Monday, February 4, 2008

Birds and the Bees and the Flowers and the Trees

About six months back, Mr. Hobbitfeet and I decided we should have a talk with Boy about the facts of life. He's in fifth grade after all and I got that lesson at school from my teacher and a priest (as did the rest of my grade) in fifth grade; however, their particular lesson led me to believe (all the way into high school) that it doesn't matter if a boy is circumcised or not because the bit they circumcise falls off the first time they pee. I found out truth in high school when I overheard some of my guy friends talking about who was and wasn't in the group and divulged my ignorance by saying "I thought it doesn't matter anyway. . ." and was laughed at for several minutes.
Anyhow we started our conversation back then by simply telling him about puberty (for him) and by telling him if he had questions he could ask us. That was the end of it. He seemed okay, we seemed okay and everything seemed to have gone well; but I knew it the back of my head it wasn't over because we hadn't had "the talk" and I knew, that since Boy turns beet-red if you just say the word "naked," he would never ask us a thing.
I thought Mr. Hobbitfeet should talk to him, and he kept saying he would but as I've said it's been six months. So I decided to muster up the courage and try the talk again. Boy's very scientifically minded so I figured he had a rudimentary idea anyway. We had given him a very basic book when I was pregnant with Girl, but that was a mostly "Babies grow in a woman's tummy," kind of thing appropriate for a six-year-old.
This time the talk went really not well. Boy kept sinking lower and lower into his chair and I am pretty sure he tuned me out. Finally I asked if he would rather I bought him a book and that we talk after he read it. He said yes and we both felt a lot better. So there it is, as hard as I tried to be as open and honest with my child throughout his life, I still failed miserably at the sex talk.
Some positive things came out of it though. He admitted to me that some of his friends had picked on him a bit when they found out that F.W. and I weren't married when we had him. I didn't think that kind of thing happened anymore as I know so many people in that situation. I did forget, however, that we live in a ueber-Christian town and he had already crossed words with a friend who attends church twice a week because we don't go too often. We had already had a discussion with him about religion and how different people feel about their beliefs so we were able to discuss it all very easily.
Don't ask me why discussing a relationship that ended badly with my son in a way that would not make him hate his biological father was easier for me than discussing the very basics of human reproduction, but it was. On the whole, I think he feels better about the whole thing and will know how to respond to his friends in the future. He also was a lot more cuddly than he's been in a while. I had put off his recent reluctance to hug as much to adolescence, but clearly he had some issues that needed working out. No matter how many times I tell him he can ask me anything, it seems I need to broach a topic on my own before he'll mention it. I better start honing my mind-reading skills.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

He's still my little baby that used to bounce and dance around to Sugar, Sugar by The Archies!