I was watching the Today show this morning and they were talking about how Jamie, Britney’s little sister, got pregnant at 16. My girls don’t watch her show, we don’t have cable so I didn’t really have to address the issue with my daughters as Elizabeth had to do and many other moms like her.

The sex talk, when I was growing up, was a big deal. You got sat down in the living room and was told the nitty details of the birds and the bees. It was serious stuff. My husband said it was the same way at their house. He grew up with four sisters, and he got included in the birds and the bees meeting too. He said his mom was so detailed and graphic in her explanation he learned half the things he knew about female anatomy right there in the kitchen table. Hmmm. that didn’t sound right, but you know what I mean.

With our girls, we didn’t ever have the big sit down. We did it in bits and pieces and over time. It started almost immediately when they started potty training. They had the usual kid names for their genders, but they also always knew that the proper name for it was vajayjay. (You know what I mean. It’s bad enough I have the word sex in my title. Putting vajayjay in my post would be like opening the door for spammers, you know?) I’m not that prude. But I did still blush saying the V word up until I had to open mine up to spit them three big girls. My youngest daughter came up with the cutest term when she was about two. She started calling it the China, so that’s what we called it for the longest time. LOL!

ANYWAY, getting back on point, talking to them in installments I think makes it easier for everyone. The less that they will tune you out and by keeping it casual and matter of fact, it becomes a habit, like talking about what we’re going to eat for dinner. By taking it in stages, you can also tailor your talk according to their age and level of understanding. My two older daughters are now 14 and 15 and it wasn’t until they started menstruating that we really got into the mechanics of sex. I think anytime before that would have been too soon. They would not have been able to understand. Thank goodness for health education in schools. Hehe! I got a lot of ‘Oh, I already know that part mom, we learned it in health’ WHEW! thanks for not having me go into details. LOL!! Seriously though, now that they are even a little older, it is so much easier to get into ‘the talk’ everytime they have a question. And I’m glad that they have questions, ’cause god forbid, some of the questions they’ve asked, I would never have dared ask my mother. I would have died of embarassment!

The questions they ask, the things they are curious about, are way different than what I was experiencing and wanting to know about at their age. I guess this is what they call the generation gap? Boy, I didn’t think there would ever be a ‘gap’ between my girls and me, but I guess that too is inevitable.