Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-07-12 - 10:08 a.m.

Backseat Fumbling

My older daughter is getting her sex education in a classic place: the backseat of a car.

I don't know whether it feels safer for her to talk to the back of my head. I do know I'm grateful sometimes that she can't see my face.

I've always dished out the information as she asked for it, much of it at 60 mph. It's tricky. How to give just the right information, not too much, not to make it seem like some huge complex don't-ask subject?

It IS complex - it's the most complex thing we know, full of men and women and life and love and babies, and trust and intimacy and destiny and divine holiness and the river of life, and I want to get all that in there some time, but right now she's just asking an engineering question: How DO those damn sperms get in your tummy?

I know when I was very young I thought "it" was something that happened on your wedding night while you were sleeping, and my best friend and I vowed to stay awake so as not to miss it (which may not have been a bad understanding of married sex, now that I think of it.) I had a picture of my new husband and I, fast asleep, and somehow his "thing" would just come whiffling across the bed while we slept, sneak right up inside me, and bingo! I'd be having babies. You just wouldn't want to miss something that incredibly unbelievably gross and fascinating by sleeping right through it.

I want my daughters to know better. I want them to have the right information, the right degree of reverence, but I also don't want to miss the Wal-Mart exit.

Wal-Mart - and the grocery store - are also favorite places, somewhere in between the paper goods and the soaps and detergents. "Mom, remember when I asked you what those condiment things were for, and you said you'd tell me later but you forgot so what ARE they for?"

The questions don't ever happen when I'm tucking her in and singing her a goodnight song, or when I'm sitting in the bathroom and she's in the tub getting her hair conditioned, or any other time where we could have a classic intimate mother-daughter talk. No, that's when we talk about the Civil War, or why the last Harry Potter book wasn't as much fun. Good stuff, but safe at any speed.

She never asks the classic questions that I've had a chance to think through, either. I didn't get, "Where do babies come from?" first. No, I got, "What does it mean if I take off all my clothes and suck with Michael?" Got that from the backseat, driving her home from first grade. I managed to keep driving and compose my voice enough to say, "And where did you hear THAT, sweetie?" Yeah, I had a phone conversation with little Bethany's family that night, you betcha. How do you do, and you might think about canceling little Bethany's subscription to the Porn Channel.

The latest backseat announcement: "Kerri's Mom told her that she's bisexual. It's a secret and I'm not supposed to tell anybody." Right - but you had to tell ME, didn't you. You had to tell me when I was MERGING. Here's a subject that manages to combine sex and politics and human prejudices, and that guy in the Mazda is NOT going to move over, either.

I worry a bit sometimes, having a child with so much information. She loves to play school with friends, and she's always got to be the one in charge. I've told her that parents like to talk about these things with their own kids, but I have a feeling more than a few tidbits may have been passed to incredulous younger friends. "No way!" "Yes way, Mom said."

But then, it wasn't in MY house where she helped herself to a Cosmo magazine, causing me to drive very nervously for days, waiting for that backseat "Mommy, what's multiple orgasms?" So I figure with at least that friend, we're good for one explanation of bisexuality to her young daughter before she bans my kid from her house altogether.

None of this stuff was in the manual, as I recall. There was a lot of smarmy "Answer their questions calmly and factually, and don't overload them with details they haven't asked for." THAT I can remember. Nothing about "Maintain at least one car length for every startling anatomical term," or "Never shortcut through the Personal Hygiene aisle when the store is crowded." Perhaps when they're grown, I can WRITE the manual. I'll let my daughters have their copies for half-price.

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