Broaching the ‘birds and the bees’

Decades ago, when girls were 12 or so, their mothers would often hand over a little booklet which covered the basics of sex and menstruation. A couple of days later the mother would ask her daughter if she had any questions. Typically, the embarrassed girl would say no, and that was the end of her at-home sex education.

It wasn’t much different for boys: A father-to-son talk along the lines of, "Don't get any girl pregnant before you can support a wife and family."

There were also the horror stories, including the 13-year-old girl whose mother waited too long to have "the talk," and who started her period without knowing what it was. After three days of bleeding -- and thinking she was dying -- she finally went to her mother.

Later, as part of science lessons, teenagers were segregated by gender and told to label diagrams of the inner workings of the male and female reproductive systems, learning lots of useless, but impressive details like just how many miles of tubing are crammed into a man's testicles. They may have also watched an endless parade of films on the horrors of sexually transmitted infections, but they never discussed the really burning question of adolescence: should they or should they not "do it"?

It's not surprising that today's parents, who had this kind of experience at home when they were growing up, often find it difficult to talk to their own children about sex. "I do think it is hard for us as parents, because we did not have parents who spoke to us with relative ease on this subject, if at all," says Karen Hoskins, a mother of three. "I have just tried to be as honest as I can, and keep any embarrassing thoughts in the back of my mind. I want them to see my honesty and remember it and then hope they will come to me when they need to ask something."