For the 40-and-over crowd: How did your parent(s) teach you about the

[NewWaveChick1981]

bird and the bees? Did they tell you in person, give you books and let you figure it out, or use a different method? My mother tried telling my sister and me about it one night before she tucked us in, and I think I was about 8 (sis would have been 7). She was nervous but did an OK job explaining the basics. When I was 10, she got us the Life Cycle Library, which was actually a very hip, educated, liberal thing to do on her part (would have been around 1973). I read those books from cover to cover, and my basic knowledge about sex came from them. They were thorough, nonjudgmental, and covered everything, including dating and all the methods of birth control available up to that point. My sister and brother read them too when Mom thought they were old enough (age 10 seemed to be that age).

I'm grateful to Mom for doing things that way. I did not grow up repressed or ignorant, which means a lot. :) When I think about how backward a lot of current thinking is about sex education, it makes me shudder.

[skygazer]

1. Mine didn't

I learned about menstruation at girl scouts and I learned about sex from having a lot of breeding animals around and judicious use of the dictionary.

I wasn't repressed but I sure as hell was ignorant.

[NewWaveChick1981]

3. Wow...

I'm glad the Girl Scouts were around. When I got my first period (I was 11), I knew exactly what it was and went home and told my mother. She bought me my first box of pads, and she told me that I was entering puberty. :)

[skygazer]

11. My mom didn't even know for about six months

She found a pair of soiled underwear in the laundry and got up her nerve to ask me if I'd gotten my period. I said yes. She asked how long I'd had it - I said about six months. She said, "You've been bleeding for six months!?"

I said, "No, ma, every month for six months." I had three older sisters - it was easy enough to find supplies in our house.

My mom was excruciatingly embarassed about it all. Her mom had told her nothing. I found out later that she freaked when she first got her period and all her mother told her was, "It will happen every month." She thought she was dying or something.

[WCGreen]

2. My dad came into the bedroom one night....

All jaked up on cheap liquor....

Asked my brother and I if we knew what rubbers were....

When we nodded yes and he replied...

Good, use 'em....

Unfortunately, we thought he was talking about the rubbers you put over your shoes when it rains...

[NewWaveChick1981]

5. Geez...

:hug: I'm sorry that happened.

[WCGreen]

10. Good thing we had some bitchin' looking baby sitters....

Who filled in the details when I was in third grade and my brother was in fifth....

[NewWaveChick1981]

28. LOL!

:rofl: My husband has some very similar fond memories of babysitters... :rofl:

[WCGreen]

34. Those words and images sustained me well into my teens....

[thefool_wa]

4. Open Communication

We learned basics in 4th grade sex-ed then my mom had an open-book policy when it came to questions about sex, sexuality and relationships. My dad was of almost no use in these areas.

I can remember several discussions with me and my brothers wherein she probably wished she didn't encourage this openness, but overall it gave my brothers and I a healthy POV on sex.

on edit: oops, I'm not over 40 :(

[NewWaveChick1981]

8. Cheers for your mom!

She seems to have been a positive influence! :hi:

[thefool_wa]

12. Very...

I love my mom alot.

on edit: in all honesty though, the best most detailed info I got was from a 10th grade elective class called "Child Development" - It was a full trimester of sex ed, pregnancy ed, and early childhood care. I credit that class for me not becomming a teenage parent.

[L A Woman]

6. I am 38 but I am answering, anyway!

My mother told me everything straight out, in detail. She put the fear of God in me about getting pregnant and explained to me how my life would be over if it happened. She peppered her explanations with stories about how she and my father were listening to the Rolling Stones when they conceived me and how she had sex with another girl when she was in high school.

My mother is the Queen of Too Much Information.

[NewWaveChick1981]

16. Better TMI than not enough, IMO.

:hug: Probably more than you ever wanted to know, but I'm glad she gave you enough information otherwise. :applause:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

7. They basically did not. Picked up info/misinformation here and there.

[NewWaveChick1981]

17. Seems to be the typical experience from our age group.

I have friends that learned from me---they asked me, and I told them what the books said. One of my friends said, "What books?" I let her borrow them, and that's how she learned.

[Delphinus]

44. Ooh, yeah.

Sixth grade (don't recall the age I was now) and I started hearing from friends what sex was all about.

When I finally asked my mom about it, she was surprised I didn't know! WTF? Like where would I have learned it if you didn't tell me? She didn't do a very good job explaining it anyway. I did much better with my son - I explained it to him and to his friends - wanted them to know about birth control too.

[lizziegrace]

9. None here from our parents

sex ed in school? Not in the south. I had a twin sister and one a grade behind us. We pretty much figured it all between the three of us, but damn we were still so naive. :(

[NewWaveChick1981]

18. Wow. I grew up in Atlanta, and our school system had

sex ed in sixth grade. By the time we got to it, I already had my facts straight. :hug: Sorry about that.

[lizziegrace]

22. Now wait a minute. Let me think about this...

We were in Cincinnati for all of elementary school, Dallas for Jr High and Memphis for HS.

And no, I don't remember sex ed ever being taught. :shrug:

and I'm *cough* 45 now.

[Nicole]

47. You missed it by moving

I bet the kids in Dallas were learning it in the 6th grade while you were in Ohio.

I took it twice because I moved to a new state for Jr. High. I had sex ed in 6th grade in California & 7th grade in Oklahoma. If those moves were reversed, I would have missed it too.

[lizziegrace]

50. I think you're right

You got it twice. Poor soul! :hug:

[Nicole]

52. Like once wasn't enough

:rofl:

:pals:

[querelle]

13. My Mom Told Me All About It

When I was about 8 years old. She held nothing back at all, but you must understand that my parents are European. It was a relief to know that all of the groaning that I heard coming from my parents room was not negative. I truly believed that my Dad was hurting my Mom when I heard that and it made me very angry towards my Dad. What a relief to find out that the moans were not from pain, but from pleasure.

Q

[NewWaveChick1981]

20. Good for your mom!

I'm so glad she told you all about it and that she explained what was happening. :hi:

[querelle]

30. Hey!

You are still the sexiest presence on DU. If only you were a guy...............

Q

[NewWaveChick1981]

32. OMG, Q!

:blush: You sweet thing... If I were a gay man, I'd be all over you... :evilgrin: I'll just settle for being a bi female. :P Thank you!

[Haole Girl]

14. Your mother did great with you!

My mother, bless her soul, simply told me, "Sex is very special, otherwise it wouldn't be the way God made children." That's as close as we got to sex-ed from Mom! Thankfully, my 5th grade health class had very informative films and books! I hope schools will be allowed to teach sex education with the neo-cons we have today. :shrug:

[NewWaveChick1981]

23. Thanks, KC2!

I think a lot of parents from that generation were too embarrassed to talk about it much. Mom didn't do a whole lot of talking, but when the books didn't explain something, I asked (that only happened twice). She gave me a straight answer, which I totally appreciated.

:hug:

[ForrestGump]

15. I found out on DU

But I had a bit of a headstart via my mother showing me a book (when I was maybe nine or ten) and by my school showing, after school (for parents and children) a movie about it all when I was a year or three older. I read a lot so, by then, I pretty much had a good idea of the actual biology, though it'd be a while before I saw -- courtesy of a magazine -- what was actually lurking down there on a woman. From that film, I mostly remember shots of naked teenaged girls cavorting in a pool. :D

This was not in the United States.

[NewWaveChick1981]

24. Oh, OK then...

At least you had some idea. There are a lot of kids actually having sex now with no sex education other than their ignorant friends and the Net. :scared: Thank you, fundies... :sarcasm:

[ForrestGump]

37. Well, by the time I actually DID it

I knew all about it. All of it.

I got a late start. :cry:

[Blue_In_AK]

19. When my (step)mother got pregnant

when I was 10, she told me about it - all clinical, of course, since she was a nurse.

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. I'm glad she was so up-front...

Nurses usually are. :) :hug:

[AlCzervik]

21. well i'm almost the 40 crowd and this is what i got

From my mother--"Good girls don't do that" from my father--"Don't come home pregnant" and from my now 86 year old Nana a copy of "Our bodies ourselves" and a Q & A with her, thank goodness for Nana.

[NewWaveChick1981]

26. Hooray for Nana!

She sounds like a cool grandmother! :) I'm glad she helped you.

[JitterbugPerfume]

27. I learned about that stuff from my friends

like any self respecting kid in the late 40s , early 50s

man, could I tell you a bunch of misinformation :wtf: :hurts:

[NewWaveChick1981]

29. That seems to be the case with a lot of people who grew up then.

I'm sorry. :hug:

[Gormy Cuss]

31. By signing the permission slip for public school sex ed classes.

The mechanics were explained by the teachers. The morals, by my parents.

[NewWaveChick1981]

33. Could've been worse.

:hi: At least you got the mechanics in school. Neocons are trying to prevent even that.

:hug:

[Gormy Cuss]

35. I actually think the responsibility split was right.

Science in school, religion and morality at home. It was easier to ask questions of teachers who were there specifically to talk about sexuality than it was to deal with your parents who struggled to find the words to describe it, since they were of a generation where it was not discussed at all. I had some classmates whose parents wouldn't let them participate in sex ed because of their religious beliefs. They were also parents who didn't discuss it at home. Big mistake, because their kids ended up relying on peers to tell them what was what.

[Delphinus]

46. That's another wonderful thing about

the public schools - they at least teach what sex is. Catholic schools have a whole different philosophy - or at least they did. I was in my mid-thirties before I knew that birds actually "did it"!! Way different story than I learned in Catholic grade school.

[CBHagman]

114. I have to stand up for the Catholic Church here.

In my parochial school (this would have been in the mid- to late '60s and early 1970) they did indeed teach sex education, mostly by means of one of those harmless and vague Disney films and a few rather clinical booklets. I really learned more about Moses and Exodus and even Judaism at Catholic school than I did about human sexuality, but maybe that's as it should be. ;-)

My mother and father were unusual in that they did make an effort to explain things to us, but by the time I started asking Mom the right questions, I had already picked up some misinformation. And I consider myself as having a fairly sheltered childhood, so I can only imagine what other people might have been hearing at the same age.

By high school (public school this time), we had pretty frank biology and health classes, with lots of information on contraception. It didn't hurt that I had access to books and magazines, and of course what we then called "VD" was the subject of a television special (!), which I'm sure other DUers watched as raptly as I did.

I am appalled that politicians and others are trying to suggest that only discussing failure rates for condoms is somehow going to make the youth of America stick to holding hands and the goodnight kiss. Our culture is so heavily charged, sexually speaking, and yet we have this insane mind-set about discussing the realities of the body and reproduction. Ignorance is not innocence.

Besides, let's not forget that even Nancy Reagan didn't "just say no." :evilgrin:

[qnr]

36. They didn't. To be fair though, I was in foster homes, and a real

monster - never once stayed in one for more than six months. So they all probably figured one of the other families had done it.

[NewWaveChick1981]

55. Wow...I'm sorry.

:hug:

[qnr]

65. Thanks, but actually, I kind of liked it, I had literally thousands of

interesting experiences that most people I know didn't have :) :hug:

[SmokingJacket]

38. I'm almost 40... and was shocked to discover that I had a

vagina when I was about 11. Yipes!!

Needless to say, my mother gave me the bare bones, if that. She also said if I ever touched myself down there, I'd never get to have babies -- I'd break the eggs!

Somehow I figured it all out, thanks to Judy Blume et al.

[NewWaveChick1981]

56. Break the eggs? What were you, a chicken?

OMG, I'm sorry you had that kind of explanation. :hug: Thank goodness for Judy Blume.

[catzies]

39. They didn't which is why I got knocked up in my sr. yr. of high school

Me: "Mom, why didn't you think I'd be having sex and get me birth control?"

Mom: "Because I thought you were smarter than that."

Me: "Mom, you know all teenagers are stupid!"

Mom: "Yeah, I was stupid."

Me: "And that's why I was a mom at 17 and you were a grandmother at 40."

[NewWaveChick1981]

57. Yikes!

:hug:

[Critters2]

40. We saw a film at school

"It's Wonderful Being a Girl". No shit. My mom sat me down the night before and did a little intro stuff, but the film really broke the news. The thing I most remember, tho, is that it said you should wear makeup during your period, so people didn't know you weren't feeling well. I was in 4th grade. They sent a booklet home, and my mom and I read through it together.

There are still some things I'm not clear about :)

[NewWaveChick1981]

58. You should wear makeup during your period...

I had never heard that before. :yoiks: I'll bet the script was written by a guy. :eyes: I'm glad they at least had the pamphlet and you and your mom talked about it.

[Critters2]

80. OMG!! I just found it on youtube!!!

Part of it, anyway. I had forgotten about the lie that cramps "pass rather quickly".

Take a look...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3__DUte2hI

[NewWaveChick1981]

88. ROFLMAO!

:rofl: Definitely written by guys. OMG... :P

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

131. Yup & that's why I was doubled over until the percs kicked in last night.

Those cramps sure passed rather quickly. It only took two days of extreme pain...totally unnecessary since I only get a 3 day period.

BTW, the PSAs never really changed. When I was in middle school, we had to watch a video about a friendly joint named "Mary Jane" who sat on a park bench and told us how bad she was for us. Unfortunately, I missed out on a wonderful cartoon about "Captain Condom" by being a year too young. Apparently, Capt. Condom was deemed too controversial or something.

[greatauntoftriplets]

41. Senior year in a Catholic high school, we had "Marriage Talks"

They brought in a priest, a Catholic obstretrician (note NOT OB/GYN) and a married couple with what seemed to be dozens of children in to tell us about the wonders of endless pregnancy. Because we had all figured that one out AGES ago (and not from our parents...one friend read Gray's Anatomy) we had difficulty not cracking up at the absurdity of the whole exercise. On the other hand, it did not involve a pop quiz.

[NewWaveChick1981]

59. I've heard similar things from friends who went to Catholic

high schools, extolling the virtues of having scores of children. :yoiks: I'm glad you and your friends figured things out on your own!

[greatauntoftriplets]

102. Yes, except that the friend who thought she knew it all...

back in grade school got it wrong. Supposedly she knew all because her mother was having a change-of-life baby. She did explain a certain practice, but not the one that one does to have kids...exactly. A form of foreplay. Difficult to explain here and not get your thread locked. O8)

High school was in the 1960s...hopefully Catholic schools have evolved since then.

[Control-Z]

42. My father didn't say a word

to me other than to accuse me of being a slut before I was old enough to even know what a slut was. I didn't have a mom so I picked up all my knowledge from the gutter and from my sister who got her info from a different gutter.

[NewWaveChick1981]

60. Geez. I'm sorry.

:hug: I wish it had been different for you and your sis.

[Control-Z]

110. It's okay

I understand now why he wasn't able to communicate with me and he would have had to have been an entirely differrent man for me to have been receptive to him anyway.

Years later my mom found a way to come back and teach me some invaluable lessons.

[Guava Jelly]

112. Hello DancingAlone how are you?

nice to see you posting :)

[Control-Z]

121. Hey GoPsUx!

I'm good, thank you. I've talked to some amazing people this weekend, present company included. How are you?

[Guava Jelly]

129. 2:44 am kansas time

I should be a sleep
:)

[Control-Z]

143. I hope you got some

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: zzzzzzz SLEEP

[hyphenate]

43. I honestly can't remember

much of it, but an uncle helped out. The only consequence I recall after some of the information that came through was that I stared at a lot of male crotches on TV for a long time! :rofl:

[NewWaveChick1981]

61. LOL!

:rofl: Well, that happens... :P

[rosesaylavee]

45. Was watching an episode of Marcus Welby MD

and there was a young unmarried girl who was going to have a baby. I was about 11 and asked out loud why g*d was so mean to give that girl a baby before she was married and ready to have one?

My mom walked me out to the porch swing to tell me about it ... and I remember thinking it sounded like an awful thing to do with someone. :)

I learned how not to discuss it with my own child!

[NewWaveChick1981]

62. One of the two questions I asked my mother was, "How does

a woman get pregnant if she is not married?" This was during the talk when I was 8. My mother just said, "You'd better NOT! It happens the same way, but it's immoral." End of story. It clicked that the process was the same, even though I was 8. :P

[rosesaylavee]

70. You were way ahead of me at 8 ...

I just didn't put it together for a few more years after our little talk!

[Arugula Latte]

48. I don't recall them saying much, but

I do remember a book called "Where Did I Come From?" with cartoon pictures of a man and a woman doin' it under the sheets.

[NewWaveChick1981]

66. I'm glad you at least had something like that.

I'll bet the cartoon was a hoot, too! :P

[Maestro]

49. I'm 38, do I count?

Anyhow, my dad tried but couldn't do it. I'm not sure why. I learned everything the hard way.

[Breeze54]

67. I'll bet you did!!

yuck, yuck, yuck! ;)

[NewWaveChick1981]

68. Yeah, you count...

:hi: Sorry your experience wasn't all that. :hug:

[Maestro]

115. Actually it wasn't all that bad

but there were a few BIG surprises for me as a teenager. ;)

[Nicole]

51. Pretty much the same as you

I was told the basics & then given books to fill in the gaps. By the time I had sex ed class at school, I didn't learn much more. I did learn which girls parents hadn't taught them anything, they were the red faced & giggling girls. :rofl:

[NewWaveChick1981]

54. I'm glad you had a similar experience!

:hug: It made a big difference in my outlook and in how my teen years turned out. And you're exactly right---the giggly, red-faced girls were the ones without information. :P

The funny thing is, when my family moved from GA to NC, I got sex ed all over again. After sixth grade, where I had my first round, we moved to NC, and NC taught it in seventh-grade health classes. They segregated us (males in one room, females in the other), and coaches gave us the rundown. :P The female coach that taught us was very concise and answered questions very well; from what the guys said, the male coach was nervous and didn't answer questions at all. :P When I got to 10th grade biology class, we had another sex ed lesson, but mainly from the biological standpoint. If I didn't get it by then, I never would. :rofl:

[Nicole]

63. OMG! We had more similiar experiences!

Check my post here, replying to LizzieGrace about her missing sex ed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=5528366&mesg_id=5528674

I had it twice too, after moving to a different state, in 6th & 7th grade.. Too funny. :rofl:

[NewWaveChick1981]

64. Geez! I hadn't seen that one yet...

:rofl: I'll bet we were the sex-educatedst students around... :P No wonder we turned out liberal... :rofl:

[Nicole]

77. I think you're on to something

We should be sex-eding all the kids twice! More liberals & more sex. What's not to like about that? :evilgrin:

[NewWaveChick1981]

79. Not one thing...

:evilgrin: The more you know.... :P

That would definitely increase the number of liberals here. Hmmmmm.....

[Nicole]

84. NewWaveChick for President

Platform: Increasing the number of liberals. :toast:

It's a dirty job but someone has to do it. :rofl:

[NewWaveChick1981]

86. I'm up for that!

:rofl: Education equals power. What's not to like about a sex ed job? :P

Great suggestion! :hi:

[XemaSab]

107. I had too much sex ed in school

Too much sex ed = no fun.

[Breeze54]

53. er...I got slapped across the face, at the age of 8, for saying

the word......(drumroll...) pregnant!

Oh the horrors!!!! :rofl: This was in the early 60's....
My neighbors, who were 20 yrs or more older than my parents, explained what it meant!
But that was the way it was back then. I did take biology in grade school and remember
a lesson about reproduction. My oldest sister sort of filled in the blanks, as I got older.
My husband did the rest! ;)

[NewWaveChick1981]

69. That was during the time the word "pregnant" was banned from

TV too. :P Lucy couldn't tell Ricky she was pregnant---she had to say, "gonna have a baby." And they slept in twin beds, supposedly. :eyes: Glad your neighbors were hip, though, and that you had school and your sister to help. And of course your husband too... :P

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

71. Hell...I'm 23 and my parents were idiots about "the talk."

Basically, I was left with the book, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex* (*but were afraid to ask)". And that pretty much informs you that if you're gay, you're doomed to a horrible unsatisfying life. The closest they ever came to discussing sex with me was when I was about 17. My mom marched into my room and asked, "have you ever kissed a girl?" I just looked at her and she blurted out, "you have! Haven't you?!" and stormed out of my room. Oh yeah, and I had kissed a few girls by 17, so at least she was right.

[NewWaveChick1981]

72. Just goes to show you that even though the times are different, most

parents aren't. :( You pretty much educated yourself, and I'm glad you ignored that part about being doomed if you're gay. :woohoo:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

96. Yeah, oddly enough it was a (very cool) Catholic priest that told my

mom it was okay for me to be gay. They were childhood best friends and she went to him about "my problem." He ended up telling her that it wasn't a problem and that he was gay too (in a relationship with another priest). Unfortunately, he had been able to try lobbying for change within the church and be fairly open until the last few years. Between the pedophelia scandal and the current pope, it's really hard to be a flaming priest.

Yay, Father Stephen!

[NewWaveChick1981]

97. Damn! I'm glad Father Stephen was there to help.

:bounce: Can't ask for better than a gay priest to explain being gay to your mom! :hi:

[KFC]

152. I had a similar experience

It wasn't about being gay. Although Father Carter would be cool with it. My question to him (I am a Christian Protestant - not Catholic) was how are so many people going to hell just because they don't follow the doctrine. He said that being a Christian is the easiset way to Heaven, but not the only way.

Religion is weird.

[xchrom]

73. sex education seminar at the local ymca.

it was ok -- if backwards and full religous guilt.

i was already having sex -- both boys and girls.

i was thirteen.

[NewWaveChick1981]

74. At least it was something!

:hi: Backwards and/or guilt-filled, it was information.

[xchrom]

78. lol -- that's true.

[NV Whino]

75. My mother handed me a book.

Period. Did not discuss it. Did not explain.

Then in 5th grade, they separated the boys and the girls and we were each shown "The Movie." I hadn't a cllue what the movie was about--not having read "The Book."

I think that accounts for, shall we say, my excessive experimentation in the late 60s and early 70s. Pre-AIDS, thank God.

[NewWaveChick1981]

81. Wow.

:hug: I think a lot of parents have trouble with talking about sex, based on their own repressed and/or unenlightened viewpoint. My dad never wanted to talk about it, and mom wasn't an expert but tried her best.

[NV Whino]

100. Based on my parents' approach to sex

it's a wonder I'm even here. Of course, I'm a single child. Guess once was enough.

[Vidar]

123. A little booklet issued, I think, by the PTA, but that was 40 years ago.

[MichiganVote]

146. I got that book too. Never read it. What's the use when you have friends?

[Guava Jelly]

76. I learned from showtime movies

And naughty girls next door

[NewWaveChick1981]

82. ROFL!

Those girls next door....gotta watch out for them... :rofl: Seduced by Showtime? :P

[Guava Jelly]

85. love me some girls next door

:)

[5thGenDemocrat]

83. I don't ever remember being taught about the birds and bees

But I do remember hearing "whumpawhumpawhumpawhumpa (teeheehee)" out of the parent's room as a child. I come from a family of five kids, the first four of whom were born within just under 47 months of one another -- so I think I picked the concept up through osmosis.
Mom was red-headed and blue-eyed and MENSA-smart. Dad (sarge43's brother) was charming and funny as all hell and looked like John Garfield. They always had a dose of the hots for each other -- even after they divorced after 23 years (because their interests diverged, as interests will, I guess).
I've heard people say that the idea of their parents having sex is ooky. I guess I always just figured it's what parents do. And I'm right (prima facie), of course.
John
Knew that "cabbage patch" thing was bullshit early on.
And we sibs always told Angela (the fifth and youngest by almost four years) that we found her in the dumpster behind the Salvation Army and gave 'em a quarter because we felt sorry for her. Hyuk hyuk.

[NewWaveChick1981]

87. OMFG!

:rofl: We told my brother for years that Mom found him crying in a garbage can, and he believed it. :rofl: (My sister and I were so mean to him. What are sisters for??? :P) I never bought the cabbage patch or stork bullshit either.

The idea of my parents having sex wasn't ooky or gross---it was just something parents did. I did walk in on them one time (I think I was 9 or 10), grabbed a hairbrush from Mom's table, and as I left, I said (with a straight face), "Go back to what you were doing." :rofl: They'll never forget that, and neither will I.

[5thGenDemocrat]

98. Yup -- Angela always believed it, too

What made it even better is that Ang doesn't really look like the rest of us (she looks like our Aunt Julie -- blonde and angular, as opposed to the darker Eastern European look of the rest of us).
She got her revenge -- she grew up to resemble Michelle Pfeiffer, whereas I, for one example, look like the portrait on a 1930's German postage stamp. R-E-E-E-A-L square-headed, and size 7 5-8th at that.
John
And you're right about the sisters -- both Mary and Betsie could be "witch-bitches on a broomstick." Learned a lot from them.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

132. Sisters are meant to be mean.

My mom got remarried last year and we all went on the honeymoon like a dysfunctional Brady Bunch. Anyway, I gained a stepbrother (who is so fucking gay...we're pretty much placing bets on when he'll come out) and two stepsisters. I hadn't even met him until the day before the wedding, but at the wedding we informed him he was embarking on self-esteem camp. If he came back from Hawaii with self-esteem he passed. Could you imagine being a 12 year old chubby, flaming boy with four older sisters between 17 & 23? I think he holds a restrained hatred towards us to this day.

[OnionPatch]

111. You guys must have hung out with my older sister

She told my little sister that they got her from the "Starvation Army" and that my parents paid them a dollar a year to keep her. Then she told her Mom and Dad weren't going to pay the dollar that year. My little sister started digging in her piggy bank saying. "I have a dollar!" Then my older sister said, "You don't understand, it's not that they don't 'have' a dollar, it's that they don't 'want' to pay the dollar." :evilgrin: She was such a bitch.

[NNadir]

89. My Dad asked me if I knew about it. I said, "yeah." He asked if

I had any questions. I said, "no."

I was already sexually active when we had this conversation. I was 15. He realized this when he found my condoms later in the year.

My son is eleven and I just had "the talk," although my son really wanted to avoid it. We kept it clinical and open.

[NewWaveChick1981]

90. I'm glad you had the talk with your son.

You'll both appreciate it, even if he doesn't right now. I appreciate what my mom did for me, even though I didn't know how important it was at the time. :)

[NNadir]

103. It went better with my son than I hoped.

I reiterated that he could talk to his mother and I about it at any time.

I do hope that I'll manage it well if he comes to me to say he's sexually active. Hopefully, he will feel OK with telling me that if it happens. I don't know what I'd say, because I'd be worried about the consequences. On the other hand, I guess I managed it. I am proud of a long record of never having an unintentional pregnancy and never having contracted a sexually transmitted disease.

I tried to be responsible, but some of that, I know, was luck. I can't be sure that my son will be quite so lucky as his old man was.

Basically I hope, maybe naively, that he'll wait longer than I did, be more mature than I was when I started. I hate to sound like an asshole Republican, but I wouldn't object if my son remained abstinent through high school or even later. While I'd like to encourage abstinence, I also need to be realistic and recognize that the probability is lower than I expect.

Of course, at eleven, my son insists he would never dream of doing that. We'll see.

[Rabrrrrrr]

91. Mostly I learned it at church - Mom taught a bit, but we had a fantastic

sex education program at my church - a program that continues to today - for seventh graders, and that's where I learned all about plumbing and dynamics and slang and how everything works and some of the more fun ways it can work.

it's also where I learned that sex and our bodies and our genitals are natural, wonderful, non-taboo, and made too in the image of God.

it was like the total opposite of the bullshit they'd teach at a fundy church.

And I have been IMMENSELY glad my whole life for that education. I think it was a six or eight week program, and it was phenomenal. Made me the sexually mature and sane person I am today.

[NewWaveChick1981]

93. I'm so happy you had that to learn from!

:) :bounce: You're right---it's the "your body is wonderful" attitude instead of "your body is dirty and evil" like the fundies want people to believe. I'm so glad that program has continued too---it'll continue to educate generations of people the right way! :hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

95. Been going on about 30 years now.

Making some sexually HEALTHY people.

One of the things that churches should be doing more of.

They even told us that masturbation was natural and, gasp, NORMAL, and, gasp gasp - okay!

[NewWaveChick1981]

99. We need to clone that program and take it across the country.

:bounce: :hi:

[Neshanic]

92. Parents complete mute on subject. Friends and school was source.

[NewWaveChick1981]

94. Very common scenario.

:hug:

[hunter]

101. No horror stories here.

My mom and dad explained everything from the time we could talk. If they couldn't answer a question in words, my dad can draw. They were sort of casual about nudity too, to the point that me and my siblings quickly learned to knock, or at least yell, before we charged into the house with our friends. My parents had books too, and some of them were *not* clinical.

I don't remember not knowing about sex. I also remember my mom would nurse my younger siblings anywhere -- in church, on a bus, at school, didn't matter.

A couple of neighborhood kids were banned from our house because my mom would tell them more than their parents wanted them to know when they asked, especially when we were teenagers. Even if they didn't ask she'd tell them stuff if she thought something was up. My mom was a part-time crisis counselor, and she still has no patience for the sorts of ignorance that gets kids in trouble.

My own family is sort of similar. Human Sexuality is one of the subjects my wife occasionally teaches, and our kids often start joking when she goes off on some academic tangent, "um, really mom, that's more than we wanted to know, or else they egg her on until she's talking about something very specific like the various roles of oxytocin..."

[The Sower]

104. They didn't.

Maybe they assumed I knew because I was so into science.

They were right, mostly.

[fortyfeetunder]

105. Self-learned + elementary school sex ed.

The problem my parents had was hiding their "risque" books because I could read before going to kindergarten. But I found the books anyway and got to understand the psychological part of the birds and the bees.
Then I got the spiel starting in elementary school, and I figured out if I want to know more I'd have to read more. My parents were not particularly helpful -- the idea was to keep me away from the opposite sex.

[jobycom]

106. No big event, just a gradual fill-in-the-blanks strategy.

My parents never pretended there was a stork or any such thing, they just explained where babies came from, in general terms. As I got older and asked other questions, they answered. No dramatic speeches or anything. If I asked a question more advanced than they wanted me to know, they just told me to wait, or gave me vague explanations. They figured I'd find out anyway, so they weren't withdrawn about it, usually. I wouldn't say they were open-minded or liberal about it--quite the opposite, in my mother's case. Very old fashioned. But they didn't try to hide anything.

Though I probably learned more in sex ed in elementary school than from them. There was just never some dramatic moment when I suddenly knew something I hadn't before.

[ikojo]

108. I read the book "Everything you wanted to know about

Sex but were afraid to ask" which I found in my mom's room. My mom wouldn't talk to me about sex.

[OnionPatch]

113. Same here!

My mom was shy when it came to talking about sex. She bought that book and just left it out on the coffee table. My sisters and I devoured every page of it. :)

[ikojo]

144. I remember talking about it on the phone with

my friends...giggle...giggle...giggle...

[Ouabache]

154. I had a gf in college who had read that book

and damn, she understood a lot about what I needed rather than what I wanted !! Which in turn helped her deal with some issues of her own and ME. Bless her.

[datasuspect]

109. my parents didn't

the creepy old man down at the bike shop did when we played "gladiators" and "wrestling."











oops, my bad, that was the diff'rent strokes episode where gordon jump played a child molester.

[Dervill Crow]

116. My mom got some books from the library for me.

If she had waited until I was asking questions I might have made further inquiries of her, but it didn't seem like an issue at the time. It was years later when I was with a bunch of people (including my then boyfriend) and saw a couple of dogs doing it that I realized how the sperm and the egg got together.

Oh. My. God.

:blush:

edited because I am a dork

[leftofthedial]

117. they "accidentally" left Playboys where I would find them

seriously

[hunter]

127. And Playboys were supposed to teach you about sex... how?

I found 1960's Playboys to be incredibly confusing. I imagine you might have picked up some very strange ideas, even if you "read the articles."

A friend of mine had stolen some porn from his dad that had actual pictures of average looking people having sex. Those made a lot more sense to me. Playboy was like some strange world.

Similar to your story, the parents of a college friend of mine thought that the study of fine art was adequate sex education.

[reyd reid reed]

118. My mom tried to tell me where babies come from

when I was about six...the same year she told me about Santa Claus.

:cry:

I'm thinking that was too young. I had this notion that if boys and girls slept in the same room, a baby would pop out of the girl's belly button the next morning.

When I was about 10, she ordered a set of books for me and I understood things much better at that point.

Whew!!

[Ellen Forradalom]

119. In 1972, my mother laid a copy of "Our Bodies Ourselves" on me

I was nine years old. I read it cover to cover. We had some nice Q & A sessions on it.

Knowledge is power.

[MarianJack]

120. My Step-Mother Tried when I was 9...

...but I had NO clue what she was talking about. Remember, this was 1964 and sitcom spouses still slept in the same bed.

Not long afterward, my father introduced me to porn. I still struggle with that and it colored my view of women for a long time.

My mom was afriad of the topic.

I learned a lot from the school yard.

[Missy Vixen]

122. My parents didn't

My mother was a good Irish Catholic girl who got pregnant with me two months after the wedding. She didn't know anything about birth control. She didn't pass on very much information, and was embarrassed at my questions.

I learned what I knew from the 5th grade "it's great to be a woman!" film and from the schoolyard.

Julie

[KT2000]

124. They didn't n/t

[NMMNG]

125. My mom gave me a booklet on the "facts of life"

She crossed out everything about sex and masturbation with a black marker. I was able to read a few of the words through the marker, though, by holding the pages up to a light bulb. :evilgrin:

[DainBramaged]

126. They didn't tell me shit, as a matter of fact I didn't learn anything

from them other than doing my best not to be like them. I just remember spending a lot of time in the library when I was in high school.

I also had a lot of fun learning in the Sixties too. :evilgrin:

[u4ic]

128. My friend had a book

"where do babies come from?" and my sister told me about my period - luckily, 2 weeks or so before it started. (I was very young, before sex ed classes)

Parents - nothing. They were a very different generation (I'm on the eve of 40, father is 81, my mother would have been 85 this year).

Oooh...any ladies remember those damn booklets that you could send to Kotex and get these "girls to womanhood" manuals. They scared us with all the propoganda like "on your wedding night, it may really hurt and bleed" and "you might end up with infections because of sex - like yeast and cystitis".

Well...sure made us want to go out and fuck like bunnies, eh? :eyes:

We would have been 12 or so then; once the hormones started going...well, those books went out the window. lol

[yurbud]

130. when my mom thought I might be doing something or about to...

she said to let her know and she'd pay for a hotel room so it was a nice memory for the girl instead of the backseat of a car.

That's was the problem with parents in the 70s. It's tough to rebel when they set boundaries so far out you don't want to cross them.

[riona]

133. No parental info provided

:hide: ???

[calico1]

134. They didn't.

You didn't talk about such things in my house.

When I first got my period, my mom handed me some Kotex pads and mumbled something to me about it being too bad men didn't get this. But she gave me no information whatsoever except to change the pad often...! And a little booklet put out by Kimberly Clark. Good thing for my older sister who gave me more information and assured me I was not going to bleed to death! I learned where babies came from in school from other kids.

Sex in the parochial school I went to was absolutely not spoken about!

[Kat45]

150. My mother gave me the same "kit" from Kotex

:rofl:

[meegbear]

135. We learned it on the street like they did ...

that was the American way, by gum!

[Left Is Write]

136. I don't remember.

Mom came with me to the "girls' movie" in 4th grade and was never shy about discussing certain biological functions I needed to know how to deal with, but I don't remember having a big talk about anything. We had reasonably good "health" education in schools, and Mom would have answered anything I had a question on.

[trackfan]

137. They let my friends at school teach me

[Crabby Appleton]

138. me too

nada from the parents.

And I don't recommend that method; talk to your kids.

[trogdor]

139. They didn't.

They did what every other proper parents of the 1970's did. Let the schools do it. Got my briefing by the gender-appropriate health teacher in sixth grade, and that was that.

[myrna minx]

140. I'm 35 and my mom gave me a book by *Art Linkletter* !!!

to read about the birds and the bees. I received my period in 4th or 5th grade and I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me (thanks to my parochial school's no sex education policy.) I thought I was dying and only after I went through every pair of underpants I had, I went to my mom crying. She told me that I was normal and that *it* would happen every month. Later that day a book by Art Linkletter was slid under my bedroom door. Um, this was 1982! Ewwww!

[swag]

141. They let me be surprised by the other kids on the school bus.

I was one astonished 8 year-old when I found out about all that.

[Immad2]

142. They didn't.

[Xipe Totec]

145. Prostitutes

Details withheld for the sole purpose of titillating the readership.

:popcorn:

[MichiganVote]

147. You're bad. Fess' up.

[Xipe Totec]

148. One of the bennies of growing up on the border

Before the AIDS scare.

:yoiks:

[MichiganVote]

149. So much for sex education.

[Kat45]

151. They didn't., and I was pathetically naive for years.

When I got my period, my mother handed me a booklet and pad (with belt, remember those?) from Kotex. Nothing was ever said about sex; the word sex was never uttered; I'm now 51, and the subject of sex has never been talked about by them. (When I was a kid--I forget how old--and noticed my mother's breasts, I got quite curious and asked what they were; my mother replied, "my bust." She used a word for a measurement--not a word for the body parts!!!)

I have no siblings, therefore nobody to learn from. In sixth grade, my friend and I asked an older girl we knew where babies come from, and she told us in such an abbreviated way that I still didn't really know what she was talking about. In high school, my friends and I passed around the book "The Sensuous Woman" and all reacted by saying "eeeeeuw." I didn't have a boyfriend in high school, so I didn't learn that way. I had never even heard the word vagina (or any other word for it) until I was in college; I didn't even know I had anything like that between my legs. (I guess I must have just thought there was a hole down there that pee and menstrual fluid came out of; either that or it never occured to me to think about it. "Down there" was presented as 'dirty.') I didn't know what men had 'down there' until a drunk guy ran around naked (except for a rain slicker) at college on his 21st birthday. When I was with my first boyfriend later that year, I found out that something comes out of that organ. My senior year of college, I took a psych course in human sexuality, and THAT'S when I finally learned a lot about sex. Ironically, I got the highest grade in that class. lol

Pathetic, huh?

[Ouabache]

153. 7th grade-Mom gave me a couple library books, but I

used the Dewey Decimal numbers to go to that section of the library and found some better stuff than the clinical 50's type stuff she had chosen...between the ones she chose and the ones I found they filled in the gaps for the info I was getting from the 'guys' in PE class and the restroom outside of 'Shop' Class, --what's more funny looking back is that that shop class was considered the 'wood' class. heheh...

The weirdest thing I recall was Mom explaining that when I had girlfriends there would be certain times of the month that they had no interest in me and might even dislike me, and that I should not take this personally, because it would be attibutable to something that was happening with them. Using the books I fugured out what that monthly matter was all about, but I was like huh? what?

I guess she was concerned about my fragile ego ? projecting? duh. still not sure what that was all about...

But we all learned where everything went, right?