|
Thursday, 18 January 2007 |
As young girl I was not given the information or attitudes about sexuality that I have chosen to offer my sons. I would not really expect my parents to have done this. The only parenting manual around in the 1950s was Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care. It was pretty standard for parents to make it up as they went along or perhaps consult their own parents.
And, I was an only child, so I did not get the benefit of an older sibling passing along some "sage" knowledge. So, I tried to find it in books — looking up words in the dictionary, scanning the index of any book that might have anything about body parts, and I looked at National Geographic (for information, not to get aroused) — just to figure it all out. And, I learned about sex in the most embarrassing way I can think of — hanging around other kids and trying to absorb what they were saying without looking like I was. I remember when I heard the word "screwing" and that I did not know what it meant — and it felt like I was the only one in the group of six kids who didn't.
So, here I am, several decades later, raising my sons. The book, It's Perfectly Natural by Robie Harris, gets digested in several-page bites every so often by my sons when the right mood is in the air — that feeling of some teachable moments. When we're not actively reading it, the book's still on the shelf in their room — in case they're in the mood to learn more when we're not around.
My husband and I try to include the clinically accurate terms for body parts, but I also have introduced and tolerated some common, generally not offensive, street language here and there. So, the kids might say that they need to go to the bathroom, have a bowel movement, or need to go poop. All are fine with my husband and me.
So, when we're discussing their bodies, the words "penis" or "genitals" tend to be used. And once in a while, one of them reverts to "my pee pee" or "my weiner" (one the oldest picked up on the playground). I don't make great efforts to weed out these last two because they will hear many more slang terms for "penis" before long.
The other day, however, I realized that there was still some work to be done on sexual vocabulary with my youngest (the four-year old). We were rocking in the rocking chair near bedtime. He was all zipped up in his toasty one-piece jammies with the attached feet. Suddenly he unzipped the big long zipper down past his penis and reached in and started to scratch his genitals. I said, "Looks like you really needed to scratch." He replied, "Yes, I have an itch on my generosity."
I thought to myself, "I'll teach him how to say 'genitals' again some other time." And smiling, also thought, "May he always have such a positive association with his genitals and may his partner(s) see it similarly."
Related Topics:
Technorati Tags: sexuality, parenting, sex education |
