finally, i’ll just touch on how damaging hetero-only sex ed is for gay kids by relating my own experience. i grew up in a very conservative area, where the sex ed class sophomore year of high school (which was way too late as evidenced by the pregnant girls who had already started popping up in the hallways in middle school!!!) consisted of a wildly uninformed gym coach who only talked about abstinence– which when you think about it is sort of like a geometry teacher who refused to talk about shapes. same-sex relations were never mentioned (which is ironic as there were 4 gay boys in the class). even though i considered myself pretty well-informed by the time i had penetrative sex for the first time (at 16), i later realized that i had actually put myself at risk for contracting std’s because i used an oil-based lubricant with latex condoms. this is really basic information that i should have known, but because i had never had comprehensive sex ed or any other person to ask about things like that, i didn’t know better. in retrospect, it makes me really angry (and sad) to think that the school system and the community in which i grew up cared so little about me that they would rather put my life at risk than give me basic information about health and sexuality.

In summary, I never had sex until marriage. I was naive, but enjoyed that naivety both then and now (after two kids). The thing is there is nothing wrong with sharing our experiences with our children, just a little at a time see help them resist peer pressure and see them achieve the seemingly impossible. You’d be amazed at how sharing your experiences – heartbreaks, fun, etc. would help your kids later in life when they actually need to be practical.

Thanks so much for a well-written article.

She was conceived through IVF using my parter’s egg and anonymous donor sperm, and I carried her.

We’ve been telling her the story of how she was made since she was literally a few days old, and a few weeks ago (she’s a couple months shy of 3) she started telling it back to us.

(Which is, I must say, the most adorable thing ever. Complete with ey-uhgs and spewm and da embweeoh wight in Mama’s utuhwus, and Mama puuuuuushed (me) out Mama’s utuhwus fwew Mama’s ‘agina!)

We’ve also told her about how “most babies are made,” (“the man uses his penis to put the sperm in the woman’s vagina”) and since there aren’t any penises in our family, we try to give her opportunities to see little boys (cousin, friends) having diaper changes and such, so that she will at least be familiar with what they look like (it’s really kind of hard to explain to someone who’s not seen one!) and they won’t be some big mystery to her.

Oh, and we use the term “vulva” here, too, but she also knows about the vagina, mostly in the context of birthing babies and where that tampon is disappearing to
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This is really very interesting and practical post..
I definitely agree with you that the proper to educate children about sex is when they are still young.
Although others they cant understand but as son as they gets older they will gonna understand the informations clearly….