Talking to Your Children About Sex

Could there be anything more awkward than talking to a parent about sex? The thought of my first "sex talk” with my mom still makes me cringe, and then I slip into a dissociate state to protect myself from going into shock. I wish I could stay in that state of mind (it is so peaceful) but now I am a "grown up" with breasts and a vagina (well...I've always had that). And my husband has a penis!!! And we combined those parts and made three boys that we have to introduce to [in a game show announcer voice] the wonderful world of sex. I am far from an expert, I’m just learning as I go but I wanted to share part of my story of talking to my kids, specifically my oldest son, about sex. Maybe you’ll find something useful or maybe you can learn from my mistakes.

My husband and I started talking about the science of our bodies with our kids before the actual word “sex” came into conversation. Our first son, Evan, was born with a chronic health condition and it’s common for us to have family talks about how our body works. There are a lot of conversations about internal organs, the effects of food on our tummies and bodies, how our skeleton grows, the list goes on and on. He commonly has to get undressed in front of doctors and nurses and discusses how his body feels on the inside. This is confusing to a little guy when we have told him that no one should see his body because it’s private and he has to stand in front of someone in his undies. We tell him that the only people that can see him naked are doctors and nurses, but only when his dad or I am in the room with him because we have to make sure he is protected. We also told him that one day his wife would see him naked. To which he replied, “Because you have to share a room so that would be hard to not see each other naked.” Um…yes, spot on Evan! But these conversations about the human body and private areas brought us to the topic of how babies are made.

It was easy to talk about babies when Evan was young because I was pregnant and he was so little that we could tell him, “God wanted us to have another baby so he put a baby in my tummy to grow.” He was satisfied. But as he grew so did his curiosity. When he was about 7 we told him that our private areas are the parts where babies are made. Again, satisfied. We had a few conversations here and there about babies growing inside a women. When he was 8 he walked into the living room one evening and saw a glimpse of a sitcom that showed a naked couple lying under sheets in bed together. Oops. I switched off the television and started to usher him back to bed and he asked me, “Mom, those two people in bed, does that have to do with how babies are made?” Some people might be horrified that their child learned about that from a sitcom but I was impressed. It wasn’t a disgusting scene, just something too mature for a little guy. And he knew enough that he was figuring it out naturally. I just said, “Yes, you’re right.” He left it at that but it wasn’t much longer that he asked his dad, “How are babies made?”

My husband told me the conversation went as we thought it would go. He made funny faces, hid his eyes and giggled. I’m so thankful for his innocence. And he still views sex innocently. In his mind it is for making babies and an act of love. That’s the way it is supposed to be. The talk was easier than we expected though. He knew that our bodies were made for making babies, our private areas are where babies are made, that bodies are private and only his spouse can see it.

But we aren’t finished with talking about sex, no, far from it!!! Currently we seem to be talking a lot about girls. He had his first crush recently and when he told me I’m so relieved that I said “I’m so thankful that you like such a nice girl.” When in my head I was saying, “HE IS TOO YOUNG FOR THIS!!!” As he reaches different stages in his life the conversation will get harder. We will have to talk about how he treats a girl, how to respect her, birth control, rape, gender roles and identity. The ground work for these topics is in the works as we plan for the future.

My husband and I want our children to be open with us…who doesn’t want that? But it is something that we work on daily. It’s difficult but we have to think long term. One day he will leave our home and we want him to share his life with us. We think it is important for parents to share their moral and values with their kids but being aware that they might disagree with you one day. We don’t want to push our kids into becoming us because they will push back as they start discovering who they are inside. One thing I constantly say to my son is, “Dad and I believe that….because we feel that it protects us from getting feelings hurt.” And that is exactly what we are trying to do when we talk about sex.

Talking about sex is awkward for both parents and child. I have made plenty of mistakes but I feel that I’ve learned that the best way to talk to my son about sex is to talk about it gradually over his entire life. I don’t want my son to find out about sex from our public school education system or by investigating online by themselves. So it is very important to me to bring up this topic at home. Children are fine with simple answers and will ask more questions as they mature. An observant parent will know when their child is mature enough to handle the conversation. And I use my parental authority at times and simply tell him, “You just wouldn’t understand that right now. Ask me in two years.” That seems to be enough for him, he knows he’ll figure it out eventually. And I know that this is only the beginning of talking about sex.

 

 This blog post will also be posted on my personal blog: www.mindfulofthemoment.com

 

Here is a recent conversation I had with my son about the timing of sex. My hope was that he would understand what his dad and I believe, but also that he has to be ready if he changes his mind.

 

 

 ME: The decision to have sex is up to you and the person you have sex with. You have to talk about it together before you start having sex.

 

MY KID: I'm going to wait until I'm married.

 

ME: That's great! But sometimes people change their mind later, we don't know how we are going to feel in the future.

 

MY KID: No, I'll wait for marriage.

 

ME: Okay. I'm really happy to hear that!!! Lots of people change their minds.  Remember when you bought that went to the store and bought that Spiderman video game and then you changed your mind and wanted to return it? (This was a huge deal in our house, lots of tears from my son but we wouldn't let him return it because he opened it and played it). How did you feel about that?

 

MY KID: I was sad because I wasted my money.

 

ME: Yeah. You thought you wanted it but then you changed our mind. People do it all the time. I changed my mind yesterday....blah blah blah....(2 minutes later I finish my speech about how we change our mind, not everything is perfectly planned out, I was totally bestowing my wisdom upon him )....Do you see what I mean?

 

MY KID: ......Can I have a piece of candy?

 

ME: Did you hear anything I said?

 

MY KID: Um...

 

ME: You want to wait for marriage but if you change your mind you can tell me and Dad.

 

MY KID: [blank stare]

 

ME: [worried stare and long pause] Do you know that I will still love you if you change your mind?

 

MY KID: Yes, I can change my mind.....Can I go play Minecraft?

 

 

ME: Yeah, that's fine.

 

 

Maybe my conversation didn't go great but I'm glad that we had a conversation!! I stayed on topic, though forgot that he doesn't have much of an attention span, and later we were able to build on this conversation.