Luckily, schools today provide all the answers when it comes to the facts of life, discovers mum MAEVE O’KEEFFE.
MANY parents lovingly record the date of baby’s first tooth, wobbly steps or first day of school, but what of the pre-pubescent first zit?
While gobbling down cornflakes in the rush to school, eleven- year-old was unmercifully taunted by his siblings. “Look at your face,” laughed Junior, as if a pox of weals and open sores had erupted overnight.
“So what?” snarled bigger brother, self-consciously fingering the pus-filled spot.
“Join the club,” daughter remarked of her own acne, “it’s going to get worse when you’re a teenager.”
I wouldn’t have given this a second thought but for the note in his homework journal. The 5th class school curriculum for Social, Personal & Health Education (SPHE) would be dealing with the module ‘Growing and Changing’, on relationships and puberty.
Parents could take the opportunity to discuss these topics with their child beforehand. Oh God, did I have to? But here was my boy with his first spot. No getting out of it. We would have to have ‘The Talk’.
I’d never fed the kids stories of bountiful storks or babes found under cabbage leaves, telling instead how they grew inside and kicked their mummy’s tummy (and giving them hell over the torture endured on their journey out!)
Even so, I’m not comfortable with explaining the facts of life. Daughter insisted she knew all about it when I broached the subject. “But do you understand the mechanics of getting pregnant?” I determined there would be no tall tales of telephone directories as contraceptive devices, only to be ordered “Shut it, Mum.”
“How did you tackle it?” I quizzed a friend with a teenage son.
“I bought a lovely book about the facts of growing up — easy to read with clear illustrations. I don’t know if he read it all but at least it contained useful information.”
Another pal had a simpler solution. “Get his Dad to do it!”
In her case, after several talks, she drove her teenage daughter past the Family Planning Clinic, stating “That’s where you go if you need more information!”
In the bookshop, one worthy tome had lots of information but might be too wordy and boring for the pre-teen age-group. I bought the paperback my friend recommended, and then tried to pull a fast one on daughter. “Will you check this out to see if he’d read it?” “Oh Mum, isn’t that a lame excuse to get me to look at it?”
A week after his SPHE lesson I remembered to ask “How did it go?”
“Teacher talked about girls’ stuff one day and boys the next. It was embarrassing,” he moaned.
Better to face a bit of embarrassment than ignorance.
As a parent, I, for one, am delighted that ‘The Facts’ are pretty much covered in school. It raises the issue and makes our job as parents tackling ‘The Talk’ and the onset of spots so much easier.
