What did your parents not explain well?

[SeaSandandSun]

My DD is now 10 and is asking all sorts of awkward questions. I do my best to explain them and hopefully avoid confusion down the line.

It got me remembering when I was around 7yo. I heard someone call someone a wanker and asked my DM what it meant. She said it is a boy who plays with himself. Of course, I had no idea what that meant and presumed it meant someone playing by themselves.

I walked around for weeks seeing boys playing alone and thinking “ah look, he’s a wanker!”

Some time later (weeks or months, not sure) we were sitting round the dinner table and the following conversation took place:
DM: “What is the name of the new boy in your class?”
Me: “Steven”
DM: “What is he like?”
Me: “I don’t know. He plays by himself a lot. He’s a wanker!”
My dad nearly fell off his chair

Anyone got any similar light hearted stories?

That made me laugh.

I can't remember what age I was but certainly an age where my mum could have been open. But I was watching telly with my mum. I was on the floor, she was behind me ironing. And advert for sanitary towels came on (boooodyfoooormmm body form for yooooooo- something like that).
I turned round and actively watched my mum holding the iron still and watching the advert too.
I asked what it was for. She quickly started ironing again and said she hadn't seen it. I was perplexed.

On an aside, my step brother used to call people funny made up words, usually pretty harmless. I decided the time to copy him was at the Christmas table in front of my whole family including my very twee Granny. Laughingly calling him a dildo at the table went down a treat.

I overheard the word prostitute on the tv once and asked DM what it meant. She refused to tell me which obviously made me even more curious, so I asked a sweet old lady who was babysitting me for the first time later that week.

Can't imagine what she thought looking after a sweet primary school aged girl and having her pipe up, "What's a prostitute? Mummy wont tell me." out of nowhere

When I asked my mother what "sexual intercourse" was, she said "It's what goes on between a man and a woman". So non-specific! For ages I thought that if a guy and a girl were talking or just walking along side by side, they were having sexual intercourse.

These are great!

My DM is very naive. When she got her first job after school she went to the pub with her work colleagues. They were all much older than her. She was telling them that her friend had got a job in a solicitor’s office. They asked her what she was doing and my DM replied “soliciting”

Apparently when I was 4 (35 years ago) around the dinner table for the big Christmas lunch with grandparents & great-grandparents, aunties & uncles I stood on my chair and announced that 'my mum has feathers down there' pointing vigorously down there 😳 me & mum still laugh today and she has no idea why she told me they was feathers 🤣

Feathers

I remember asking my mum why women needed towels at night. Obviously following an ad for body form or something. She just said "sometimes ladies need towels at night". I thought she meant bath towels and was a bit confused.

I try to be matter of fact and as accurate as possible with my boys now.

Also, when I had my first boyfriend at fifteen mum said "I hope there's no hanky panky going on".

No explanation of what that was, no contraception chat, nothing really.

I remember getting changed after swimming with my mum and asking what the tampax string was and she said to stop her having any more babies. I believed it for years. Now she denies saying it!!’

When we watched old films my grandparents would comment about how that's how it was when they were younger. My brother thought the world used to be black and white for the longest time.

This is a great thread!

I asked what a lesbian was and was told it was a girl who wanted to be a boy.

Being a tomboy at the time, I concluded that I must be a lesbian.

I asked my mother what a ghost was when I was very young. She said — I remember to this day how unsatisfactory I found it — ‘It’s someone who isn’t there any more.’

I became an early reader because it was quickly clear that I wasn’t going to get decent answers to anything I wanted to know.

When someone leaves, do they become a ghost?! 😂

You see my problem.

In fairness, my mother and I do love her is a muddled thinker who is happier on the territory of who's sick, who's dead, who's married etc and tends to just defer to the last male speaker she's heard on weightier matters. (When she suddenly started spouting absolutely alien racist views, I traced it to a local radio presenter who seems to be continually hosting phone-ins about Nigerian taxi drivers.)

We were probably a poor mother/child pairing.

I remember when I was little, my mum was driving and muttering “that car is right up my ass”
So I said “what’s an ass mummy?”
She said “it’s another name for a donkey” (which was quick thinking to be fair!)
I remember not being convinced and saying “but it doesn’t make sense to say that car is up your donkey! I think it means bum!”
And mum just went “well why did you ask then?!” 😂

This one was not exactly my mothers fault, but anyway ....

I grew up in catholic Ireland. When I was 4 and just starting school, I came home from school and told my mum 'Mrs Quinns Daddy came to see us today' . My mother thought it was a bit strange, but moved on. The next week it was the same thing; 'Mrs Quinns Daddy was back in to see us today'. It went on for about 3 weeks. My mom became increasingly concerned at this random man coming into a class of 4 year olds.

Going down to the road to the shops one day I pointed a man out and said 'that's Mrs Quinns Daddy!'. It was the local priest. Just shows how often my Mom went to mass with me haha.

Periods. My mum told me they came from the bottom without specifying further. Of course I assumed the wrong one. In fairness I found the whole conversation excruciating and didn't want to discuss it any further so never asked any questions. When I started I was convinced there was something terribly wrong with me and I was too afraid to tell anyone. I can't remember how it resolved, I probably realised during a sex ed or biology lesson that it was normal. But it was very, very frightening until then. I'm still embarrassed even typing this.

@CasuallyFeminine
Yep nobody explained it to me either, I was so embarrassed too. I had really bad period pains too and I remember collapsing in the corridor at school. I was mortified. Ok about it now though, it seems ridiculous when you look back.
Ditto sex... Not a clue! I remember watching films and thinking if a couple rolled around that was sex 😂 I couldn't believe it when I found out the finer details. I looked at the old teachers at school and thinking, there's no way they've done that!

I asked my mam where babies come from and she tried to give me an honest but age appropriate explanation which involved her telling me women have eggs in their tummies. The only eggs I knew came from chickens so I naturally assumed that women had chickens inside them.

I knew sex made babies.
I also knew you didnt know straight away if you were pregnant.
Therefore my conclusion was you didnt know if you'd had sex.

RedCat amazing! Didn’t know if you’d had sex 😂 depends on the partner I suppose...

An elderly relative died at 84 when I was 4. I'm still not sure what killed her in the end, but I now know that she had a lot wrong with her. When I asked my mum what she'd died of, she simplified it a bit and said "Well, people often just die of old are when they get to her age."
I took this to mean that, if you weren't dead by 84, you would just die of old age, aged 84. I started counting down over the next few years for my next eldest relative. (Who shocked me by reaching 88).

I thought that if anything touched the female genital area you could get pregnant so theoretically you could get yourself pregnant 🙄

I thought that soap operas were real and was devastated when Tracey from Corrie got trapped in her pushchair under a lorry. I also thought that we all starred in our own soap opera and that people in other parts of the country were watching us on TV. This meant that I was quite dramatic for the cameras and sometimes I would choose to be the narrator.

I was 5 when my mum got pregnant with my DB. I asked her how you get a baby and she told me you wish really hard for it.

I was so confused - I thought the baby came out of the belly button or something

When she was giving birth to him, I was dropped off at a friend’s house and told that my mum was in hospital. As far as I knew, hospitals were for sick people and I had no idea what was going on. I remember crying and accidentally letting go of their dog while walking it

The whole thing was badly handled, looking back!

Greek - starring in your own show is pretty amazing. Imagine if you really are..?

amused - that reminds me! When my daughter was a few weeks old I visited my auntie. She asked me if it was true that whilst my daughter was in my stomach I fed her through my belly button she has two adult children and 4 grandchildren. I thought she was joking but she was genuinely trying to figure out the purpose of the belly button!!! 😱