I’m not one to be premature with things of this nature, but my wife and I decided to have the “Talk” with our two eldest kids earlier this evening. They are ages ten and eight. Actually, we’ve been planning on it for quite some time. We just hadn’t had the right opportunity until today. We had to make sure we were ready; they were well-rested and well-fed (i.e. not grumpy and able to focus); and that our four year old was fast asleep. I’m not entirely convinced these two were ready. But, when would they be, really? And while they’re not even approaching the teens, there were enough questions popping up from them recently that we figured putting it off much longer might be more trouble than over-informing them. For instance, my son recently quoted from Led Zeppelin II, “Squeeze my lemon” and then made a hand gesture at his crotch that I’m 100% positive he has no clue means. So, we chose, “Questions Children Ask”, buy Dr. Miriam Stoppard as a reference guide. Many questions are answered, each with age-specific sections. Looking at it together in advance, we agreed that because our 8 year old is a mature 8, we would “read-up” for her- thus, using the answer given in the 8-11 year old section, instead of the 6-8 year old section. Now that I am reviewing the book as I blog, and everyone is alseep, I see that my wife called an audible on the field during the discussion and actually read from the 6-8 year old section. No matter- I don’t think the discussion would have gone any differently otherwise: (all four of us on the couch in the living room as Julie reads from P.19- “What is sex? During sexual intercourse, a man’s penis gets stiff and he puts it inside a woman’s vagina, which feels good....” (mass hysteria on the couch; all three of them in fits of giggles). So much for preparation. I can prove all of this, by the way, since I made an audio recording of the session. Anyway, it’s done; I’m not sure what kind of calls we’re going to get from neighbours, other kids’ parents or teachers in the next few days; and the question of the night, from our ten year old son: “What is stimulation?” I can only hope that query was stimulated in the classroom and not on the playground. For the record, I brought my son’s “squeeze my lemon” comment to his attention when we got to the part about orgasm and sperm. He was completely dumbfounded- “Squeeze my lemon? That’s not what that means! Squeeze my lemon means you gotta go take a pee!”.
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