Saw a comic recently about this topic and got me thinking. I know what "the talk" is about since it appears in so many media but I don't ever recall having such an experience personally. Did you? What was it like?
I was a late 80s kid, just for context. As far as my experience goes, my parents were very open about sex as a natural process for reproduction. They answered openly any questions I had whenever I had them, keeping to the bare minimum necessary but never avoiding the topic- also never using metaphors as a substitute for plain facts ie. "the birds and the bees".
So at about age 5 or so I was already aware about how reproduction worked on animals, us humans included. As I kept growing up of course I kept connecting the dots on any social aspects of sex and relationships (ie that is supposed to be pleasant, that people do it even if they're not planning to have babies, etc) but I never had a moment of shocking realization regarding sex. I often found it stupid how some of my classmates would giggle or lower their voice when talking about anything sexual like, well, like it's a taboo. And I was often disappointed at how much of what my classmates knew wasn't exactly true, which at the time I chalked to their stupidity, although obviously it wasn't their fault. They were misinformed.
By the time kids got to sex ed in highschool they already had their facts pretty much right though, fortunately.
So I'm curious about your experiences about this while growing up. Was yours similar to mine or did you sit through some awkward conversations? How did you feel about it all?
The first time I heard about sex from a friend, I was around 5 or 6 and went to my mom if that's true. My mom went to the library, got some sex-ed books for kids and talked me through it. It ended up being not one single talk, but multiple, age appropriate ones spread over the years.
She didn't do a perfect job, I'd say. There were many things left unknown and she was awkward with the topic (not an issue as a kid, certain issue as a teen).Though, considering that she got all her sex ed from magazines back in the day, definite progress on a generational scale.
I'm confident that I could do a better job than her, because she did a better job than her parents. That's how it all works, no?
Kudos to her, I don't think my own mother would have bothered to go get books if she didn't know how to explain things to me. I think most people's reaction to facing something they don't know how to do is to just avoid it, which she clearly didn't. So yeah, cheers for progress!
That's pretty heartwarming. You got a good mama