To ask - how your parents gave you 'the talk'?

[Cigarettesandsmirnoff]

No one actually gave me 'the talk' but after visiting my 82 year old granny, some how We got on the topic of introducing sex education early in schools.

She thought it shouldn't happen - kids should be 'left to be innocent'.

She told me that her talk with 'her boys' (df and two uncles) consisted of..

'Seeing two dogs at it and when asked why they were fighting? Replied with, 'there not - he's giving her puppies !'

She was happy that they would have had the connection.

I replied with, "well maybe he (df) should have had early sex education - then him and mum wouldn't have had a shot gun wedding at 17!"

Im aghast !

Two dogs at it!!!

FFS !!

Were yours this bad??

I think my Mum probably did intend to have A Talk but she left it too late and that news got scooped by a TV programme we were shown in school when I was about 8. When she found out my Mum just said "Oh I was going to tell you all that when I thought you were ready. Oh well now you know!"

Mind you she did then make sure she was ahead of the game with periods and sent off for Dr White's Book for Growing Girls, had a brief chat then gave me the book to read for myself.

I made sure I had The Talk with my DD when she was about 7 and I am pretty sure I got there before anyone else.

When I was 4, I asked my mum how my friend could possibly have a sister that was her dad's daughter but not her mum's daughter. She told me about step/half siblings/parents but I wasn't having any of it, so she ended up telling me how his seed managed to meet the egg of two separate ladies!

I remember mum explaining to me (think I was about 8/9ish) that the eggs we eat aren't the same as the eggs that chicks hatch from because the eggs we eat haven't been fertilised. We talked about sperm fertilising eggs in various creatures - including humans.

I also read a book at my friends house that covered all manner of hilarious potentially embarrassing bodily issues - sex, trumps, periods, B.O. etc. Great book. Cannot for the life of me remember the name of it.

We had period talks in primary school (Year 5) and I remember having a sanitary towel bin in the Year 5/6 toilets for the unfortunate ones who started their periods pre-high school. Was thankful I wasn't one of them. Mum made sure I could ask any questions if there was anything they hadn't covered at school. We talked about tampons after the school period talk because I couldn't understand why anyone would ever use one.

Then in high school, we had the standard biology flowers/pollination diagram of ovaries/fallopian tubes, etc lessons as well as the relationships/contraception stuff. I remember standing up at the front of the class to put a condom onto a MASSIVE (way bigger than any penis I could ever imagine) phallic prop.

I always knew I could talk to my mum about periods/sex if I wanted to. We're Catholic (didn't go to a Catholic school) but we still talked about respect and protection - from pregnancy and STDs. I think the fact that we had those chats LOOOONG before sex was a possibility (12ish) saved a lot of embarrassment for me. By the time it was on the cards, I was a horrible cowbag of a teenager and couldn't think of anything worse than discussing sex or anything else with my parents. I had a subscription to Bliss magazine by then.

I can remember her trying to talk to me about STDs

Oh Lord I remember inadvertently provoking one of those talks!

I had got to the age (about 14/15) where I would be too embarassed to ask my parents anything Like That and would prefer to look it up.

Anyway I remember there being a news story on about Idi Amin and there was some comment about him suffering from syphilis. I had never heard of this so innocently enquired what it was. My Mum took a deep breath and launched in to a grounds up explanation about diseases that "promiscuous people" can get. I had already heard of something called Venereal Disease and thought it was just one thing rather than an umbrella term, so when my Mum started I realised what I had let myself in for and cringed all the way through while trying to pretend this was all completely hot off the press.

I was 15 when my mam said "I probably should have the sex talk with you now, but you probably know more than me by now anyway so no need". I was aghast but relieved, lol

Since being an adult I have learnt that my poor mother was correct, she knows nothing and never ever gets rude jokes, lmao.

My two are just learning as we go along, nothing is hidden and we explain when we need to.

I was 15 when my mam said "I probably should have the sex talk with you now, but you probably know more than me by now anyway so no need". I was aghast but relieved, lol

Since being an adult I have learnt that my poor mother was correct, she knows nothing and never ever gets rude jokes, lmao.

My two are just learning as we go along, nothing is hidden and we explain when we need to.

Ha ha, "nothing is hidden", that doesn't mean how it sounds, we don't have sex in front of them!

my mum went a bit red, muttered something and said 'well just don't go with any tom dick or harry and do you know to this day I took her advice and even in my promiscuous youth I NEVER went with a tom, dick or harry!!

When I was about 5 a friend's mother explained the basic mechanics. Thought it all sounded rather odd.

Then nothing until I was 17 and going to my boyfriend's to stay over. "Be careful!" That was the extent, although whether that was referring to the dogs, the roads en route, or sex, I couldn't say.

Then my (straight-laced) grandfather sent me an obliquely worded letter and a tenner at uni. I think it was to buy condoms.

I answer all my child's questions honestly.

I don't remember a particular talk but definitely knew the "facts of life" before I left primary school. Mum had been determined not to do what her DM did which was to wait until she thought she was dying of cancer (first period) to be told "keep away from the boys now"

When I was about 13 my dad saw me slow-dancing at a party - he had come to pick me up & peeped through the window - obviously he told mum & within a couple of days I was given a paperback called something like "So now you're growing up" which was full of useful pictures & alternative words for things

My mum gave me some horrendous book called 'Girl becomes woman' or something horribly similar. About 11. Awful.

I learnt everything I knew about sex from Just Seventeen magazine and never had 'the talk'.

It was very bad for me, I wish someone had sat down and told me properly about sex and involved love and feelings, because J17 was very mechanical and seemed to concentrate on virginity as something to be lost as soon as possible.

All I got, aged 18, was the comment from Dad "make sure you use protection".

Which was said the day after I'd lost my virginity.

Bit late by then, Dad!

I was given the Usbourne growing up book too, but after I had already worked out most things from age inappropriate TV shows, playground chatter and a library book which was about human reproduction but referred to it as 'mating', which I've never again heard applied to humans. Oh, and then reading Forever which my sister had hidden in her room.
I haven't had 'the talk' with either of my dc either, just answered questions as they came up. This seems better than chucking a book at them.

I had a tampon leaflet left on my bed when I was 13. That was it. My bloody mother still refers to sex as 'relations', even now that we've got two children together

Why all the stress? DS brought his first girlfriend home at 17 - he sort of asked but it didn't register until I came down one morning and saw a pair pair of pink ballet pumps in the hall. Made tea, thought about it, realised dd and I didn't own a pair and weren't a size 7 . I have actually told his girlfriend to make sure she's on the pill and doesn't get pregnant.

DD is only just 16 and thankfully rather behind on that front. She got her period this morning and I bought her some sanitary towels (doesn't like tampons). DH came downstairs, we were banting about something or other, so she threw them at him and we all dissolved in fits of laughter. It's normal isn't it; to treat it all a bit matter of factly. My mum did, and I'm ancient - I'm also regarded as a bit of a prude on here.

No talk whatsoever and I learned about it from my parents anatomy and physiology textbooks.

Never did me any harm. I wouldn't have wanted to have talked about this with my parents. I spent the vast majority of my childhood avoiding talking to them at all

I don't think I had "the talk" but I did have some books.

I continued this tradition with my oldest, whose "talk" was forced upon me by his school introducing sex ed in year 5 which I thought was outrageously early. I just downloaded a book on his Kindle and told him I was sort of happy to answer any questions he had.

No "talk" My sex education consisted of snippets off my old sister then reading Lace at age 12 and finding mum and dads joy of sex at age 15. No wonder I alternate between being disappointed and frigid. I think they assumed they wouldn't have to bother and Dsis would fill me in.

no talk from parents
the convent I went to until I was 11 showed us a booklet with questions about periods and a drawing showing a cross section of a penis in a vagina

When I had my first experience of sex aged 11 (non consensual) it was all a total shock (but it probably would have been anyway)

and when I stated my periods aged 13 I didn't know how to tell my mum that the £1.50 ocket money I was getting at school wasn't enough to buy sanitary towels so I rolled up loo roll instead.

As a result I am overly open with the boys we talk about bodies and how they change and how babies are made regularly just as a natural part of conversation whenever the subject comes up.

Aaaahhhh yes, the usborne book of growing up... My parents were fairly open though. I remember my youngest brother sitting at the kitchen table doing HWK (he was about 9) asking 'daddy, what's an orgasm?' We, his older brothers and I (minimum four year age gap to eight years) were horrified when dad turned it into a sex ed lesson for us all on using contraception... Rather ruined when at the end said smaller brother suddenly piped up... 'Oh wait, what's an ORGANISM dad?' ... :)
We don't have any children yet - we take care of others people's 'lost' teenagers though - all if whom are at the 'I know all' age! I try and be open though - have provided condoms before and asked whether the girls are on the pill etc.

A copy of Clare Raynor's "The Body Book". I still clearly remember the full horror of some of the illustrations. I don't think there was any big secret about it in my family before then, but I still somehow only got the picture when I was 8ish.

My eldest daughter, who is 6, has from time to time asked questions about where she came from, where all people come from. I've always tried to just be as honest as possible, in an age appropriate way, so I don't know whether she'll remember an exact time when the penny dropped.

I kind of gave my mum the talk.

I was a couple of months shy of my 9th birthday when something came on the news about changing the time limit for abortions.

I asked my mum what one was and she replied, "There's no point me telling you because you don't know how babies are made yet".

"Yes I do, I read about it in a leaflet at the chemists."

Mum (clearly disbelieving) " Well dear, you tell me how you think babies are made and we'll go from there".

She was pretty shocked when I did exactly that - in graphic detail too - but was brilliant from then on, answered all my questions, told me about contraception, showed me how to put condoms on.

She is actually quite a prude so she really did an amazing job.

My mother explained explicit detail when I was 5yo. She was very open about sex & nudity anyway.

Guess things have changed. My mum told us absolutely nothing, it was never mentioned - sex, periods etc. My kids have asked questions from an early age about sex and things they see or hear about - I just try to be as open as I can.