The Big Sex Talk (‘Life’s a Journey’ Nostalgia Link-Up, Week 59)

Welcome to year two of our weekly series of ‘link-up’ Posts which reflect on life’s journey, old memories and family stories (see below for more info).

In my case The BST went a bit like this:

Aged 12, 1979. In the bathroom.

ME: “Aaaarghhhhhhh! Muuuuuuuum! (intermittent hyperventilation sounds) Somethings…*sob* h..h..happened to me *sob*. I’m bleeeeeeeeding!!”

MUM: “Oooookay. I think you’d better read this, darling.”

Thank GOD she didn’t sit on the candlewick bedspread and read it with me. I don’t think I could have survived such excruciating embarrassment. What does a woman of, I dunno…..FORTY something know about S.E.X for God’s sake?

Fast forward to a forty something mother-of-a-teenager-me. Call me a bad mother, but we’ve never had A Big Sex Talk. It is clear to me that my teenage son knows far more than I would like him to about the birds and the bees. I know this with absolute certainty by the way he laughs at highly inappropriate televisual references to words such as ‘knob’ and ‘orgasm’.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve read some stuff (amusing extracts her by way of illustration) and I’ve told him I’m too young to be a grandma. I’ve squeezed his blackheads and introduced him to the big showery thing in the bathroom. Heck, I’ve even browsed for websites that he can look at to help with his education (even as we speak I am half expecting a heavily armed SWAT team to swoop in via kitchen window to confiscate my laptop).

No. In fact my greatest worry is NOT that he will fail to understand the facts of life, or that he will be ill prepared for his first ventures into sexual activity. My greatest anxiety is that I, his mother will have absolutely NO clue what the hell he is talking about because I am forty something and I am out of touch with the vagaries and language of youth.

Is it wrong to make him watch back to back episodes of Sex in the City as part of a controlled education programme?

Tell me about yours…… Join the Linky or leave a comment. Memories come in all shapes and sizes, just like human appendages (according to The Book). Isn’t nostalgia a beautiful thing?