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Moms Talk, Sex Talk: What Would You Do?

Would your children come to you if they had a question about sex? And how would you handle it?

Last week, the television show What Would You Do featured a dilemma many teens face.

A young boy approached shoppers at a local pharmacy and asked them to buy him condoms. The pharmacist, he told them, knew his mom, so he couldn’t go to the pharmacist himself as it would surely get back to her.

One man counseled the boy that the right thing to do would be to have a frank talk with his parents. The boy assured the man that he couldn't, and everything about him made you believe he wouldn’t, despite the sage advice.

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I can/could ask my mother about anything. She never made a big deal out of anything. I knew she would answer any question honestly. At the time, I had no idea how rare that is.

A parent may think he’s being helpful by bringing up sexual concerns when the child is a teen, but it may be too late then. Unless you lay the groundwork, letting the child know that you won’t be shocked, disappointed, surprised, whatever, the child may hesitate in coming to you about delicate issues. It has to start early and build from there.

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I’ve had two experiences like the What Would You Do? scenario, on opposite sides of the age spectrum.

During Senior Week, I went to Ocean City with three other girls. One of the girls met a boy, and he missed the last bus back to where he was staying. When I went to our room that night, I found my friend asleep in her bed, and the boy asleep in my bed.

I told my friend that since she found him, he needed to sleep in her half of the room. It was her responsibility. When we awoke the next day, my friend was dressed in every stitch of clothing she had packed and was covered with a blanket. She later confided that she thought the guy “did something” to her during the night but wasn’t sure. She was in a panic. I assured her that if anything had happened with the boy, she would know about it.

Her mother had never told her anything about sex, even the benign "birds and bees" talk. I’m still amazed by that.

I had always hoped that I’d be like my mom, letting my children know that they could come to me with any question, but until they actually approach you with a question, you don’t know.

Ryan, my son, was in a terrible car accident Senior Week, totaling his car. They sent me home from the hospital with him and a bottle of painkillers. So, I tucked him in bed and set off to track down the wrecked vehicle. Ryan had the last of his school assignments needed to pass the year in the trunk of the car.

It was raining when I got to the tow lot, so the two burly tow truck drivers offered to help me unload the stuff from the dead Mustang. The men stood on either side of me, holding umbrellas,  as I popped the trunk open.

The first thing I saw was what can only be described as a crate o’condoms.I could feel the men smirking at me.

I gathered up the paperwork, but I really don’t remember if I grabbed the box of condoms. We’d had discussions long before my big find so I wasn’t surprised by the fact that they were there, only by the sheer volume of them.

When I got home, I went to my son’s room to let him know that I had his schoolwork. I led the conversation with the schoolwork angle.

All of the rehearsed things I had said in my head on the way home regarding the condoms had escaped me. What came out of my mouth was: “I found a huge amount of condoms in the trunk of the car. All I can say is you are either the luckiest high school boy in the history of mankind…or the most optimistic.”

He laughed, and I’ll never know if it was from embarrassment, a shared secret or the Percocet.

I’ve thought about it often in the sense that I know most of the parents I know would have let it pass, not mentioning it. Others would have expressed outrage. Still others would counsel me that I handled the whole concept wrong, start to finish.

Ryan had asked me questions in advance and seemed completely at ease with our conversation, so I’m sure I’d play it the same way today. I think back to my friend who was sure she’d had sex because her mother hadn’t bothered to tell her how it really works. I know I’d play it the same way with my son today.

To the chagrin of many parents out there, if that boy in the What Would You Do? episode had approached me in the pharmacy, I would have bought him the condoms since he wasn’t going to speak to his parents about it. Whether I bought them or not certainly wouldn’t have stopped him from having sex, and it wouldn’t have made him start a dialogue with his parents. That kind of trust has to start early in life.

So, what would you have done?

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