By Katherine R. Elder

One fateful Sunday on the way home from church, I asked my mom why the mumps were bad. To my 9-year-old brain’s knowledge, they just made your face swell and made you look like you were playing that disgusting “Chubby Bunny” game. Well, for those of us too young to have lived before the MMR shot became a standard routine for school admissions, one of the negative effects of this disease is that it can lead to an inflammation of the testicles that can, on occasion, lead to male sterility. My mom’s simple answer to my query was, “Because, if a man gets them, he may not be able to have babies.”

“But, Mom, men don’t have babies – women do.”

Upon arriving home, my mom, always the medical professional, pulled out her nursing textbooks to explain way too much at one time (menstrual cycles and sperm and eggs, oh my). To make matters worse, when we went to the evening service that night, she proudly told her friends, with me by her side, about my new found knowledge. This particular day resulted in my fear of all things puberty and sex-related.

So on to my suggestions from my own experience and what I’ve heard and read from other people:

  • Like many other things in life, keep it simple, stupid (KISS). It even has a handy, topic-appropriate acronym!

When your child asks a basic question, don’t be scared of the answer. Just because you know the ultimate answer to the inevitable question, “Where do babies come from?” doesn’t mean your 4-year-old is looking to know, or needs to know, the details of how Mommy and Daddy spend some of their limited alone time. If they ask this question, start with something basic like, “Their mommy’s tummy.” If they ask how they got there, which will probably be at a later time, say something like, “A little piece of the daddy met up with a little piece of the mommy and made a baby.” Just answer the question being asked without providing more information than they want to know. If your child is asking the question, s/he is probably ready for the answer, but that doesn’t mean you have to elaborate.

  • Act like you’re comfortable and like it’s an ordinary conversation.

Food, water, oxygen, and sex are the cornerstones of animal life. Granted, sex doesn’t physically keep you alive, but it most likely created you (unless, of course, you were conceived by IUI, IVF, or immaculate conception). Are you uncomfortable discussing eating with your child? It’s our own societal hang-ups that make sex such a difficult topic. Besides, do you really want little Billy or Susie on the playground to be your child’s first teacher of sexuality?

  • Talk to your kids before it becomes an issue.

Kids go through puberty at different ages and at an earlier age than in the past. The younger your child or his/her peers begin this process, the younger they should be informed of what’s going on. Imagine if you had no idea why your underwear was bloody when you started your first period. When my breasts started developing, I was convinced I had cancer. Granted, I was a bit of a weird kid, but still….

Also, some kids are having sex at astonishingly young ages. Don’t wait to discuss the birds and the bees until after some of your child’s peers are already engaged in sexual activities and told your confused kids about their experiences.

  • Don’t introduce sex and puberty in the same conversation.

It’s too much mind-blowing information at the same time. When you discuss puberty, you may not be able to avoid discussing how menstruation and ejaculation pertain to pregnancy, but that doesn’t mean that all this grown-up information has to come at once.

  • When talking to your kids about sex, discuss more than intercourse.

When children become teenagers, they get many conflicting messages about sexuality. Parents and religious organizations are often telling them to abstain, while peers and the media are telling them to “go, go, go.” Then there are the ways teenagers figure out to be sexual without having intercourse through activities such as oral and anal sex. Bill Clinton is far from the only person with the attitude that oral sex isn’t sex, and there’s a good chance your child could share that attitude. Sex play other than intercourse may not cause pregnancy, but it can still transmit sexually transmitted infections.

  • Discuss your values while realizing that your children have minds of their own.

If you believe that people should wait until they’re married to engage in sexual activity, of course you should communicate that with your children. Just remember that teenagers are rather known for having minds of their own, exercising their free will, and occasionally being rebellious. Discuss things like condom use with your children as well as emphasizing abstinence. You may not like the idea of them having sex, but do you like the idea of them coming home with an STI that could possibly be incurable, fatal, or cause infertility?

As some food for thought, a Columbia University study published in 2004 showed that 88% of teenagers who had pledged to abstain from sexual activity until marriage broke their pledge. Arm your children with all the knowledge you can to prevent them from succumbing to peer pressure and allow them to know what’s going on with their bodies in the midst of their screaming hormones.

Study Source: Study Finds That Teenage Virginity Pledges Are Rarely Kept.

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