A Twist of Things to Come

I don't think my parents cared what I read. The thought "uh oh, my parents won't want me to read this" never once crossed my mind. The fact that my mom died when I was 12 probably had something to do with this; from that age onward I didn't have much parenting at all. My brother and I used to watch the Playboy channel after school. I saw a few porn films out of curiosity, and learned that I don't care for porn films (or the Playboy channel).

I received thorough sex ed information both from my parents and from my school, where we had mock debates about abortion, abstinence, etc. And despite the information overload on sex--or perhaps because of it--I wound up sexually conservative. Didn't have sex until I was 18 (I told all my high school boyfriends up front that sex was off the table until I was 18, and not one of them lost interest after being told that), always used protection, had few partners, no unintended pregnancies, no STDs. So much for the idea that telling kids about sex encourages them to have more of it! This is one area where I think total frankness with kids is called for, and even though my kids are pre-puberty, I've had several talks with them (with Sean anyway, only one talk with Ethan) about sex already.