The prompt I chose for this week is:
Sex education! How old were you when you learned about the birds and the bees? Who taught you? Describe that experience.
What a prompt! This is one of the few things that I remember about my childhood and it probably traumatized my poor mama as much as it did me.
I was about ten years old, so mama knew the day was approaching that I would experience the grand event that would take me fast on the road to womanhood: menarche, otherwise known as my first period.
Mama consulted with my pediatrician to find out how to break the news to me about this and other joys that would eventually become part of my life. He recommended several books to her. I have no clue at this point what those books were and I'm sure she doesn't remember, either. But, she got the books, took me to her room.
This is the part that I remember clearly...she started talking and I was so embarrassed that I pulled the covers up over my head. I couldn't look at her. For one thing, I guess that I couldn't believe that my mama and daddy did such things as she was describing, and two, I couldn't imagine it ever happening to me and I didn't want to.
There were wires crossed in the discussion somewhere when it came to that great monthly visitor, because when it happened, I had no clue what was going on. It wasn't as described. I was at Sunday school and things started to freak out, but not so that anyone else could tell it. I didn't tell her for three days and when I did, she asked why hadn't I told her. I told her that I didn't tell her because I thought it was some freaky something else going on.
As mama's do, she got me tended to and that started years of wondering why couldn't I have been a boy and hoping for grandchildren first, because no way was I ever going to do THAT!
Please be sure to visit Mama Kat's Losin' It to play along!
Works Cited:
"menarche." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2003. Houghton Mifflin Company 21 Jul. 2011 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/menarche
Yes! That conversation is mortifying is it not? Although, now having a daughter of my own, I feel for my Mom!
ReplyDeleteStopping by from MamaKats...
I "tried" to write on the yellow prompt :-)
@leslie@gleaninggrace
ReplyDeleteYES! I wanted to hide under the covers when I had to give the talk (5 girls at the time) just as much as I did when I got the talk myself. haha It was totally embarrassing for me. Thankfully, the kids know that they can talk to us about anything, even this, even if mama turns 900 shades of red in the process of it. :)
Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. I'll go to read your post, too. :)