Did you know there are three gentlemen’s clubs in New York City? That’s what my 8-year-old daughter Sister Bear told me. She said she found this out by reading signs on taxis when we were visiting Manhattan last month. And in case you need a night out next time you’re in the city, the three clubs are called New York Dolls, Private Eyes, and Flash Dancers.
When she first told me this information during a New York City trivia game we invented, I was completely stunned. Sister Bear is a reader and she told me she reads every word that passes in front of her. Apparently that includes signs on the top of taxis driving forty miles an hour down Broadway.
At the time, part of me wanted to ask her what she thought gentleman’s clubs were. I imagined her innocent response would most likely give us a good laugh. But in the long run, I decided it wasn’t even worth the laugh. I just hoped she’d forget the whole thing.
I am thankful that the subject of S-E-X has not come up often with my 8-year-old or 5-year-old. We have done our best to shelter them from the blatant sexuality that the media throws at us every day. We limit television to kids’ shows or Food Network or the Discovery Channel and we flip channels during the Viagra and Victoria’s Secret commercials. For my part, I have taken to keeping People magazine in my desk drawer lest they sneak a peek at the cover and ask why Tiger Woods is such a bad guy and why Elin is thinking of leaving him. But still, it seems like you can run, but you can’t hide. Eventually they are going to hear something at school or see a commercial on TV and start asking questions.
That’s normal. Children ask questions because they want to learn all they can about the world they live in and what their place is in it. When I was a child, my mom would let me watch “Days of Our Lives” with her until I began asking her about the amorous scenes, “What that Mommy and that Daddy doing?” she says I would ask. We switched to “Little House on the Prairie” where the questions were more along the lines of “Why that Mommy milking that cow?”
I know my kids are going to ask the tough questions someday soon and I am trying to be prepared. One book I read suggested that you provide only as much information as necessary. There’s no need to give everything away all at once. For example, when four-year-old Brother Bear asked where he came from, we said he came from Mommy and Daddy. “But how?” he asked. “Because Mommy and Daddy love each other so much, we were able to have a baby.” And believe it or not, it worked. He was satisfied with our answer and resumed building a garage out of blocks for his Hot Wheels collection.
There’s no way we can avoid the full story forever. And that’s fine. I would much rather that my children learn about their bodies from their parents than from their peers or from television. My husband teaches middle school and he tells me that in his school, the kids don’t get the school-sponsored “talk” until eighth grade. By then, he says, many of the kids are skilled enough to teach the class themselves.
Times have changed. Our sex ed class was in sixth grade and consisted of a filmstrip and a question-and-answer session with the P.E. teacher. My brother loved to entertain us with his rendition of the script of the boys’ filmstrip, complete with the beep telling the teacher when to turn the filmstrip. “Boys have a…BEEP…and girls have a…BEEP.”
Unfortunately, my mom sold my filmstrip projector at a garage sale so I’m going to have to try something else. We actually already bought some books for our daughter from American Girl that talk about puberty and cover both the physical and emotional changes girls go through with a good balance of honesty and humor. Sister Bear covets anything American Girl so I think the books will be a good opening. When it comes time to talk, I imagine it will be my job more than my husband’s. Even though he taught sex ed to a bunch of seventh graders during his first week as a student teacher, he’s still a man, and this seems like a mother’s job.
His chance will come soon enough when Brother Bear asks the hard questions and it’s time for the talk. Even without the male equivalent of American Girl books, I’m sure Papa Bear will find a way to broach this awkward subject. And if he doesn’t, there’s always a weekend in the city and a night at New York Dolls.
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