Condoms, bananas and Led Zeppelin

So, #1 had her first official date last night.  I can’t recall ever being as nervous about letting her go somewhere.  All I could think about was what it felt like the first time a boy touched me anywhere on my body and the endless front-seat-of-his-car makeout sessions in my parents’ driveway.

It’s not that I don’t want her to date and make out with boys and go to dances and hold hands in the hallway.  It’s just that right about now, I fear my openness about sex is going to backfire on me.   I’m always the one who gets myself into trouble for saying too much when it comes to sex.  My job encourages me to talk about it…I mean, come on, when you are exposed to the very private act of birth with so many couples and so many “interesting” experiences, you can’t help but need and want to talk about it.

The approach I have decided to take with my children about sex is complete honesty.  When they ask, I tell.  Sometimes when they don’t ask, I tell.  I don’t want them to go out into the world wondering what sex is really about and start exploring it just to find out.  I don’t want them to get married without first having sex with the person to which they are committing their lives.  I don’t want them to think that sex is “bad”.  I want them to see it for what it is:  a beautiful expression of love and something that is supposed to feel good.  But when they go out and do start exploring sex I don’t want them to not be able to talk to me about it.  I want them to use birth control and I want that to be available to them.  Let’s get real.  Most of them WILL have sex when they are teenagers or in their early twenties.

So with that thought in my head, and the knowledge that “the boy” is a senior who has already dated on a long-term basis, I decided that my daughter should have some condoms and know how to properly use them.  At first I was afraid that, as the right-wingers say, she would see this as me giving her permission to have sex.  She knows me better than that.  She knows that I am smart enough to realize that she is the only person that can possibly give herself permission to do that.  She is armed with a comprehensive knowledge of the mechanics, biology and dirty details of sex.  She definitely knows what sex can bring into one’s life, both good and bad.  She has listened to me talk about the fact that sex can change a relationship for the worse.  And now she has seen me demonstrate condom use on a banana.

I think some may question my wisdom and sanity but as a person who has watched many teenagers give birth I would ask you to consider the wisdom of telling a child to be careful without actually showing them how.  In the heat of the moment, do you really want your child to not have a condom and not know how to properly use it?  Have you ever been caught in the heat of the moment yourself?  Has sex ever brought upon you some unwanted consequences?  I wish I had the power to change EVERY parent’s line of thinking on this.  Your children, when they are teenagers, have the power to influence their own lives for good or bad.  Don’t give them a reason to use that power to prove to you that they can make stupid decisions on their own.  Don’t push them far enough away to make them want to rebel against you in destructive ways.  Don’t give them permission to date but then fool yourself into thinking that because they don’t have your blessing, they won’t have sex.  Arm them with your values about sex but don’t believe for one second that they will make the exact choices for themselves that you would make for them.

*stepping off of very large soap box*

So, not too long after showing her how to properly roll a condom over a banana, carefully leaving a reservoir at the tip, I sent her off on an official date.  With a boy wearing a Led Zeppelin hoodie (who was taller than both Jeff and I), in a car, with a purse full of condoms.  Then said to myself, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

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