I can’t remember exactly how old I was so I’m going to go with eight, when my mother decided it was time that I learned the Facts of Life. I’m sure most parents look forward to, plan, over-analyze, idealize, fear, and dread the inevitable “talk” with their children regarding The Birds and The Bees.
But not my mom. She threw a book at me:
The problem is, this book does not tell you the alternate terms (read: street language) for where babies come from. So, when I was nine and sleeping over at my friend Stacy’s house and she asked me if I knew about the birds and the bees and I said no, rather than tell me what she was talking about so that I could say “Oh THAT - I know all about THAT!“, she decided that since I hadn’t learned about it yet, she probably shouldn’t tell me.
Of course, these people have no problem breaking your heart about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but the good stuff? The stuff that you would want to know? Would give up your weekly allowance of thirty-five cents to know? They keep that juicy stuff to themselves.
Which means she probably told our friends that I didn’t know about the birds and the bees and everybody else was probably laughing at me behind my back because I didn’t know about sex. But I DID know about sex.
But, you ask, … why is it such a big deal that everybody know that you know?
WHAT?! Are you kidding me?!? You’re asking why? Well, let me tell you why!
Because THE most important thing in a child’s life, her absolute highest priority is to belong, to be accepted by her peers. The first time you are excluded from one thing, a precedent may be set, you may be blacklisted at the elementary level, and the next thing you know, you will be left out of EVERYTHING!
You will be alienated. Oh no! You spent your whole grade school life networking, making sure you were included in Jamie’s jacks game, or Teri’s hopscotch game. You bit your nails, got anxious when Sally, the popular girl in pigtails, looked askance at you and you wondered briefly what you could have possibly done wrong to mess up the delicate balance of 4th grade politics.
One gap in communication could ruin your entire life. You become a social pariah and unjustifiably so!
As it turns out, that’s not at all what happened. My life went on happily with many friends and by junior high, Stacy became known as the school skank. Perhaps “skank” is too modern a word. This was, after all, the 70s. I believe the word used back then was “slut”.
They said she had “slept with a boy”. I agreed with my gossipy girlfriends that it was scandalous. I wasn’t precisely sure what was shameful about it but their voices clearly indicated to me the scarlety letterness of it all. My friend, whom I thought I knew (she never told me that she climbed into bed with boys and fell asleep next to them - it sounded so daring) had passed way ahead of me on the boy tract somewhere along the line.
So while the above book was funny and educational, it was not big on euphemisms. All I’m saying is, that it would have been nice to know that “sleeping with” someone was the opposite of what it sounded like.
Before I hit puberty, my mother threw another book at me:
My mom was such a chicken. Granted, she handed me these books and told me to come to her if I had any questions, but when you are raised in a house where uncomfortabe conversation is avoided at all costs, do you think I’m going to initiate any talk about sex? Ack! No way, man! Instead, I studied the crap out of that book because, clearly, it was going to be my only source of information.
I would also like to complain about the lack of euphemisms in this book as well. Can’t they just have a list at the end like an index of slang terms? You know, like:
MENSTRUATION:
1. On the rag
2. A visit from Aunt Flo
3. The monthly curse of the great red bat.
etc…
Just a quick reference page - maybe on the back inside cover. I would have appreciated that.
Goat Thing of The Day
These cuties were seen in Yuma, Arizona.
(Photo courtesy of Ken)
