The Birds and The Bees........

On the news this morning they were saying that in general parents are too embarrassed to talk to their kids about it!

Who told you about it?

At what age?

If your parents did, did they tell you all about it or just skim over the subject?

Were/are you embarrassed to talk about it with your parents?

For me I found out from friends, and a brief explanation in school on rats!

Even when I started my period my mum didn't explain what it was all about, I was handed pads and told put these on!

Nor was I ever taken and measured for a bra!

I had to find all these things out for myself........thank goodness for friends

I was 9. I asked my mom where babies came from. She told me, even if she sugar coated it a bit.

"well, honey the man's snake goes into the woman's hole and something comes out of the man's snake that makes a woman pregnant."

 

I learnt about periods and a general overview of baby making  at school when I was about 11 when we started middle school and then the school taught everything else when we were 12.

Recently I was talking to my mum and she said how she couldn't remember how she gave me the sex talk. I looked at her blankly and just said "you didn't".

I don’t remember how I learnt about it but my mom was always very open, if we had a question she’d answer honestly without TMI, I’m 26 now and I don’t have a problem talking about sex or any body related issues so I guess she did well!

 

I am worried about my 9 year old cousin at the moment, she is going to hit puberty within the next 12 months, she’s starting to fill out and her mom (my aunt) is very shy about these things.  My cousin (RB) found tampons in the bathroom, asked what they were and was told “they’re for mom, you don’t need them” end of discussion.

 

My aunt knows that she’s going to have to talk to RB but has no idea how to do it, I wouldn’t mind stepping in but I do think that it’s the parent place.

I learned about reproduction when I was 10 from my best friend's mother when we both asked her.  She gave the best explanation she knew how, and when we were confused, she referred us to a bunch of very good books geared towards pre-teens - she was a librarian, so she knew the exact books, and even helped us find anatomy books when we asked.

It never occurred to my mom or dad to initiate the "talk."

I really don't remember my mom telling me anything...I knew what periods were but not sure I learned....I think she thinks she told me, but I don't think she did.

I am really open with my kids though

I learned when I was 8 or 9 at a friend's house. Her parents had bought her an illustrated very simple book geared toward younger children. There was a stork carrying a bundle on the cover.

I asked my dad what a period is when I was 9 or 10. He said "A period is a kind of punctuation that goes at the end of a sentence to show that it is complete and you're ready for the next sentence to start."

"No, it has to be something different. It happens just to girls and it's not about writing." (I showed him the novel I was reading about girls looking forward to menstruating)

"Well. Sometimes, on occasion, about once a month, women have this thing. Blood and other stuff come from.... go ask your mother."

Parents never said a word about it... I lost my virginity at a young age so I guess I never really cared to ask.  I'm pretty sure I learned about the birds and the bees when I stumbled across porn when I was in middle school... I remember being curious because it was around 6th grade that some 8th graders on my bus got caught biscuit making.

I think I learned in school about periods waaay before I had mine, and sex I don't remember, probably from kids at school.

One day, when I was about 7 or 8 I think, I was with my mom in the car, and she was listening to talk radio.  Somehow, the topic of sex came up, and I asked her what they were talking about.  She said, "That's not a subject for the car, but we're almost home.  When we get home, we'll talk about it."  And we did.  In detail.  My mom has never been a clandestine or embarrassed type or person.  :-)

In most schools they take the girls aside in 5th grade and tell them about periods...the take the boys aside and tell them about wet dreams and give them deoderant.

our tax dollars at work :-)

Original Post by yountsmonster:

...I remember being curious because it was around 6th grade that some 8th graders on my bus got caught biscuit making.

 Ok. I hope I'm not the only one with this question. Wtf is biscuit making?

Anywho, my mom was/is a very open person. I asked when I was little (like 5) where babys come from and she gave me a very generalized overview with little detail. I asked again when I was 8 or 9 and she explained in more detail and had me watch a video afterwards geared toward my age group. Any other questions I had as I got older, she always answered honestly. She forewarned me about menstruating and everything else that was going to happen. She's always been good at explaining things.

I asked my mom about Santa when I was 9. She answered honestly, I accused her of lying to me for my entire life (I was neurotic, haha). Then I asked her about babies, thinking she'd traumatized me enough for one evening, she told me that they are a gift from heaven to people who are ready for one. I started crying again and yelled "YOU'RE LYING AGAIN! SARAH TOLD ME YOU HAVE TO HAVE SEX TO HAVE A BABY."

Then she asked me if I knew what sex was... No, I did not. So she explained it very technically and I vowed to myself that I would never, ever do it haha.

But she was very open with me and has been since. I would go to her for any question I had when I was younger and it's never a taboo topic (without, of course, giving TMI).

I lived in Montana until I was 9 and apparently there was an epdemic there with the elementary school girls getting pregnant, so we had sex ed in the THIRD GRADE!!!  My parents got us out of there when I was in the 5th grade (9) and that is when I got my special friend.  Mom was out of town, so when I told my Dad, he just dialed the phone and said talk to your mother.  But most of what I learned I learned at public school. 

My parents never said anything. My mom said if I had questions I could ask her (which I never felt comfortable doing) but we had sex ed fairly young... like 6th grade.

I believe that's true :P I'm 14 but my mom never gave me that talk. They started sex ed classes in third grade here, but I didn't take it until 4th. (They really didn't talk about sex though) I just found out everything on my own. Now my mom and I are a bit more comfortable talking, but still there is some tension.

Although I am worried about my 11 year old brother, who just the other day something came up in conversation, and he asked "Wait...Girls don't use the bathroom standing up?" He's clueless.

My parents didn't EVER talk about this.  I remember looking up the F word in the dictionary because I heard it from school.  From there I looked up intercourse, and on it went that day - me and the dictionary.  Sex was a taboo subject in our home.  And like you, anndjoe, my mom never told me about my periods!  LOL, I FREAKED OUT when I first saw blood.  Thought I was dying or something.  Then mom gave me those pads with the belt thing you attached them to - man was I ever glad when my friends introduced me to adhesive pads and tampons.

I vowed I do differently with my son.  I have an 18 year old.  And I always talked to him about everything.  I swear, to this day, we have an open communication line because I never refused to answer a question of his.  When he asked, no matter what age, and no matter what it was about, I told him the truth.  The way I figured it is if he's asking about it he must have heard it somewhere and THEN was when he was open to what I had to say about it.

Funny story here, I do remember one time.......he was in pee-wee football and the coach was a bad ass and kept telling the kids to quit "jacking off".  My son came home and asked what that meant.  I told him it meant messing around.  He said, "No, what does jacking off really mean".  I got all red in the face and said he would have to ask his dad (his dad and I have been divorced since he was one), he walked away, stopped in the hall, came back to where I was sitting and said, "You know, that's the first time you've not answered a question I had about something".  I sighed and said, "Sit down".  That was probably the hardest convesation I've ever had with him about sexual things.  At the end, all he said was, "Eww".  I laughed, because I knew it would not be too many more years and he wouldn't be thinking it was "ewww", lol!

But seriously, my folks never ever talked about this stuff - really nothing at all.  I did not learn good communication skills from them, that's for sure.  All I can hope is to do better with my own child.

Age 5 - My mom left her tampons on the back of the toilet and I asked her what they were for.  She sat me down and explained that when a girl reached a certain age, she would start bleeding once a month.  I heard blood and went mental and cried for the next 3 hours.  She told me it wasn't painful (liar!), but in my young mind blood equaled pain.  Anyway, she wasn't too motivated to go on with the details while I was sobbing.  Haha.

Age 9 - Heard a male classmate tell another male classmate that a man would sometimes stick his "thing" in a woman and "pee" inside her.  I decided this was a stupid, dirty joke and dismissed it from my mind.

Age 11 - I was always a voracious reader, so my mom took me to the library, checked out a bunch of pre-teen books about sex, gave them to me, and told me to ask if I had any questions.

Age 12 - Was relieved to begin menstruating.  While having an ordinary swim at the beach with my male cousin, he checked to make sure someone had told me about sex.  I said yes.  Then he told me not to trust guys.

Age 13 - Sex ed.  For every night for a year after that, I prayed that someone would invent something to replace the speculum because OUCH that did not sound fun.

Age 17 - Caught making out with boyfriend.  Parents sat me down and FINALLY told me about the emotional factor involved in sex.

Age 19 - Lost virginity and decided making out was much more fun.

Original Post by yountsmonster:

...I remember being curious because it was around 6th grade that some 8th graders on my bus got caught biscuit making.

 Ok. I hope I'm not the only one with this question. Wtf is biscuit making?

Hahaha... it is a metaphor used on the radio a lot here to avoid teaching little kids who might be listening bad words.

Making biscuits: intercourse

Making brownies: the other kind of intercourse... aka "playin' in the mud"

i have learned soooo much in this thread

thanks andy!

Who told you about it? My parents.

At what age? No clue. I knew mostly what it was about (at least the basic mechanics) before I was 9, probably as young as 6.

If your parents did, did they tell you all about it or just skim over the subject? They told me about the body parts interacting, but there's really a lot about sex that a kid my age couldn't understand. I filled in the blanks via the internet :P

Were/are you embarrassed to talk about it with your parents? Yeah, until I was about 16. I didn't really get comfortable until after I started having sex when I was 19 (a year and a half ago). Now it's pretty normal.