The Birds and the Bees
A few nights ago as you were tucking your children into bed with magical bedtime stories and prayers via the glow of their Disney nightlights, we were shattering our children’s innocence.
The greatly anticipated “Sex Talk” hit our household. My 8 year old still believes that all Disney princesses reside in Florida, but the girl also knows the ins and outs (pun intended?) of sex.
Are you judging us yet? Our kids JUST turned 8 and 9. What is the magical “age” exactly? For us the answer is simple. My husband's work role occasionally provides the opportunity to advise families on how to have this “hard talk” with your kids. The concept he always circles back around to with families is this: As awkward as it is, you want to be considered “the experts” on the birds and the bees in your children’s eyes NOT their friends. If their peers beat you to an explanation, the likelihood that their questions will be directed towards their peers and not you is higher. I don't know about you but I don't want a random 10 year old with a smartphone on the playground instructing my kids about anything other than the latest Disney shows.
So, when our sweet little first grade daughter came running full speed out the school doors towards me this past year, pigtails flying behind her in the wind, I tried to prepare myself for what bit of information was about to be spewed my way.
“MOM!!! Guess what???... Bobby on the playground asked me if he could call me babe and I was like… NO WAY!!.... Then he said Do you want to have sex with me?... and I was like Ewwww!!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, you heard that correctly. My first grader was asked if she wanted to have "sex." Let me just say I wasn’t prepared for that one and apparently, neither was she when I responded with…
“Wow, that’s weird. What’s sex?”
That was the day my husband and I decided the time had come and “Have the sex talk” literally landed on our Summer Bucket list. We began to form a plan, asking older parent friends for advice on what and how to break the news, and I'm pretty certain my tall stack of library books I checked out that week would have made any librarian blush. In addition to "the birds and the bees", we also decided to start talking about the concept of Pornography with our kids since it's becoming so much more accessible at a younger age. I won't spill all the juicy details, but we had "the talk" with each of our kids and overall, it felt like a parenting win.
I’m not sharing this with you to tell you how or when to have this talk with your kids. We are not experts. What you share, how you share it, and when you share it, likely looks different for each family, but we would urge you to have a plan and be intentional about it. Get ahead of it, because if you don't, theirs a good chance Bobby on the playground might beat you to it.
The greatly anticipated “Sex Talk” hit our household. My 8 year old still believes that all Disney princesses reside in Florida, but the girl also knows the ins and outs (pun intended?) of sex.
Are you judging us yet? Our kids JUST turned 8 and 9. What is the magical “age” exactly? For us the answer is simple. My husband's work role occasionally provides the opportunity to advise families on how to have this “hard talk” with your kids. The concept he always circles back around to with families is this: As awkward as it is, you want to be considered “the experts” on the birds and the bees in your children’s eyes NOT their friends. If their peers beat you to an explanation, the likelihood that their questions will be directed towards their peers and not you is higher. I don't know about you but I don't want a random 10 year old with a smartphone on the playground instructing my kids about anything other than the latest Disney shows.
So, when our sweet little first grade daughter came running full speed out the school doors towards me this past year, pigtails flying behind her in the wind, I tried to prepare myself for what bit of information was about to be spewed my way.
“MOM!!! Guess what???... Bobby on the playground asked me if he could call me babe and I was like… NO WAY!!.... Then he said Do you want to have sex with me?... and I was like Ewwww!!”
Ladies and Gentlemen, you heard that correctly. My first grader was asked if she wanted to have "sex." Let me just say I wasn’t prepared for that one and apparently, neither was she when I responded with…
“Wow, that’s weird. What’s sex?”
That was the day my husband and I decided the time had come and “Have the sex talk” literally landed on our Summer Bucket list. We began to form a plan, asking older parent friends for advice on what and how to break the news, and I'm pretty certain my tall stack of library books I checked out that week would have made any librarian blush. In addition to "the birds and the bees", we also decided to start talking about the concept of Pornography with our kids since it's becoming so much more accessible at a younger age. I won't spill all the juicy details, but we had "the talk" with each of our kids and overall, it felt like a parenting win.
I’m not sharing this with you to tell you how or when to have this talk with your kids. We are not experts. What you share, how you share it, and when you share it, likely looks different for each family, but we would urge you to have a plan and be intentional about it. Get ahead of it, because if you don't, theirs a good chance Bobby on the playground might beat you to it.
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