My daughter asked the question why we need to have roosters to make the chick. When we told her you have to have a male and a female to make a baby she pondered for a second and asked, do people need a male and female to make a baby too? Who needs cable...we have roosters and chickens and queen bees going on mating flights that we have to explain:)  I told her that is what we will talk about in our "special talk".

So tonight after I put the other kids to bed (Rob was out for the night, so it was our girls night) we grabbed a bag of sour straws and plunked down on my bed. I obviously don't need to go into detail, but the talk that has been stressing me for weeks now went so well. I have prayed about it for as long as well, to make her and me comfortable and to say what needed to be said. She thought the bonding time with mom for grown up stuff was fabulous. She seemed interested in everything I had to say and not embarrassed at all. Once I discussed the puberty stuff she wanted to keep talking so I put it all out there. We talked physical stuff for sure, but I wanted to make sure she understood how she needed to keep it special when the time was right. I may have told her to save her kisses until she was ready to get married:) I didn't kiss anyone but Rob, and it kept me out of trouble:) 

We ended with more girl talk about prom dresses in her future and daddy scaring boys off that come to our house, and I was proud of the girl that she is....most importantly I feel we opened up a line of communication where she feels comfortable to talk with me. As she gets older I have felt like I don't get to be a part of her life as much as before, and tonight showed me that it is still possible.