I Think We Might Flunk this Test
Well, it’s sex education time again in the Firepants household. This year, our daughter, Dimples, gets to keep us involved by asking us questions each night for homework. I dutifully answered last night’s questions, so I assigned her dad, Cap’n Firepants this evening’s responses. They were fairly innocuous questions, (“What do you remember about the friends you had when you were my age?”) so I felt like it was a fair request. While Dimples was interviewing him, I took a peek at the ones for tomorrow night, knowing the responsibility would fall back onto my shoulders. The theme for tomorrow seems to have something to do with self-confidence, asking questions like, “How did you feel about yourself when you were my age?” I think I can handle that.
Then I saw the ones for Friday night. Haha, Cap’n Firepants. You’re in for a treat…
“What do you know about sexually transmitted diseases?” I asked Cap’n Firepants right about the time he was feeling like he’d dodged a bullet with tonight’s interrogation.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. The teacher in me was about to reprimand him for lack of elaboration. Then I thought about it. What, exactly, is the right way to answer that question when asked by your 10 year old daughter? Is it better to claim ignorance than to risk implying that we know a bit too much? If I pass the buck to Cap’n Firepants, is he going to shame our family forever by saying too little or way too much? NOBODY WARNED ME THAT I WOULD STILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS INFORMATION 30 YEARS AFTER I TOOK THE CLASS.
Can someone do me a solid and slip me the crib notes?
Posted on November 13, 2013, in Cap'n Firepants, Children, Dimples, Family, Humor, Parenting and tagged humor, parenting, sex education. Bookmark the permalink. 19 Comments.
whatimeant2say 
Oh, the stories I could tell you about the teenager….
Oh no!
i feel you have beautifully tied together your last two posts: the correct way to respond as parents to sexually based questions from your tweens is as clear as the current health insurance coverage situation in America, no? I just read in a pamphlet entitled How To Talk To Your Tween About Drugs that if your child asks (and I guess invariably they will?) if YOU ever did drugs you should respond “truthfully, but in a way in which you still retain your child’s respect.” um, so………..that’s as clear as………mud? good look tonight, captain!
Wow! That is so very vague! And, I like how they make the assumption that we have our child’s respect in the first place!
All stories and answers are about a “friend” who got into awful situations.
I learned that routine when I was 22 in the bar I hung out with, drinking next to a 50 yr old who was telling me how he taught his teenage son not to be an idiot.
Embellishments may be added to the catastrophes of the “friend” to make points clearer.
Embellishments such as, “My friend was struck by lightning and died the night he had his first sexual encounter”?
Too bad I can’t help out here. My first sex information came from nuns who I am sure didn’t have a clue. There was a lot of misinformation that kept me from kissing more than 5 seconds for a lot of years. My mother wasn’t the kind who talked about stuff. I was 18 when she decided to “have the talk” so I asked her what she wanted to know. In between there was a lot of misinformation from friends and dedicated field work 😉 to sort it all out. Good luck with that. Thank God we have the internet! (or perhaps thank Al Gore)
I thank Al Gore profusely every day!
“What do you know about sexually transmitted diseases?” – now there’s a loaded question! It doesn’t really matter how you answer because the test isn’t about STDs; it’s actually a clandestine psychological/sociological study. The evil school staff are using Dimples to secretly gather data on how much turmoil these “innocent” questions can generate for you and the Cap’n… 😉
Oh, I think it’s bigger than the school, or even the school district. This is definitely part of an NSA plot.
There were no STDs when I was a teenager. …..were there….????
I think you just gave me the perfect response!
When it comes to Sex Ed……… I just sit down the kids and let them watch Cinemax for a few hours and then ask them if they have any questions 🙂
Dimples never asks questions unless it’s required by her school. She is either very un-curious, or way too knowing.
Let’s hope it’s the first possibility 🙂
Thank God my kids are too young or too old. Good luck!
I am so freaking glad those days are over for me.
Ooh! I totally wrote a book about this topic! Kind of. But maybe not appropriate for a 10 y.o…. but then again, by the time it gets published, she could be 35, in which case, it will be perfect.
So, was the book on STD’s, sex education, or avoiding difficult conversations with your children? Because I would totally read any and all of them!