There are some conversations we cannot keep avoiding no matter how we shy away from them, and one of these conversations is SEX EDUCATION.
When I was growing up, any discussion related to sex was seen as an abomination. Why should you say that? Clean your mouth; you have spoiled and the like. In fact, I grew up with my grandma, and I never knew there was something I was supposed to learn called "sex education," at least from my parents. I only learned the ones I learned in my school; if not, I would have raised an alarm the day I first saw my menstrual cycle.
I can vividly remember my grandma telling me to avoid one of my girlfriends simply because we discuss a lot and she is afraid the girl will be teaching me about men. That was how unexposed and bad it was for me. The only thing Grandma did for me was that immediately she saw that my breast was enlarging, she grabbed my ears and taught me that now I am growing up gradually; if any man touches me at all, I will get pregnant, and that means my future will be destroyed. She was fierce with the teaching; she only concentrated on me getting pregnant and why I should stay away from men.
That teaching was terrible because I started avoiding even my cousins and uncles so I wouldn't get pregnant lol. So naive I was back then with lots of funny experiences related to that.But now that I am a parent, I know better. I am educated and exposed, and I embrace sex education because I know how important it is for growing kids.
The moment you think that silence is the best way to guide a child, you are doing bad to that child. Call a spade a spade.
I started teaching my boys sex education at age 4. Exposed them on the parts of their bodies that should be private, and why nobody should touch them, and if they do, raise alarm! I also mentioned the names of these body parts without beating about the bush. At that stage, that was what I could teach them, but as they kept growing, we had to be more realistic; we brought biology to the table and learned how pregnancy can take place.
I know they were shy as I was saying everything, but I don't care; I have passed my message, and I know it has registered in their brains anld the knowledge will grow with them. I remember telling them a story of a girl who was constantly molested, but the girl was scared of telling her parents. By the time she summoned courage to let her parents know what was going on, the damage was already severe.
So I taught them to always speak up whenever anyone wants to take advantage of them, and surprisingly, my second son gave me a shocking revelation of what one guy, one of my staff said about his private part. I didn't take that info lightly for their sake, and that's the power of sex education. It prevents things from escalating, and once they know they can speak to us freely, they will likely speak up whenever necessary.
The world kept evolving, and so is information, which is rampant everywhere, especially in social media. That conversation we feel shy to talk about, the kids will get access to it out there and probably in a wrong way, so why not be raw and teach them what they are supposed to know before they learn it wrongly out there?
At the end of the day, I wouldn't want my kids to remember me as that mom who avoided difficult/vital conversations about life. I'd rather prefer that they remember that no matter what they were facing, my home was always the safest place to ask questions freely and find honest answers without fear of the unknown.
