Mid-CenturyModernMoms

The Pill as Protection: Passe?

When I was a teen, my mother talked to me about sex. NOT for the first time, not by any stretch. There was no single "Talk" in my life, more like an ongoing conversation. My mother, a nurse, was the last thing from prudish, and had given me clear and age-appropriate information as long as I can remember.

This conversation, too, was age-appropriate. I was a teen and likely to become sexually active in the near future. We talked about contraception, and when the time came, with my mother's input and guidance, I went on the pill.

That was thirty years ago.

I now have three sexually active kids, two of whom are girls. Are the girls on the pill? No. Do I want them to be? Nowhere is the difference between 1970-something and 2000-something made more clear than in my answer to that question.

When I was a teenager, the worse consequence of sex would be an unwanted pregnancy. Any nasty little infection you might pick up if you were stupid/unlucky could be treated with a round of antibiotics.

That was then.

Now the consequences of inadequate protection are not just inconvenient or even life-altering: they could be life-destroying. And the pill no longer constitutes "protection", not against AIDS. If my girls had only a pill between them and pregnancy, that would mean they had nothing between them and a whole lot worse. If they are on the pill, my fear would be that they would become less consistent with the condoms.

So. Do I want my girls on the pill? No, I do not.

How about you? Let's set aside for now the question of whether they 'should' be having sex at all, or whether or not you approve of teen sex. If you have sexually active teens, particularly girls, how do you feel about the pill as protection?

Condoms, Sex Ed., and Teens

I have my radio tuned to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) all the time. I love the lack of top-40 music, I love the intelligent interviews. Being a work-at-home sort, I really love the sense of connection with the outside world.

One noon-hour show last week highlighted a woman who had concerns over her 14-year-old son's assignment in his health class. He'd tried to get out of it, and his mother initially told him that of course he had to do it, just as he was expected to do all his homework. Then she found out what the assignment was: He, like all his grade-nine compatriots, was to purchase a box of condoms.

Now that's interesting.

The mother reported that her son was uncomfortable with the assignment because, as he told her, he has decided to defer having sex yet, and didn't see the relevance to him. I have my own opinions on this of course, but I was even more interested to know my kids'.

Rebekah (15, grade 10):
"Of course he's going to tell his mother that. Who tells their mother they're thinking of having sex?"
"Even if he has decided not to have sex right now, with a teenager that can change really quickly. Like, as soon as a girl lets him know she'd be interested."

Adam (19, 1st year college):
"What kid is going to tell his mother he's thinking of having sex?"
"I don't know what he was embarrassed about."
Me: "Even at 14? Weren't you embarrassed the first time you bought them?"
"It wasn't embarrassing. [grin] It was awkward. These days I just pick up a few other items, too -- razors, deodorant, kleenex, and plonk it all on the counter together."

Sarah (23, university grad, gainfully employed and living as an independent adult):
"Nobody tells their mother before the fact that they're thinking about it. Even more if she's kind of uptight about it."
"If she's using words like 'panic' and 'blind-sided', maybe she should see it as the teacher doing her a favour. Now she doesn't have to have what would obviously be a really uncomfortable conversation for her."

So. My three are united on one thing: The parent is NOT going to be the first to know when a child is considering sex.

Given that the average age for first sexual encounter here in Canada is 16.5 (2005 stat), fourteen is arguably a bit young, but then, do you want to wait until after they have sex to teach them about safer sex practices? The other factor in this example is that grade nine is the last year that health (and with it, sex ed) is mandatory in Ontario. After that, kids can opt not to take it, and miss out important information. Vital information, if it's not being provided at home.

Me, I'd expect a 14-year-old to be embarrassed. Were I the teacher, that would be part of the lesson: "If you're too embarrassed to go to a store and buy condoms, you're not mature enough to be having sex." I've certainly said it to my kids, not in a sneering way, but just factually, as one sign that you're not ready yet.

There are other ways to teach this lesson. Sarah's teacher brought an assortment of condoms into class. Rebekah's health teacher was even more creative. Last year, in grade nine, her entire class was given a worksheet which (during health class, on school time, and accompanied by the teacher) they took to the nearest pharmacy. Then the entire class wandered over to the condom aisle, plonked themselves down on the floor, and filled out their worksheet, in which they had to list five different brands, their various health aspects (spermicide, latex, lubricants, etc.) and their various pleasure aspects (ribbing, colour, flavours, etc.).

At the end of that exercise, the kids knew what their options were, where to find them, and, for many of them doing this for the first time, the mystery/intimidation/embarrassment factor had been greatly reduced. Sarah said: "That's very clever. They can look at them and sort through all the options when it doesn't matter, when it's clear this is not YOUR idea. Talk about taking the pressure off when it does matter."

For those of you who are shocked by this and sure that these kids are being groomed for a life of promiscuity, bear in mind that Canadian and American teens start having sex at pretty much the same age and the same rates, and yet Canadian teens have significantly fewer births AND fewer abortions than US teens. (Meaning that the lower teen birth rates can't be accounted for by more abortions.) Their rates of STIs are also lower. It's even more dramatic when you compare US teens with those in Germany, The Netherlands and France. Follow that link, and just see what head-in-the-sand abstinence "education" is costing American society.

"A few kids actually bought a package," Rebekah told me. "You could if you wanted, but you didn't have to. Most of us didn't need them, so we didn't bother."

But you can be sure that, when they do need them, these kids will be more likely to get them.

Parenting milestone that we could all live without...

She's one of my closest friends, she's one of the best mothers I know, and she's just weathered one of the Nightmares of Parenting. Her fourth child, a daughter (15 years old, third girl), has just had a Pregnancy Scare.

Some people might leap immediately to judgement:

Pregnancy scare? Doesn't that take away her "Good Mother" card?

Pregnancy scare? Guess that'll show her for being such a sexually common-sense liberal mother!

Pregnancy scare? What kind of stupid, low-self-esteem, promiscuous child is she raising?

Some people probably only have toddlers yet. Or have raised their children in a socially-conservative commune. Or have their heads firmly buried in the sand.

No matter what the parental rules, regulations, and social/moral values, a teenager is going to make decisions for themselves. In a perfect world, they'd make wise, sensible decisions based on the wise, sensible counsel and good modelling provided by their parents.

But this is not a perfect world. You may have noticed that.

In the world we have, teens do things their parents disapprove of. Even had my friend been in the "no-sex-till-marriage" camp, her teen is still statistically likely to be sexually active during her (unmarried) adolescence. Them's the facts. So, give your teen your moral framework, but prepare them for the possibility of other choices. You can tell them you believe those are inferior choices, but they need the information. Think about it: If you have trouble getting them to do their own laundry or keep their room clean, things which happen right under your very own roof, how on earth do you think you can keep them from having sex just because you've told them it's a bad idea?

My friend had done all the things a loving and practical parent would do. She had had "the talk" with all her children -- not just one excruciatingly embarrassing lecture, but an endless series of short, natural conversations, starting with identifying body parts, all of them, and accurately, (when they were toddlers), right through to about sex and sexuality (in later grade school). She had answered all questions as they arose, at an age-appropriate level, matter-of-factly and without squeamishness. She had, of course, added her moral perspective to all these talks, about what made for good sex and bad -- and she wasn't talking techniques, she was talking relationships and respect and patience and kindness. Of waiting till you're ready, not being pressured. When they got to be of an age to be sexually active, she had discussed birth control with them, and had made condoms available.

She poured all this out to me as she sipped her coffee, evidently shaken.

"None of her siblings ever, ever had unprotected sex! None of the rest of them was ever so STUPID! What did I do wrong?"

She didn't do wrong, of course. Some might disagree, and to them I put this question: If you want to argue that acting on the probability that your child will become sexually active in their teens is "going wrong", how do you explain her three sexually active but sensible older siblings? Siblings who are in respectful, long-term relationships? (Well, the 24 and 21-year-olds are. The nineteen-year-old is currently single.)

She didn't go wrong. In fact, I was impressed.

I was impressed that my friend had as much information as she did. She knew that her daughter had had sex. She knew that the "condom had fallen off when he was coming out"... though she wasn't sure whether she strictly believed that. How did she know that? Because her daughter told her. Her daughter felt safe to come to her.

How many of us could be sure that at a similar time of crisis, our children would feel safe to come to us? That they would avail themselves of the wisdom and experience in a mid-century parental head? How many of us, instead, would find out after even more damage was done?

Her daughter came to her. They talked about what had happened. They talked (again) about a woman's cycles, about fertile periods, about birth control and sexually transmitted infections. They visited a doctor (who, at the mother's request, gave the girl a stern/scary talking-to about birth control and STI's). The daughter had the full run of tests for said STI's. There was no doubt in the daughter's mind that this was a Big Deal, that she had risked not just a pregnancy, but her health and safety. And now she knows, even more than before, how to keep herself safe. And this time, I'm betting she'll take it a whole lot more seriously.

Yes, this mother's daughter is sexually active. Yes, the girl made a sexual mis-step (whether a condom slip due to inexperience or a full-out TEENAGE STUPID moment is not strictly relevant). No, she is not currently sexually active. She broke up with the boyfriend, in part because of his response to this situation. (She was and is not pregnant. It was only a 'scare'.)

None of this makes the mother less than excellent. None of this even makes the daughter an irresponsible, out-of-control teen.

What is makes them is a team. A team in the task of ongoing preparation for adulthood. We cannot pack out children in cotton wool, buffer them from and and all risky behaviour. Even if we could, how on earth does that prepare them for the moment they must leave the nest and deal with the daily risks of daily life?

A mother who prepares her child for the decisions that are hers to make, who walks that child through the steps to rectify a mis-step, who shows her child who and what her resources are, who guides her in how to avoid a recurrence... that mother is preparing her child for life on her own.

That's Good Mothering.

Priorities in Parenting, or, how to drive your teen crazy

My husband has been working from home today, and dedicated worker bee that he is, he is about to hop on his bike and go get us both a coffee. I am kissing him goodbye at the door.

We do not peck on the cheek, he and I. A good rule of thumb for kisses is one second per year of connubial (or co-habitory, as the case may be) bliss. People get this backward all the time. Have you ever noticed that? One endless kisses when they've been together ninety seconds; half-second seconds when they've been together forty years.

Utterly backward.

However, I run a daycare in my home. Five toddlers, ten hours a day, five days a week. (Yes, I am also the woman with three children and five step-children. And somehow, I am still sane. Am too, am too!)

When you have a houseful of toddlers, a multi-second kiss will always, always be interrupted. Always. But we are hardy, experienced, committed kissers, my man and I. We re not to be diverted from our appointed take by a mere piping voice or a tug on a pant leg. The kids have to learn their place in the grand scheme of things.

What multi-second kisses mean in a house full of teens is dramatic and copious moaning and groaning. This, too, is ignored. If the moaning and groaning gets louder and aggressive, the kisses get even more so. Teens, too, have to learn their place. Parental affection is a Good Thing.

So. I am kissing me man goodbye at the door.

One of the daycare tots trots up. Of course. The piping voice is ignored. The tug on the pant leg likewise. Also the tug on his pant leg. She is nothing if not persistent. She doesn't attempt violence against our persons; she knows better than that. She attempts conversation.

"What's your name, Ilona? Ilona, what's your name?"

Now, my man and I, being not only experienced, committed kissers, but also experienced, (soon-to-be committed) parents, have had a lifetime experience dealing with this. She does not get an answer. On the contrary. Interruptions ensure the kiss lasts longer. Now, you see, we have to keep it up until she's quiet.

Adults have the right to affection. Parents have the right to focus on each other exclusively from time to time.  Loving parents ensure a happy home, and this is good for everyone. So. "No Interrupting Grown-up Smooching" is an Important Life Lesson.

"Ilona? What's your name?" Besides, call me cynical, but I have a suspicion this isn't a sincere conversational gambit.

Mmm. He is a very good kisser. Rebekah, reading on the couch, is studiously ignoring us. See how well we've trained even our teens in appropriate response to adult affection? Hard to know how she can see the page, though, what with her eyes rolled up to the back of her head like that...

Ah, but the tot is quiet, finally, and I have to come up for air.

"Yes, sweetie? What did you want?"  (Yes, I know I've heard the question several times by now. It's the Principle of the Thing.)

"What's your name?"

"Her name," my man pipes up most helpfully, "is ..." He puts his palm across his mouth and makes elaborate cartoon kiss-noises, the squeaky balloon of romance,

"SSSSSSSMMMMMMOOOOOOOCH!"

Rebekah can bear it no longer, and races in disgust from the room. "GAH!"

Parenting is such fun!

Why is the World Round, and Other Imponderables by Jenny Gardiner

Me and my teen mom homies, we've been dealing with it all, and then some, lately. We're almost cliched, in fact, pondering as we are how much easier it was back in the days when we merely had to drag a tantrum-hurling 2 year-old from the grocery store, versus tackling the many heady issues parents of modern teens face as their offspring teeter on the precipice of adulthood. It's enough to make a girl go gray, stress-eat the ever-so-divine limited offer Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms, and cuss a blue streak to no one and everyone in particular. Not that I would be susceptible to the latter two...

I think in the world of raising children, barring unforeseen circumstances, you start out with the cake course. Parenting 101. You know, the diaper changing, the calming of an irrationally petulant child. The easy stuff (that at the time seems insufferably impossible to navigate). By the time the kids are teens, parents have unwittingly entered into the post-graduate phase of things. Everything becomes so much more involved, so much more complex. Black and white blurs into gray, with no necessary right or wrong, but rather a "hope I don't screw this up too badly" mode. At this point, I find visualizing into the future, to a point at which your kids are through with college, in the work world, happily dating, or maybe even married, is a vital coping tool. Because only then might we be secure in the knowledge that we were able to transcend the stressful makes-your-head-hurt stuff that is the domain of the teen parent.

Consider a few recently teen quandaries my homies and I have encountered lately:

*The high school senior, the one who can't yet seem to keep track of a permission slip let alone a passport, who wants to travel alone through Europe this summer. That same one will be off on his own by summer's end, so perhaps allowing this risk-taking venture is a way to encourage some necessary maturation before he cuts loose altogether? Or perhaps that un-street-savvy kid will end up mugged and left for dead in a gutter, passport, cellphone and wallet lifted, unable to contact his parents for help. Of course approving this venture for the boy then means his younger sister must also have this opportunity, and hey, like it or not, there is a double standard when it comes to females traveling alone abroad, especially at that young age.

*The high school sophomore who met a boy last year one week before he moved six states away. They've remained in cellphone/IM contact throughout the school year. Now he wants to come visit, staying at the girls house over a holiday weekend. Having this complete stranger under one's roof can be one of two things---a positive chance to spend plenty of time with him, to get to know him and trust his intentions. Or it can mean ready-made opportunities for him to hook-up in the middle of the night with the daughter while the mom sleeps (the dad will be out of town at a soccer tournament with one of the kids). To deny this certainly offers up a large platter of forbidden fruit, and we all know how much tastier that type is...

*The teen girl who insists upon booking her first Brasilian waxing. (clearly this girl has no clue what she's getting herself into, pain-wise!). Truth is, we all know why anyone chooses a Brasilian wax job. And it ain't comfort. So that in and of itself suggests there's reason behind this (trust me, it has nothing to do with swim suit season being upon us). So now that that mom knows what her 16 year old is up to, what's a mom to do?

*The high school prom, for which an alternate, unsanctioned prom sprung up after school administrators decided that grinding was far too scandalous and issued a 10-inch rule (get your mind out of the gutter, not that type of 10-inches!): a mandatory 10 inches of air must be sustained between a dancing couple. Is grinding mighty sexually suggestive? Sure. Is this much different than adults banning Elvis and the Twist? Not really.

*Then there's the high school senior who questions what it's all about---after all, why bother with any of it when ultimately we're all gonna die. Um, how do you truly answer that question? Anyone deep enough to ponder such things is not going to be satisfied with a pat answer. And who actually has a legitimate answer to this question?

Okay, some of these issues are far bigger than my head can wrap around. The we-are-merely-a-speck-of-dust-on-the-pinhead-of-some-larger-entity is far more than I can/will/choose to ponder with any success. It makes me too dizzy and slightly depressed. But at least I'll tackle the prom thing, and by extension, perhaps address my feelings and worries about the state of teen-hood today.

The pat advice to all parents is this: pick your battles. On the issue of dirty dancing, I do feel as if this is a battle best left alone. After all, teens nowadays have their wings clipped to the point of no longer being birds of flight. In our home we have a parrot, and when she was younger, we regularly clipped her wings (a practice akin to trimming fingernails). The idea was to keep her from flying around the house. But the reality was it caused her to fall off her perch and drop like a lead weight to the floor---her wings sans flight feathers sort of led to her fall from grace.

After our parrot fell enough times so hard that her breast bone punctured through her skin, our vet decided it was a good idea to let her flight wings grow out. And you know what? She doesn't fly around the house. Sure she still spreads her wings, flaps them vigorously on occasion. But if she falls, the amount of feathers she's got enables her to enough loft to land without such a violent thud.

I think society has gone way overboard in clipping back the flight feathers of our teens, particularly at a point at which they need to be spreading their wings and learning to fly, even if it means they fall hard and fast to the ground. The simplest of bad judgment errors for teens nowadays can result in a loss of all academic honors, membership to sports teams, hell, even college admissions. We don't allow teenagers the chance to make mistakes and learn from them. They're expected to learn vicariously from others' errors, I suspect, when in reality that doesn't quite work the same way. We have raised a generation of future adults with probably far less life experiences than we ever had, because most were never allowed to take risks, were clamped so tightly in their car seats and then strapped down with onerous activities and then just when biology started mandating that they stretch away from the weight of our protective shield, we further reduced their ability to take those important strides toward adulthood, errors or not.

I remember once reading about Eunice Kennedy, mother of umteen children, and she spoke of how she let her children fail, even when it meant they suffered for it. We parents---armed in this dreadful age of information with the myriad fearful possibilities of what could go wrong---cherish our children so greatly that we are afraid to allow failure to happen. We don't want them to be hurt, or even worse, killed. We don't want them to fall flat on their faces, to suffer the pain and/or humiliation of trying and faltering.

But have we really served them best in this regard? I know so many of my contemporaries look each other in the eyes when discussing our own jaded youth with that knowing wide-eyed gaze of "Damn, how the hell did we live to tell about it?" The sad reality of it is there were those of our peers who didn't live to tell about it. That's the sucky thing of it. For this, we are all so fearful that our kids will be amongst that unfortunate group. Thus we keep our birds caged, wings clipped, hoping they can get to adulthood injury-free. Yet truly, probably, sorely untested, and lacking some important life experiences that they need to become complete adults.

All of these ponderings lead to me to wonder what is the answer to these teen parent dilemmas. Of course I no sooner have these answers than do you. I'm just muddling through it the best I can, trying not to eat too many of those Mint Crisp M&Ms. After all, they are a limited edition, and when they're gone, they gone.

The Feminine Mystique

By Melanie Lynne Hauser

Lately there have been strange creatures in our house.

They giggle and flip their hair and smell a lot nicer than the usual creatures we attract.

They're girls.

This is a new development in our lives.  Younger son's social life has gone in a new direction lately; he has a girlfriend and moves in a crowd that's more co-ed than his usual group.  They're all good kids, band kids, he likes to remind us whenever we commence one of our periodic lectures about responsible sex and good choices and the whole "your entire life is ahead of you" kind of thing. 

And it's true; their activities are wholesomely sweet.  (For example, one weekend they all parked in front of the flat screen to watch what they called "all the old classic movies."  I, of course, thought they were going to pop in a DVD of Casablanca or Citizen Kane.  Instead, they sighed with nostalgia over Free Willy and Space Jam.  I guess every generation's definition of "classic" is different.)

Now, you have to understand.  Our house has been a girl-free zone forever.  (And I don't count myself as a girl because my kids and my husband certainly don't.  They've all grown to think of me as a short, cranky boy who sometimes cross dresses.)

So for over a decade - at least since first grade, when both boys discovered girls had cooties - we've gotten used to playing host (or to put it more accurately, zoo keeper) to packs of boys.  Boys who stink, who fart, who burp, who eat lots and lots of our food, who knock things over and break things and - here's a very important part - don't pay any attention at all to their surroundings.

But all of a sudden, we're playing host and hostess - properly, uncomfortably - to girls.  Dainty little creatures.  And both my husband and I are a little unsure of ourselves.

I find myself fussing around the house more.  I sweep, dust, straighten up whenever I know they're coming.  I clean the downstairs bathroom more often.  I've burned through a ton of fragrant candles.  I make sure I have some makeup on, and my hair is combed, and I don't have food sticking to my shirt.

I just take much more care.

And I didn't really notice that I was doing this until the other day.  As a group of them were downstairs, playing videogames (band geeks, remember?), my husband came up to me, speaking softly.

"Do you?"  He began.  He cleared his throat, glanced nervously downstairs, and began again.  "Um, do you, like, behave differently?  Now?  With - you know," he blushed a bit.  "Girls in the house?"

"Oh, yes!"  I was so relieved he felt the same way.  "I do!  It's so weird, isn't it?"

"Totally.  Do you think," he said, with another nervous cough as he looked sadly down at his clothes.  "Do you think I should change?  This is kind of messy, isn't it?"

I looked at him - sweat pants, white T-shirt, unshaven, a mess.   When my husband works from home, he rarely gets dressed before dinner.  I nodded.

"I know," he sighed, going upstairs.  "I thought so.  I guess I should change."

"You might want to shave, too," I called up after him.  Although I wasn't sure it would matter; since the arrival of the girls, my husband has taken to shutting himself up in his office.

Now, you have to understand.  My husband generally rejoices in being the big, embarassing, goofy dad.  When the boys' friends are over, he roams among them comfortably, telling bad jokes, teasing, rumpling hair, doing pratfalls.  He just loves it.

But with the girls - ah.  That's different.  He hides.  He just doesn't know what to do, how to act.  After all, he hasn't had to impress a girl in twenty years.  It's like everything he ever used to know, when it comes to behaving around the opposite sex, has just vanished.  Marriage has reduced him to a twelve-year-old boy again.

But I'm the opposite.  With the boys, I usually ignored them, let them be, coming down only when I hear the telltale sound of things breaking or spilling.  And even when I hear that, I simply look up from whatever I'm doing, sigh, and yell, "Clean it up!"  Then I go on about my business. 

But with the girls, I feel as if I should be a good hostess; as if I should circulate.  I constantly pop in, asking if anyone needs anything - drinks, food, the thermostat turned up or down.  I circle them nervously - not the least because I know, in a way my husband doesn't because he didn't have the social life I did in high school, that a chaperone is what's needed these days.   In addition to a hostess.

When the girls leave, though - we let out big sighs of relief.  And relax, and become ourselves, our normal, easygoing, bad-joke-telling, boy-parent selves, again.

It's not that we don't enjoy this new phase in our lives.  We do.  It's just that it's - different.  Girls are just different.  Than boys.  Which, of course, is the whole point, isn't it?

It's so interesting to see how this sudden influx of feminity has thrown us both - including me, the one without a "y" chromosome - off our beam.  How we view teenage girls as these strange, exotic creatures we have to be so very careful around.

Sometimes I miss the boys, to tell the truth.  A couple of weekends ago a new, exciting videogame was released and my son brought a pack of his guy friends over for an all-night tournament.  I loved it.  I couldn't stop smiling.  They stank, they yelled, they ate everything, they broke things, but I didn't care.  It was just so good to have them back.

But even so, I ached a little with nostalgia as I shouted "Clean it up!"  Because their time is passing.  It's going to be girls from now on, and I'd better get used to it.

And really, I tell myself as I stock up on fragrant candles and force myself to buy some fashionable new outfits - I noticed last week that all the girls were wearing ballet flats so I guess they're "in" - anything that gets my husband to shower and dress before dinner can only be a good thing.

Even if it's a feminine thing.    

The More Things Change... A Family Room Drama in Two Acts

By Margy McCarthy

Act I

(The curtain rises on a typical family room. It is evening. Lamps are lit. Two overstuffed chairs flank a small table, up stage right; a couch is along the wall stage left. A roll top desk with a computer is along the up stage wall. The TV, its back toward the audience, is down center. As the lights come up, we hear a familiar commercial jingle from the television, and see SHRIEK, a twelve-year old girl, sprawled in one of the chairs, watching TV. Her parents, SPARKY and MARGY, are cuddled on the couch. They kiss.)

SHRIEK: Oh, yuck, you two, do you mind? I don’t want to see you macking all over each other again!

MARGY: Macking? (laughs) What is macking?

SHRIEK: (Rolls her eyes.) Mo-ther!

MARGY: How can I be macking if I don’t even know what macking is? (She kisses SPARKY again.) Do you know what macking is, Honey?

SPARKY: I think it’s this. (He kisses MARGY several times, making “MACK” sounds with each one. MARGY laughs and does it too.)

SPARKY and MARGY: (together) Mmmmaaack! Mmmmaaack! Mmmmaaack!

SHRIEK: (covering her ears) Arrrggghhh! Come on! Really, you guys, I’m trying to watch this. Why don’t you get a room or something?

SPARKY: (to MARGY) This is our room, isn’t it, Honey?

MARGY: Last time I checked it was still attached to the house.

SPARKY: (authoritatively, to SHRIEK) This is our room. We ‘got this room’ fifteen years ago.

MARGY: Before you were even born.

SPARKY: Think how lucky you are-- if your mom and I never ‘macked all over’ each other, you wouldn’t even be here to complain.

MARGY: Come to think of it, maybe we should have named you Mack.

SPARKY: You and your brother, both.

SHRIEK: (covering ears, running off, stage left) AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!

(SPARKY and MARGY look at each other, puzzled.)

MARGY: (Shaking her head.) You would think she’d be glad we still like each other.

SPARKY: Kids are weird.

Curtain

~INTERMISSION~

Don’t you love intermission? Don’t you love being all dressed up looking at all the fancy people in the lobby sipping drinks and critiquing the show?

Well, grab some bubbly, and let’s find a quiet spot-- here’s what I think so far:

The girl who plays the ingénue, Shriek, is a truly gifted actress. Did you see the horrified expression on her face when she was running offstage? Perfect Stanislavski method.

My kids couldn’t pull that scene off. They never fail to complain about shows of affection between their father and myself, (we’re too old, it’s gross, disgusting, etc.) but while they’re complaining, they always break character just a little. I see a smidgen of a smile- an impish little twitch at the corners of their mouths. Maybe it’s due to our silly responses to their grumpiness, but even as they pronounce us shriveled up and over the hill, there is always a teeny little trace of delight that after almost twenty-five years we can stand to be cuddled up on the couch together.

I think they secretly sort of like it.

When I was little, I would squeeze myself between my parents when they were embracing each other; I wanted my share of love too. Later, as I realized that the smooches in the kitchen were indicative of something more happening somewhere else, I was less inclined to do that. And I certainly blocked my mind to any thoughts of further activity behind closed doors. But there was a real measure of comfort and security for me in the fact that they loved and enjoyed each other after all those years. I didn’t want to think about it very much, but I was glad it was there.

Oh! They’re blinking the lobby lights! We’d better get back to our seats before Act Two!

Act II

(The curtain rises on the scene. It is the following evening. MARGY is in the family room, typing a blog on the computer up stage center. SHRIEK is seated on the floor, Center, drawing; SNOOZE is sleeping on the couch. The phone rings. MARGY, stretching, picks up the receiver and crosses down left, to a stool in a spotlight. A second spot illuminates downstage right where MARGY’S mom, FOXY, is seated on a stool with a phone in her hand. There is an open suitcase near her feet.)

MARGY: Hello?

FOXY: Hi, Honey.

MARGY: Oh! Hi, Mom. Are you guys all packed? Are you ready to head back north for the summer?

FOXY: I sure hope so. It’s been a long day- lots of last-minute errands- and your dad wants to take off first thing in the morning.

MARGY: Did you leave me a list?

FOXY: Yes. It’s on the kitchen counter. Nothing much left for you to do- I have some milk and food in the fridge, though- you’ll want to come by and pick those things up.

MARGY: Okay. I’ll do that.

FOXY: There’s lemon pie for Snooze, and those tortillas that Shriek likes so much.

MARGY: Thanks. They’ll love that.

FOXY: Oh, my, I’m tired. We did so much today. (Rummaging in suitcase) I’m ready for bed. (Digs through suitcase some more.) Hmm. That’s odd. I can’t find my nightgown in this suitcase. I know I put it in here this morning…

MARGY: Maybe it’s in a different bag.

FOXY: No- it was this one. (calling offstage) Bud? Did you move my nightgown?

MALE VOICE: (with a teasing tone- offstage) Of course not. Why would I do such a thing?

MARGY: (laughs) Really, Mom. Why would he do such a thing?

FOXY: Well, you know how men are. If he hides my nightgown, I won’t be able to wear it tonight. I think it’s one of his little tricks.

MARGY: Mom! Do you mean--?

FOXY: Well, of course, Dear! As soon as I hang up the phone, he’ll be macking all over me. What did you think? We may be old, but we’re not dead!

MARGY: (throwing phone into the air—she is horrified, but there is a trace of a smile on her lips as she exits stage left) AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

SNOOZE: (wakes groggily) Man—What’s wrong with Mom?

SHRIEK: (shrugs) Parents are weird.

~CURTAIN~

Skin Hunger

by Laura Benedict

The year before Pom was born, I began writing my first novel. I finished it eight years later and called it SKIN HUNGER. It was never published, but I still love the title. Now there’s a YA novel of the same name that’s all about wizards and such, so it may be a while before I use it myself.

I picked up the title from a paragraph in a parenting book I’ve long forgotten. Skin hunger is such an evocative phrase, isn’t it? It’s exactly what it sounds like it might be: the elemental emotional and physiological need for human touch.

How we love to touch our babies. They seem to bloom at our touch—and they really do! When children are not touched, they suffer. If you know much at all about the history of WWII, you’ll remember the stories of the German children taken away by (or given to) the Nazis to be raised as Aryan exemplars: they were considered too precious to be sullied by the touch of other humans. Most of these children either died before adolescence or suffered severe emotional problems.

We need to be touched. We crave to be touched. We cannot live unless we are touched—frequently and lovingly.

The other night, Pom’s boyfriend, Ruger, was visiting. I think we were watching Pinky and the Brain or some other edifying cartoon on television. The two of them were sitting on the couch, and Ruger had his arm around her; she was completely relaxed with him, her head against the front of his shoulder, one of her feet up on the coffee table, and she was holding one of his hands. I had never seen her so physically close to a guy besides her father or grandfather ever before, and I was a little startled. (Bengal, my eight year-old son was scrunched companionably against Ruger’s other side, too.) But of course she’s going to eventually be physically close with people outside our family. It’s the healthy thing.

Pom is sixteen. We have very frank discussions about her father’s and my expectations for her dating behavior. Remember, this is the girl who called us last year when she got her first kiss. She told me just the other day that she laughs every time a doctor asks her if she’s sexually active, and says they always look at her like they don’t believe she isn’t. She takes her (Christian) faith commitment very seriously and it is essential to her attitude toward her sexuality.

Teenage sexual promiscuity is certainly nothing new. Our generation didn’t invent it. Our parents didn’t, and their parents didn’t. But I wonder how much teenage sexual activity isn’t simply a replacement for the touch these kids are craving, the touch they’re no longer getting from their families.

I touch my kids a lot. Pom still holds my hand sometimes when we’re at the mall, and now that Bengal is taller than he was even six months ago, I can rest my arm around his shoulders as we walk (I know this isn’t going to last long, so I’ll enjoy it while I can.). They still occasionally wander into our bedroom on a Saturday morning and pile onto our bed. I can’t pick them up anymore, but I can still be near them—for a while, anyway.

It’s appropriate for my kids to extend that touch outside our family. Pom is very physical with her girl friends, too. There are “no touching” rules for boys and girls at her school, but the girls are very cozy with one another. (Pom jokes that it would be a great school in which to be a lesbian, but, oh my, her little school is so not ready for that!) I’m glad that Pom is comfortable enough in her own skin to be appropriately close to other people.

I didn’t handle my own teenage skin hunger very well, which is what that first novel was all about. I’m very proud of the way Pom is handling hers. Bengal is more of a work in progress, and we’ll give him all the cuddling he needs for a long time to come—though given his comfortable attitude with Ruger, I’m not too worried.

Go hug your teenager. Go! Now!

It's not mind-reading, it's just good housekeeping

Teens. Value their privacy, they do. They don't want adults, parents in particular, knowing the ins and outs of their private lives. My kids are better than most, I think. They share quite a bit with me. Not, perhaps, the very second it happens, but I generally know the important stuff that's going on. But do they share every heartbeat? No. Do they keep things from me? Of course they do. Just as I keep parts of my life private from them. It's adult-to-near-adult courtesy.

It's also self-preservation. For the most part, I don't want to know the details. I remember the soap opera that is high school, and I don't miss it. I have no interest in plunging back into that seething slough of hormones and angst, not even vicariously. Bad enough when they bring their seething sloughs of hormones and angst home.

It doesn't matter though, because even when they think they're keeping things from me, I know. I'll always know. Always. It's not that the kids are so open and honest with me. It's not a mystical connection. It's not that I have a mother's second sight, woman's intuition, ESP, nor even eyes in the back of my head. None of those.

Nope.

My secret?

My kids never pick up after themselves.

I can tell at a glance what they had for their afternoon snack. (Orange juice, bagel with cheese, banana.) I know where they shop. (American Eagle, Garage, Dynamit)  I know how much junk food they eat. (More than they should.) I know about teacher interviews they'd rather I didn't. Because they leave the evidence everywhere. On the counter, on the couch, on the dining table, on the floor of the front hall. While I despair of their slovenly ways (and blame my lack of strict training in their early years), I'd miss all this insight if they became suddenly tidy.

My son Daniel (18) has a girlfriend. Lovely girl. They've been together four months or so. So, being a responsible parent, I casually remind the boy young man of our safe sex talks, and further remind the boy young man where the condoms are kept. (In a cosmetics bag on a shelf by the bathroom door, refilled without counting. He knows this. It's been there for about five years, since his older sister was a little younger than he is now.)

"Don't worry, mom. I know where they are, but we haven't gotten there yet."

Do I believe him? Not really. It's possible, but, given how they spend any private moment so thoroughly entwined, not likely. Bottom line, though, it's his business. As long as he's using the damned condoms!

My kids are responsible to do their own laundry. Thus, if I shift their laundry from the washer to the dryer, or from the dryer to a laundry basket, they know I'm doing them a favour. It's a good system.  Today it's Daniel whose laundry need to be shifted from washer to dryer so I can start my own load.

There at the bottom of the drum, under the wet darkness of the laundry I'm hauling out, I catch a glimmer of something white and shiny. A tidy little condom-packet. Not one of the dark foil packs from the cosmetic bag on the shelf by the bathroom. White plastic, and -- ugh -- banana-flavoured. Definitely not one of the house stock. Guess he doesn't believe me when I say we don't count them. Hell, I wouldn't believe me, either.

But now I know. I always do.

Now here is a cheery study

I just saw this study from CNN saying that one out of every four teenage girls will have an STD by the time she's 19 years old. The most common STD is the HPV virus, which causes cervical cancer. Of course there is an innoculation for this virus, but I'm amazed at how many parents are keeping their daughters from being immunized. My daughter's pediatrician gave her the shots, but she also told me that quite a few parents of teens didn't want their daughters to get the shots because they weren't sure if they were safe (which is a decent excuse in my book) or because they were sure their daughters weren't sexually active (which is an insane excuse). The fact is, most girls are sexually active by the time there are 15. Sex is occurring earlier and earlier and it's not uncommon to hear about 12 year old kids having some sort of sexual contact.

Children don't necessarily understand that oral sex can be just as dangerous as sexual intercourse. My children are very well informed about oral sex because my family just never kept anything having to do with sex from children. It's just the way we do it, and how I grew up. But I am finding more and more that our family is unusual and that many people do not discuss oral sex, or any sex for that matter, with their children. I think that is doing a terrible disservice to kids, especially with sex being so dangerous without the proper precautions.

The CDC recommends annual chlamydia screening for all sexually active women under age 25. It also recommends the three-dose HPV vaccine for girls aged 11-12 years, and catch-up shots for females aged 13 to 26. I wish that people would follow these recommendations. I don't really know how a mother could live with herself if her daughter developed cervical cancer because of a lack of vaccines.

Labels: Health, parenting, sex, teens