Hey, you got a talk! Nobody talked to me about nothing!
It’s a question I wonder about myself. I have two daughters, 9 and 7, and nobody’s gotten any sort of talk yet, though I have a feeling the older one has some idea of what goes on, while the younger one is still a bit naive about it. I’m not particularly worried and figure I’ll know when it’s time to have a conversation. When I was 9, I had some idea of sex, but I’m not entirely sure how I figured it out. I definitely didn’t quite have everything in the right place figured out, though.
Velocity reminds me of one thing I heard from a friend who was a Girl Scout leader for some time.
She occasionally would be asked by one of her charges about birds and bees types of topics, and had a form she was supposed to give to the parent when it happened asking if the parent was OK with her being able to talk freely with the kids when the topic came up.
Every time she gave the form to a parent, they were solidly in denial about even the possibility of their dear little angel asking about sexuality in any way, shape or form. And these girls were grade schoolers and tweens - asking questions starts early.
If the parents don’t talk about this kind of thing - especially if they shut down when asked - the kids are still going to try to get their questions answered. If you’re lucky, they might ask a reliable Scout leader. If you’re not, they might end up following some really bad advice.
I heard from my older sisters. Boy that was interesting.
Here’s what I learned:
if you do it under the bleachers with one guy you’ll get real popular and have lots of dates and spend the rest of your high school time living it down.
Or, if you’re a prude and goody goody you sit home on the weekends and read.
The intricacies were all over the place.
I asked my Daddy. He said ask your sisters.
I ask the nurse at my pediatricians office. She gave me a pamphlet and said discuss with my parents.
I was age 8. (Yep, precocious).
Already 1/3 my supposed life-expectancy, at that time. (I asked that question, too)
Somehow medical knowledge caught up and saved me to an older age.
I learned by reading as a late blooming teen. So I had access to proper literature on the subject.
You as a parent are correct in wondering when to talk to your child.
All 4 of mine were different.
Good luck. Try and get on the same page with your wife.
I find the OP a little bizarre. What kid has not seen dogs mating?
I mean, I had the “birds and bees” talk with my son at age four, when he asked, “why is that chicken jumping on the other chicken?”
We recently saw two large tortoises have a (cold blooded) romantic occurrence, and the kids (now 6 and 8) knew exactly what was happening. The following conversation was about animals that lay eggs vs animals that give live birth.
I think by age 10, the child has been told by school peers everything, so it is too late to have the talk about the action, but not too late to suggest the possible consequences.
STDs, pregnancy etc are not what kids think about, so that part of the “birds and bees” (and bugs) talk should be done too.
I plan to have, in my house, and make it known to my son and daughter as soon as the eldest reaches puberty: a bunch of condoms, and, a bunch of tampons. Just there for the taking, with no accountability.
We had school sex ed but it was so basic-penis goes in vagina. They never said it got hard or moved. Some of my friends were having sex at age 11
I learned through Cosmo magazine.
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(pssst: nobody should be killing (non-venomous) spiders in the bathroom! house spiders are clean and harmless and are doing the lord’s work in keeping down populations of insects that might not be so clean and harmless! when you kill your bathroom spiders and then step barefoot on a millipede in your shower the next morning you’ll have only yourself to thank!
when you clean your bathroom, remove any spider webs while giving the occupants time to scramble out of the way to safety, and let them rebuild in peace till the next cleaning! kumbaya!!
this has been a public service announcement by Kimstu, a certified woman who is deterred from killing spiders in the bathroom not by fear but by ETHICS! and pragmatism)
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If you live in US suburbia you may never see such things. No strays, no wildlife, any pets are kept individually inside houses and are only outdoors on a leash, etc.
If you / sibs never had a cage full of rodents you have all but zero chance to observe animal sex.
I was probably 15 and doin’ it myself before I saw 2 dogs goin’ at it for the first time.
Now country kids or farm kids or even inner city kids have it very different.
My parents never talked to me about sex. I don’t know why, I guess they were both too prudish or embarrassed to do so, but it was not helpful to my development. I learned the basics from other kids, although I carried a lot of misinformation for years (for example, for a long time I was under the impression that the man urinated into the woman). I didn’t have a sex ed class at school until high school. It was a Catholic school and the class was taught by a (celibate) Catholic brother. I never saw animals having sex until well into adulthood. Looking back on my life, it’s a wonder that I ever figured things out.
TIL. I had no idea there’s a male equivalent to an unexplained first period.
And I’m 72. Thank you for fighting my ignorance. It is possibly just as well that I had no sons (though I’d have made sure they had basic information before age 10, at least.)
[ETA: I’ve known since at least my early teens that boys sometimes ejaculate without intending to! It just never occured to me that this might scare them.]
Now! Now! Right this minute now! – Well, maybe not right this exact minute. But do not delay. These days sometimes 9 year olds menstruate.
Assuming that somebody else has told her is a very bad idea. She may well have “some idea of what goes on” but still have either no idea or a massively inaccurate idea of what she needs to know.
Me. We had dogs – all of them were female. We had cats – all of them spayed or neutered.
Plus which, dogs and cats aren’t a great example for humans. Dogs get tied. Do you want your child worrying about that? Cats have spined penises, and while the female cat sure wants to get laid she’s also yelling in pain. That may be a good analogy for some types of human relationships but it’s not the type I’d want any child of mine to have.
And at least some of what they’ve been told is wrong.
Plus which, if a spider’s really in the wrong place and needs to be removed, I’m the one who’s generally gently removing it. And I am also a woman.
Note that even in suburbia it’s surprisingly easy to find insects mating, if you spend a fair bit of time with the kiddos out of doors and look at plants every once in a while.
Oh, I just remembered, one of my first exposures to this topic was ironically in a pamphlet that was mailed out by a religious group that was opposed to sex education in school. To emphasize their point, they quoted some of the shocking information that could be found in sex ed textbooks. I don’t think they intended 8-year-old me to be learning that stuff from their pamphlet.
Latest year (2022), 1.4 out of every thousand 10-year-old girls in the USA gave birth. Ranges from 4 girls/thousand in Alabama to several states less than 1 on average. But the national average is 1.4 girls per thousand. And the fathers of this children are usually either children in that same age range, or relatives.
Tell your wife those statistics – that should encourage her to do this now!
I’d imagine that most of the births were weighted toward the higher end of that age range, so 10-year old’s giving birth would be quite rare.
None of which is to say that 10-year olds are too young to discuss sexuality - but those stats look a bit inflated, unless the CDC report has it wrong.
If the O.P. ever comes back, I’d be very curious to know how Mrs. O.P. reacted to the thread.
Mrs. O.P. (that’s “original poster”) if you’re out there, please know that this board loves to argue about the pickiest silly shit, so the fact that so many people are independently saying pretty much the exact same thing is very meaningful.
Someone who’s never been around dogs?
I “learned” a lot from there, too. Most of it useless or entirely backwards. (“Five simple ways to MAKE your man do X and say Y!” ugh.)
Me, too.
That isn’t even remotely close to why all kids should know the basics of human reproduction.
Well, I had a spayed female Rat Terrier who humped everything in the house. Pillows, boots, the cats, your foot, your leg, footballs, build-a-bears, couch arms, a case of beer(once). My kids saw it and said look Sugar is riding…my Lego ship. Or whatever she was humping.
I have to say, I ignored the teaching moment. But I figured they’d have their own goofy pet some day.
That is what I’m saying, but not that kids need to know specifically how their parents worked out sexual-relationship issues, but that kids need to know how various adults did so, and their parents can use their own experiences as Exhibit A in teaching that. So can the other adults in their lives.
True. But if you don’t know what you’re looking for, there’s nothing about “one bug on top of another” to tell a kid that this has anything to do with genitals or babies; let alone first menstruation and ejaculation; let alone respect and consent.
I never had the talk when I was growing up. Somehow I learned the basic physical facts – I remember one year in summer church camp there was a book going around, I think it was called “The Facts of Life for Teenagers” and I think I was 12 at the time. I already knew most of what was in it. What I didn’t get at all, and sorely missed later, was an understanding of the deeper meaning of sex, its place in relationships, and its relative value to the other benefits of relationships. My parents gave us a pretty good example of a loving long-term marriage, but their discomfort with talking about sex kind of undid whatever good we got from their example.
Obviously with the glut of TV shows and TV/media relationship hosts, books and articles many adults do not understand the meaning of sex in their own lives/relationships.
I think trying to explain that to a 10yo might be too much for most parents.
Just:
At this point, don’t ask him what he knows. He won’t tell you. It’s just too touchy of a subject for a 10yo. Explain the basics. Talk about how masterbation is normal and natural. Teach him how to treat his latest crush. By example and explanation.
Tell him he’s not acquired enough knowledge on this subject to teach others.
He’ll blush, roll his eyes about 100 times and say “oh Dad”. But just plow on through it.
If he has questions answer them if you know the answer. If not tell him you’ll let him know and go Google it.
