Reading
This posted before I even wrote it. I apologize if you were just e-mailed a blank page (some of my readers subscribe via e-mail).
Anyway, I read this great op-ed about Bristol on my sister's facebook page and I had to post it.
If you haven't figured it out, I'm as pro-choice as they come and think that the Republican's choice of Palin cost them the election. I have wanted a woman in office my whole life - just not a woman like her who has achieved her goals through her looks and luck, and clearly not intellectual abilities.
Someone in McCain's inner circle dropped the ball when they didn't properly vet the proposed candidate. Even my father who voted for such gems as Nixon, Reagan and Bush-41 stopped considering McCain after it was a McCain-Palin ticket. Wink-wink...
There are lots of things that my beautiful daughter has done before her friends: first with a tv in her room, first with a cell phone, one of the first to read several "banned" books (Are you there God It's Me, Margaret, and Twilight, to name two - and that doesn't include the inappropriate movies my husband has deemed OK) she's possibly the most well-traveled 11 year old in Bridgewater... and it will break my heart if I find out she the first in terms of um... be like Bristol at such a young age. Although I will arm her with lots of information - including abstinence - I have no illusions about teenage life. My daughter is also more than adept at hiding things she doesn't want me to know about.
Many of the people I know on this planet have parents who weren't married at the time of their conception. That's not what I want for my kids!
So I am hoping that I can talk to my daughter as easily about sex as I could with her about menstruation (we read The Care and Keeping of You together).
Maybe Sarah Palin can write a "how to NOT talk to your kids about sex in a sexual world" book? Or something entitled "Not My Daughter"? So I can do the opposite of her advice.
And maybe, if I don't find something appropriate out there (I'm sure I will), I can write something I'd want to read!
I'll start with the mother of all sources - Planned Parenthood's website - oh, look the first thing you see on their site is "Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month" Everything else is going to take research. I have time... at least I think I have time. My daughter heard a pretty accurate description of how babies are made when she was 5 years old. She learned where most kids learn: from her friend, another 5 year old neighbor!
But I think it is my job to fill in most of the details! It's complicated and not a single-session discussion item. She's curious now... so I better start doing my own research on the how-to-talk-to-your-tween-about-stuff-she-shouldn't-need-to-know-now-but-does.
For now I gotta get packing. We're heading back to my hometown for a quick overnight trip to return my Dad to his humble abode. It's probably a good thing. If he knew I were trying to figure out what to tell my daughter, he'd probably say what he said when I had sex-ed in 7th grade. "Fallopian tubes? You want to learn about Fallopian tubes? I'll show you Fallopian tubes!" I was mortified and answered "I don't WANT to learn about this. The school is making me!"
But in hind-sight all the information I got (from my own neighbor's description, to my dad's anatomy lesson, to the school's messages, to my own independent reading) put together was helpful. I definitely learned a lot about birth control.
It's the relationship advice that I wished I had. How to deal with boys? How to talk to them? How to think for myself about what *I* want? But that's for another blog.
Maybe I'll have to write a couple of books...
Anyway, I read this great op-ed about Bristol on my sister's facebook page and I had to post it.
If you haven't figured it out, I'm as pro-choice as they come and think that the Republican's choice of Palin cost them the election. I have wanted a woman in office my whole life - just not a woman like her who has achieved her goals through her looks and luck, and clearly not intellectual abilities.
Someone in McCain's inner circle dropped the ball when they didn't properly vet the proposed candidate. Even my father who voted for such gems as Nixon, Reagan and Bush-41 stopped considering McCain after it was a McCain-Palin ticket. Wink-wink...
There are lots of things that my beautiful daughter has done before her friends: first with a tv in her room, first with a cell phone, one of the first to read several "banned" books (Are you there God It's Me, Margaret, and Twilight, to name two - and that doesn't include the inappropriate movies my husband has deemed OK) she's possibly the most well-traveled 11 year old in Bridgewater... and it will break my heart if I find out she the first in terms of um... be like Bristol at such a young age. Although I will arm her with lots of information - including abstinence - I have no illusions about teenage life. My daughter is also more than adept at hiding things she doesn't want me to know about.
Many of the people I know on this planet have parents who weren't married at the time of their conception. That's not what I want for my kids!
So I am hoping that I can talk to my daughter as easily about sex as I could with her about menstruation (we read The Care and Keeping of You together).
Maybe Sarah Palin can write a "how to NOT talk to your kids about sex in a sexual world" book? Or something entitled "Not My Daughter"? So I can do the opposite of her advice.
And maybe, if I don't find something appropriate out there (I'm sure I will), I can write something I'd want to read!
I'll start with the mother of all sources - Planned Parenthood's website - oh, look the first thing you see on their site is "Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month" Everything else is going to take research. I have time... at least I think I have time. My daughter heard a pretty accurate description of how babies are made when she was 5 years old. She learned where most kids learn: from her friend, another 5 year old neighbor!
But I think it is my job to fill in most of the details! It's complicated and not a single-session discussion item. She's curious now... so I better start doing my own research on the how-to-talk-to-your-tween-about-stuff-she-shouldn't-need-to-know-now-but-does.
For now I gotta get packing. We're heading back to my hometown for a quick overnight trip to return my Dad to his humble abode. It's probably a good thing. If he knew I were trying to figure out what to tell my daughter, he'd probably say what he said when I had sex-ed in 7th grade. "Fallopian tubes? You want to learn about Fallopian tubes? I'll show you Fallopian tubes!" I was mortified and answered "I don't WANT to learn about this. The school is making me!"
But in hind-sight all the information I got (from my own neighbor's description, to my dad's anatomy lesson, to the school's messages, to my own independent reading) put together was helpful. I definitely learned a lot about birth control.
It's the relationship advice that I wished I had. How to deal with boys? How to talk to them? How to think for myself about what *I* want? But that's for another blog.
Maybe I'll have to write a couple of books...
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