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??

My grandmother was about to give birth and was panicking as the midwife set up her instruments because she didn't know how the baby was going to get out. Obviously her wedding night was a complete surprise too.

We were just told as we asked questions. I remember cringing in the back of the car when my younger sister asked to see a used sanitary towel.

My mum told us nothing, her mother told her nothing.

It was so bad when my dsis started her periods at 10 (I was 14 and hadn't started yet), my mum was so flustered she told her it was because she had eaten too many tomatoes

I remember me and my friend drawing a uterus, tubes, ovaries etc in the dirt with a stick and teaching dsis (and the rest of the street) all about it!

This was the very early 80's and sex education was just starting to be given in 3rd or 4th year of secondary school (scotland). When I was much older and joked with mum asking when I was getting my "talk", she still got flustered and said she didn't need to as they taught it in school now

Ds(10) has been getting bits and pieces since age 7-ish, makes it much easier to talk about and expand on as we go along.

Omg. Wealhavewings, that makes my mum seem almost normal.

I am desperately trying to not do it the way my mum did it. When I was 11, she bought me a book about periods written by nuns which mostly talk about kittens and the sanitary towels they showed were the ones with belts and loops. The day I started secondary school, she took me to one side and shoved a make up bag containing a sanitary towel and whispered in a slightly scary voice, "This is just in case .....something happens" and ran out of the room.
And I never got the sex talk but learned a lot from a magazine called "Man and Woman" which came out weekly for a few months circa 1979.

Sex was never mentioned once by either my mum or my dad. My dad was very strict and a real disciplinarian. I was so scared of him I wouldn't have dared do anything. Mum gave me a brief talk on periods, with a booklet from Kotex full of scrawly cartoons of women who looked like fairies (?). She must have talked to me for about 5 minutes and was clearly embarrassed. At least that was about 3 months before my periods started. I learned it all from Just 17 and Jackie magazines.

No proper talk,I would ask questions and mum would answer them. I do remember mum sitting on the edge of te bath telling me where babies came from while I cleaned my teeth one morning, lol! The only question she refused to answer was when I asked what rape meant,again about age 6, but that's what you get for letting a kid watch brookside! Not catholic but went to a catholic primary school and remember being furious when at a special day involving all the local primary school where we were told about drugs,alcohol etc we weren't allowed the session about sex and were taught assertiveness instead. As I'm sure I told the head teacher why I was so angry (always was head strong, head teacher didn't know whether or not to shout at me for being cheeky or applaud my assertiveness!)

So is there a good book that anyone can recommend, a modern one that doesn't make the idea of sex shameful or awkward? And what's the current equivalent of J17 and Cosmo which was where I learned everything!

I like the idea of leaving one or two on the bookshelf for the kids to go through as they want to, not to replace talking about it but just because they might find it useful.

My oldest son in particular is quite shy and bookish, and doesn't like talking about personal stuff much, so think he'd prefer reading than talking. He's only six so no hurry yet though!

my mum is known as quite a blunt, honest, graphic descrption person...

So the periods talk was basically her saying come and watch this, and shoving a tampon in

and the sex talk came from me asking about 9 years old, reading a newspaper and asking what 'sex' meant. She told me it was when a man puts his willy inside your front bum. My dad was sitting there going red and trying to stare straight ahead at the telly (he's a total prude)

so yeah, no gentle introductions for me!

DH on the other hand got his sex education from talking with his friends, reading dirty mags etc there was a lot that I had to explain to him too (periods etc!)

My mum didn't tell me anything about sex or periods. I'm 40. Thank god for school and friends. My mum also never bought tampons/pads for me unless I asked. I started my periods when I was 13, so my mum was nearly 50 by then and didn't seem to have that much sanpro around the house. She couldn't refer to tampons/pads by their actual name, so I was encouraged to ask her to buy me a "present". Absolutely bonkers No f'king way will this be what happens for DD and DS!

Never had the talk. Probably why I do it so weirdly now.

I remember being confused about "bleeding" because I had sneaked a read of a newspaper problem page where someone was saying that they did not believe a girl was a virgin because she didn't bleed after sex. When my best friend aged about 10 told me she was bleeding every month I was convinced she must have had sex and we had a huge argument on the swings till she got her Mum to explain.

We then had comprehensive sex education in Primary 7, which was age 11. This was Scotland in 1984. A full term's worth of weekly videos called "Living and Growing" shown to boys and girls all together, starting with puberty, through wet dreams and periods and sex illustrated by a cartoon joy of sex couple, right to a video of a birth. After each session we had an open Q and A with our class teacher who tirelessly answered all sorts of questions like "what's an orgasm Miss?". Then the following term she came in and announced she was pregnant so we had a real time pregnancy to follow and she shared everything with us. Fab, fab teacher.

The only thing I don't think it covered was oral sex-I learned about that from a copy of Penthouse Forum my Dad thought he'd hidden...but it was not till my first boyfriend at 16 that I learned that men could also do it to ladies!

My parents knew from the letter home was getting all the info from school, so we never had a talk, but my Mum was quite cool when my periods started and let me use tampons straight away.

I learned about masturbation from a book belonging to my Mum, some sort of 1970s Well Woman manual with lots of drawings of sexual positions in it. I had never really felt the urge but decided to do what the book said and was very pleased with the results

Aah, Forever and Lace, fond memories. I also add to that Adrian Mole, measuring his willy.

Parents nothing. All my knowledge was Jackie mag 1975..

My kids. Lads had the talk from dad.

My dds now teens. Both know everything possible needed I hope. Older one (15)went with me to see GP to access the pill primarily for period issues but she's had a bf for a year so best be proactive I think!

GP seemed amazed at this.

She assures me they haven't 'done it' yet and do I want to know when they do!

Might be TMI. Even for me.

My mum gave me the talk when I started my periods. She planned to do it in the transition between primary and secondary school, but I started before then. Fortunately for me, I knew the facts of life by then anyway, so wasn't completely traumatised by the fact that blood was pouring out of my nether regions.

My own DC knew the biological mechanics about penis, vagina, egg and sperm at the age of 4 (in very simple terms, obviously). As soon as they were old enough to ask, I answered and simply went into greater detail as they got older. Personally I think this way works better and because the biomechanics are understood so thoroughly it gives you far more scope for discussing issues such as consent, respect and healthy/unhealthy relationship dynamics as they become older and the likelihood of them having sex rather than just talking about it increases.

i had the talk, everything from periods to masturbation. My mum was very open. I was talking with my DP about how we're gonna tell our kids in the future. We're both quite open so it wouldn't be a problem! Children need age-appropriate sex & relationships education. I had my period at nine, i thought I was dying. It was awful, but I knew about it when I was 8. I'd tell my DD at around 8. My DP can tell my DS (i'm childless, just thinking of the future! I want both :P) because I still can't get my head round how to potty train a boy! :')