Sex 101

Contrary to societal pressures, it is possible to raise a child that doesn't grow up before her time. Having only one child makes this growing up process a littler easier, though. At age 11, my daughter still plays with stuffed animals and little plastic figurines. She can occupy herself for quite a long time playing make-believe.

We recently purchased a better digital camera. It was hard to get good school stage pictures with a point and shoot camera. We gave our daughter the old camera to use. My thought was we would no longer have to spend money on processing her vacation disposable camera pictures.

My daughter couldn't care less about picture-making. She is making Webkinz videos with the thing. She makes several videos each day; Webkinz having a party, Webkinz talk show, Webkinz playing Monopoly, Webkinz going shopping.

Now she is beginning to show signs of puberty. She has little breast buds. She wants to wear a bra. Her school showed a video to all the fourth graders last year. I was a little freaked out. The nurse assured me that the video would cover puberty information like menstruation facts. The school nurse informed me that with early development, some girls are developing breasts at seven and starting their period by age nine. My daughter is not one of them.

Belonging to a large urban Methodist church has many benefits. One of which is that the church has the resources to provide programs that many smaller congregations can't afford. An annual three-session human sexuality course for fifth graders is one of them.

I am freaking out again. Now don't get me wrong. I am all for sex education. I came from one of those families where a book was simply left out on the coffee table. I think that must have been prompted after I stated, during the watching of an old western, that the woman was going to get pregnant because she was kissing the cowboy too hard.

I don't remember my age at the time I first read that book, Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, But Was Afraid to Ask. But I do remember that I was GROSSED OUT. Why would anyone want to do that, to have a baby or otherwise!

I know there is so much information out there that our children can be bombarded. The premise behind this class is that it is much more important for children to be taught about sexuality before they hear it from other children and that God created each of us as sexual beings. I get it.

But I wonder if we have gone from a society that explains the “birds and the bees” by leaving a book out to one in which we are forcing the information down our children's throats before they are ready. Do we provide the answer before the child begins to ask the question?

At age 11 my daughter doesn't know how babies are made, doesn't know what sexual intercourse means and was completely clueless when I read the information in the book about masturbation. All she wants to know is how many pages are left in the chapter so she can make another Webkinz video.