Sunday, October 09, 2005

How to talk to your kids about sex

It never fails. Well-fed children driving home in the dark will talk about anything. Tonight my 12 and 15 year old peppered me with questions about abortion. (This after I told them that the movie that Andy and I plan to watch on dvd tonight is Vera Drake.) So now they know how abortions are performed, why a woman might choose to have an abortion, a bit about the moral and legal issues surrounding abortion and some of the history of the anti-abortion and pro-choice movements in the US and Canada...whew! All that while driving home from Grandma and Grandpa's house after Thanksgiving supper. They discussed it and began to formulate their own positions on the issue, realising that it is complex. We talked about what it would take to make this a non-issue (so eliminating even the question of the need for abortions) - adequate strategies for prevention of unwanted pregnancies, especially for young women; scientific advances to improve the life-outlook for people born with disabilities; viable options for pregnancy support and adoption; and a societal change in attitude about love, sex and responsibility for pregnancy...I don't have the answers to all this, but I'm glad my kids are curious and engaged and thoughtful about it and I'm grateful that they will ask me these questions. I should drive them around more in the dark.

question: how do you talk to your kids about life's big questions?

mompoet - turkey-assisted mom-talker

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