Last week, the budding relationship between mom and me almost derailed when a certain topic came up in our phone conversation: sex...and whether my younger brother was having it.
[sidenote: ew?]
Anyway, I've always accused her of being way more liberal with my brother (a boy) than she is with my sister and me (we're girls, by the way). When she approaches him about it, she showers him with condoms and words of caution (I might be exaggerating here). When she found my birth control pills last year she flipped her lid and went ballistic (definitely not exaggerating here).
Our "sex talks" (if you could even call it that) were usually something along the lines of:
Mom: If you have sex you'll get AIDS and die.
Me: Thanks...
The only contraception she ever gave me was straight up fear. Sex was always something bad, something a proper young lady shouldn't even be thinking about before marriage. It was such a taboo subject that it was never something we could talk freely about. I remember it took days before I was able to give her my permission slip for sex ed class in junior high. And we never talked about it again.
Kind of sad if you think about it. Maybe that old school mentality that prevails in my culture is the reason why so many young girls end up pregnant. They can't talk about these things with their own parents and so are forced to figure things out on their own. Or worse: from their just-as-clueless classmates.
So when she found those pills, yeah, I thought I was going to wake up dead the next morning. But it was also a huge relief; I was finally free. I didn't need to keep trying to fit into her mold of what makes a "good girl."
So, how'd your parents talk to you about the birds and the bees (if at all)? And parents, how do/will you approach your kids about it?
Image: my-zeotrope.blogspot.com
So, how'd your parents talk to you about the birds and the bees (if at all)? And parents, how do/will you approach your kids about it?
Image: my-zeotrope.blogspot.com