"Premie...umm Convo"
Last week while I picked my 9 year old son up from after care, the program's director mentioned that he seems to be rather fond of a particular little girl in his class. Now if you knew anything about my boy, you'd realize right away that this is unique for him. Traditionally, he's a sports enthusiast, mainly. He can tell you just about anything you wanna know about college basketball or football but rarely does he ever talk about his affinity for cute girls. I mean, void an occasional comment that he believes his Mommy, Alicia Keys and Beyonce are all beautiful women. But never before has he taken a liking to a regular little girl. I think my exact sentiment when I heard the news was "Alright Luv, it's tighten up time!"
I bet some of y'all are thinking "Whats the big deal? So what ... your son thinks a lil' girl in his class is a cutie ... it's not that serious, C-Luv!" WRONG! If I learned anything during my three year tenure as a middle school teacher, it was the fact that this new generation of kids has far more exposure to sex laced content and material than our generation's pre-teen children. Quite naturally, as a concerned parent, I want to provide my son with actual fact based info about sex so that he does not have to rely upon any misinformation that he might eventually obtain from his peers.
Therefore, I meditated on the subject for a few days. How should I begin the conversation? What would be the best approach? This was really tough for me because I never had such a conversation presented to me as an adolescent. Much of what I eventually came to know and understand about sex was obtained through peer communication, literature, adult movies, and personal experience. As I prepared to deliver my soliloquy, I paused to take a deep breath and encouraged myself one last time ... "C'mon you can do this, bro. Just give it to him straight."
I sat my son down and began with my whole big spiel... I decided NOT to "talk down" at him because children are a whole lot more astute than we often give them credit for being. So instead of dumbing down my conversation, I attempted to hold a big boy conversation with my son. I guess somewhere along the way, I lost sight of the fact that my son is merely 9 years old. Anyway, I began telling my lil' man how sex is a physical act that occurs when an adult male inserts his penis into an adult female's vagina... yada, yada, yada. I wanted to stress the whole adult theme to drill home the point that sex should only occur between two responsible individuals. Meanwhile, he's giving me this blank stare. In my mind, I imagine that inside my son's head he probably hears the sound of crickets chirping. LOL.
I'm talkin' my butt off y'all and wondering if my message is sinking in. At this point, Daddy is on a roll though and there's no stopping me. Every once in a while, I pause to say something like "does that make sense?" or "you feel me?" to which he quite simply replies "Yes". I emphasize the importance of him consulting with either me or his Mom when he has questions about himself, his body, any sudden weird urges, or little girls and their bodies. Then finally, I'm done talking. I give my son some dap (i.e. I shake his hand) and a hug and we capped the evening off with a ritualistic Friday night game of Madden 09.
I called his Mom the other day to ask her to follow up with him to see what he was able to retain from our convo. I wasn't the least bit surprised to learn that all he understood from my 35 minute ramble session was that "Sex is nasty." Fortunately for me, my son has an amazing Mother. She pulled out an old sex-education book, sat down with my son, and they read the content together. From their conversation, he was actually able to formulate some questions which allowed his Mom to further clarify and talk to him on his intellectual level. Interestingly enough, at the conclusion of their more age appropriate conversation, my son's assessment of the subject was STILL "Ee-uhl Mommy, sex is nasty!"
The moral of the story... make sure you have proper reinforcements lined up before having the sex talk with your kid. As for me, I'm fortunate to have a professional "BIG talk" specialist to clean up my mess. Get yours, I got mine! Ultimately, I think my son's mom and I managed to buy an additional 2 to 3 years before we have to revisit this topic with our boy. Pray that you too are so fortunate. Be blessed.
Corey R.
