Technology

As a parent, I didn’t want to mess my kids up and make them feel shame about natural things. I don’t know what the right way is, but I have tried to avoid that.

I have enough kids that I know some don’t do it early, some do.

My approach has been, “hey, that’s a private thing and no one here wants to be a part of it. Go to your room and shut your door.”

I have no idea if that’s right, and because of my own issues it doesn’t feel right, but that’s been my approach. I try to think about it logically and reasonably despite having to fight the feelings. My instinct was to say, “HEY! CUT IT OUT, THAT’S NASTY!!” All that did for me was give me an association with “nasty” and those feelings and all I had was my mind, and oh boy I wish I could erase the memory of the things I thought about as a kid.

My daughter is 16, and she’s overly open with me to a level that makes me uncomfortable because she isn’t ashamed of herself.

I also know that she will be healthy when she’s active because she feels comfortable talking to me.

She broke up with a girlfriend for pressuring her, and she told her boyfriend that she understands why he wants to do that and why he thinks about it, but she isn’t ready and if he can’t handle that he can go find a girlfriend who is on his level about it.

With my parents, you did not discuss such things. It was totally forbidden. As a result I had unprotected sex with multiple partners by the time I was 18 and I started when I was 13, started fooling around at about 9. I had some real weirdo adults in my life and I never talked to my parents about it because the thought of them knowing something so shameful about me was too heavy.

I had my first child at 16 years old. I do not believe that would have happened if I had access to education and I could have talked to my parents without feeling shame.

It feels like I’m going against my very nature when my daughter talks to me about things, but I grit my teeth and bare it, and she’s in a much safer and healthier place than I was at her age. She laughs and me because I blush and can barely look at her when she brings it up.

Maybe I’m doing one thing right in a sea of things I’m definitely getting wrong haha.

I believe we should feel shame about some things and that’s why we have to contend with it in the first place. We shouldn’t be ashamed of natural things though.

We’re here because of a long line of creatures and people banging. I don’t know why we freak out about it so bad.