Okay, so I'm going to have The Talk with my niece. What would you say to her?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I don’t trust whatever the hell they’re teaching them in school these days, and her mother is dead and she lives with my mother who is 70 so she probably won’t ever ask her anything, you know? So I wanted to have a brief talk with her about sex and contraception, demonstrate effective condom use, hand her a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and schedule her an appointment at Planned Parenthood for her first lady wellness visit.

And I hope to god a chunk of ice falls off an airplane and kills me dead before I have to do this, because, ergh, how embarrassing.

So, I was going to tell her that we’re not having this talk because of anything she did or didn’t do, but that while I think it’s a bad idea to have sex at her age (she’s 16) she most probably will have some sometime between now and age 50 and I want to make sure she has the best information possible. Talk a little bit about self respect, understanding your body, making difficult decisions about sex, etc. A bit about health and what the gynecologist does and all that. Discuss the major types of birth control, explain that the only thing that prevents diseases besides abstinence is the almighty condom which has an expiration date and should not ride around in a guy’s back pocket, and demonstrate how one is properly applied. Some of this I’m sure she already knows, but you never know when kids that age have 80% good information and 20% under the bleachers crap, right?

Mostly I want to make it clear to her that she should come to me with any questions, that she’s welcome to text me if she’s too embarrassed to ask me, that she can ask me anything no matter how personal, and that if she is EVER somewhere she doesn’t want to be she needs to call me and I will come pick her up at any hour of the night.

So. Is this a good approach? Am I leaving anything out? Am I doing this right? I’ve never done this before, I had nothing to do with her previous education about anything and am worried that its quality may suck ass, but I don’t want to alienate her and I didn’t have the luxury of controlling her information about this from a young age. But somebody’s gotta, I feel I’ve gained some trust from her in recent months, and I think my parents totally dropped the ball with me (I mean, I got the information myself and grew up in an era with decent school sex ed, plus I didn’t even date in high school) and I think I can do a lot better.

2

You’re such an awesome aunt to these kids. Makes me all warm and fuzzy. Thank goodness you are there for them.

Your planned ‘talk’ looks great to me, and the more accurate information you can give her the better (books, PP pamphlets, graphic illustrations of putting a condom on a penis).

Personally: I don’t think it’s necessary to schedule a gynecologist visit unless she’s sexually active. Speculums were uncomfortable enough for me after I’d broken things in, if you know what I mean. I didn’t go until I became (safely) sexually active, so I was around 20. And if I were you I’d leave out the stuff about how sex at 16 is a bad idea etc, but if that is honestly what you believe, it’s understandable you would tell her that. I didn’t date or become sexually active in high school either, but I was a late bloomer. Most of my female friends were well along in their sex lives by age 16 and it was largely a positive thing for them. I think teenage girls get a lot of anti-sex messages already, I’m more in favor of discouraging guilt and anxiety about sex, encouraging them to take control and take the proper precautions (IF they are ready. I was not, and thank goodness I knew it and stayed away from anyone who might have pushed me).

Also. I think you should give the boys a sex talk too, or maybe just slip them some good information. Not sure how old they are, but pre-teens aren’t too young to start learning about anatomy, safe sex, condom use, boundaries, respect, etc…

3

Don’t forget to tell them that masturbation is natural and healthy… blah blah blah.

4

Well, the reason I thought she should see the gynecologist is that then she’d know where to go if she wanted to go on her own discreetly and ask questions. Plus I think it’s good to have a relationship with a good doctor, and they don’t really have pediatricians they go to on a regular basis (yet, I guess.) Many adult women see their ladybit doctors much more often than any other doctors.

ETA - and I quite like “Our Bodies, Ourselves” as a sex positive reference work, although I don’t like that the new edition has backed away a bit from the feminist standpoint of the old one.

ETAA - I’m really not sure what to do about the boys because I KNOW they wouldn’t feel comfortable talking with me about it, AT ALL.

5

Do at least 3/4 listening and 1/4 talking. Honestly, at 16, it’s way too late for The Talk, and she probably has gotten most of the nuts and bolts information at school. So ask her, “what are they teaching in sex ed these days?” Listen to what she says, correct any misinformation you find, and take it from there. This also makes it less embarrassing, because you’re not lecturing her or poking around to find out what she’s up to, sexually, rather you’re discussing the curriculum at her school. It also makes it easier to correct misinformation, because it’s not her you’re correcting, but the school. Takes some of the pressure off you both.

From there, segue into the emotional stuff. Sex changes relationship dynamics, both with the person you’re having it with, and all your friends and his friends. Reputations can be made or destroyed, lives changed, etc. When my son was 15 and looking likely to have his first sexual encounter, we talked about that stuff more than condom application. I couched it in terms of “practicing” relationship skills - and there are so many of them to practice even without sex being part of the equation! Discussing which party to go to after Homecoming can be an exhausting experience for a young couple, as they find out how difficult honest communication can be. Dealing with a “crazy” ex-girlfriend is a lesson that requires lots of skills and practice. Learning how to handle a girlfriend’s crazy ex who wants to beat you up after school can be a life experience all on its own. Learning that her parents might not like the color of your skin or cut of your jeans, and how you’ll handle that… These are the kinds of relationship issues you have to learn how to handle even if you’re NOT having sex. I suggested focusing on learning to do some of them before bringing sex, with all its unique complicating factors, into his relationships.

6

Well, I hope that she does talk, but she clams up sometimes. I mean, if my mother had ever been all “So, let’s talk sex!” I wouldn’t have said a word. Well, I’d have thrown myself out of a moving car. Silently.

7

Open ended questions about other people get much more talk from teenage girls than questions that can be answered yes or no and are about themselves.

“I read this thing on a message board that said sex ed in schools today is much better than it was when I was a kid. This one poster said her son learned about condoms in sixth grade, but I don’t think I saw one until I was 20! It got me curious…what *are *they covering now?” Or whatever. “I read this thing on the message board…” has provided a multitude of opening lines for me - sometimes I have actually read it, and sometimes I just lie like a rug. :smiley:

But that raises another good point…distraction. I find I have much more luck with these conversations if we’re doing something else. For my son, riding in the car was the best method to get him to open up. I think maybe because he could avoid all eye contact. For one of my goddaughters, it’s the kitchen. She barely talks under normal conditions, but if we’re chopping and dicing or baking and decorating, she opens up.

8

Put out a plate of crudite or little cakes or something. Somethingyou can both pick at , and turn your eyes to when you need a momentary break.

Let long silences be ok. She may need them in order to get her courage up to ask questions.

Talk about hormones, and being “turned on” and how that differs from love. This can be extremely confusing, especially for kids who have not had a consistently supportive envirnoment.

Tell her the truth about guys, and how many of them have “getting you into bed” first on their priority lists. Talk about waiting, and how it weeds out the insincere ones. Give her the phrase a kindly nun handed to me, and which served me well for many years: “God did not put you on this earth to be his alternative to masturbation.”

Help her to understand how to judge the character of a man, before acting on what her body may be saying about him. Talk about heart, body, mind and making decisions about what feelings to act on and what feelings to ignore.

9

Oh, yeah, totally plan on doing this in the car. That’s where she talks.

10

I agree with Rhubararin - girls get told they should wait enough as it is. Some 16 year old girls are ready for sex, enjoy it, and don’t need to be made to feel guilty about that any more than they already do.:o

I think the PP appt is a great idea. Maybe not for a physical exam, but an chance to talk confidentially with someone who talks to teenagers about reproductive health all the time.

Good luck!

11

My 12.5 year old niece Ava had started her period but knew nothing; she asked me about sex when we were talking about what sanitary products she needed - in retrospect it was a good segue and it helped we were on a long drive alone. She told me pads embarrassed her as she felt everyone could see them and wanted to use tampons but her mom wouldn’t let her until she was older. She asked me what difference ‘older’ made, so I told her it’s possible her mom just didn’t like the idea of her ‘baby girl’ putting anything in her vagina, whether it was a tampon or sex. Ava asked me what sex meant, and I said, “Do you mean intercourse?” and she told me she’d never heard that word in her life. The extent of what her mom had told her was not to put her drink down at a party. (I told her if she was at the kind of party where she didn’t have some she could trust to hold her drink she should leave.)

I started from there and told her everything - intercourse, oral, anal, you name it. I told her what all could get her pregnant, what could give her diseases, and how to try and prevent both. Most importantly (in my mind), when she was visibly disgusted by the mechanics of oral sex as I described them, she said, “Wait - they pee out of it and then they want to stick it in you??”, to which I replied, “More than anything and they’ll lie to you if they have to.” My countrified niece had a hard time believing that someone would lie to her to get her to do something like that.

A few years later she took a nursing home job part-time while in high school and before long the ‘mystery’ of men and their behavior w/ their penises was long gone. She’s an RN now and at least up until her 22nd birthday when I saw her last was still a virgin in a sea of unwed mothers in the Thumb of Michigan.

TLDR - tell her details rather than vague ideas. Good luck to you!

12

I’ve seen this in the news recently so it’s on my mind; stress to her that she need never hide a pregnancy, regardless of her intent to carry to term or not. A California woman turned over her healthy newborn to a fire station last week w/o repercussion while a woman in Michigan put hers in a dumpster where it wound up w/ hypothermia before a passerby found it; both states have Safe Haven laws but if women aren’t aware of those laws or are straight up denying they’re even pregnant babies could die. /tangent off/

13

That sounds like a very good approach. I just have one question. You said “…the only thing that prevents diseases besides abstinence is the almighty condom …”. Condoms don’t always protect from STDs, though, do they? I thought the success rate for STD prevention was substantially lower than the 97% success rate they advertise for preventing pregnancy. It might behoove you to point this out.

14

I like that you’re getting her to Planned Parenthood. It’s really important that she will already be comfortable with getting herself there when the need for birth control arises. They hand out condoms free there, so she’ll already have some on hand if the need arises. You might also pick up some Plan B morning-after pills to have on hand while you’re there.

You might want to encourage her to get on the Pill *before *she is ready for sex in order to regulate/minimize her periods; that way she’ll be covered once she starts having sex, and she won’t have to be embarrassed to go get the prescription as she’ll already be on it. Even with good birth control education, teens will often, if not usually, start having sex unprotected in the beginning, even though they’ve had all the talks and know better.

15

16, really? I think I was 9 or 10 when I got The Talk.

Yeah, fortunately it didn’t broach anal, nor any number of other things I could name.

16

I wouldn’t have been so frank and comprehensive w/ a 9-10 year-old, even if she were menstruating already. And honestly, I can’t think how I’d approach The Talk w/ a male. Probably just scar him w/ some video of babbies being born and leave it at that.

17

So then she’s trapped.

Hell, that scarred me. I decided after seeing that “Miracle of Life” video that I was never forming babby. To hell with that.

18

Think of it as ‘focused’.

19

I think getting one “talk” from an aunt is more normal/less awkward than from a parent: you don’t see aunts as often and conversations are fewer and far between. A parent has ten chances a day to mention some little thing: you see an aunt much less often.

I would also not try to cover everything. Kids–hell, people–have short attention spans for anything, and after a while it’s just a lecture. I’d make sure to hit 1) condom basics 2) how to make an appointment with a gyn or even her family doctor 3) red flags.

I think it would probably be very helpful to talk more about yourself than her. It may be embarrassing, but it comes across as much less judgmental when you can say “the first time I had sex I was too embarrassed to ask him to use a condom and I wish then I’d planned ahead exactly how to bring it up” or whatever.

ETA: I would probably also mention that it’s supposed to be FUN, and if it’s not–after a bit of practice—they need to figure out how to change things. And if the guy isn’t willing to do that, well, that’s a huge red flag. I think there’s an awful lot of girls risking pregnancy and falling into bad relationship patterns (for example, “giving” or “withholding” sex), because they’ve never rung the bell, so to speak, and only vaguely understand that there is a bell to ring.

20

That reminds me of another great phrase “Wear one, or get none.” Tell her to look them in the eyes and say it like she means it. The only thing teenaged boys want more than sex, is bareback sex. Dang they little hides. :wink: