Lunchtime Musings

I decided to change the title to my new column to Lunchtime Musings, because Lunchtime Trolling sounds too much like I'm trolling around on craigslist at lunch. Which I'm not, because the guv has blocked the good stuff on craigslist. And I haven't been trolling around on craigslist at all recently because I guess I just feel like it's more of the same. People looking to get laid. And I am no longer one of them, although let me just say I never looked for that on craigslist. No, no, no. I would not have touched craigslist with a former nameless president's dick, and god only knows where that thing has been.

Lara Logan. The East Coast Rapist. Mint.com. Five castles in France that cost less than an apartment in New York City. Farmville Herald obituaries. Former coworker's Livejournal (Ah-ha!). Christian bookstore website. LLBean. Wait, go back. Christian bookstores? Uh, what? No, I was not trying to find the secret link to the Christian Porn Network, or CPN as I like to call it, namely because it doesn't exist other than me trying to convince the telemarketer from the cable company that I needed that channel because HBO was too vulgar.

I was talking to a girlfriend a couple of years ago who has daughters roughly the same age as mine about when is the right time to talk about the birds and the bees. This girlfriend goes to church on the regular, and she was telling me that she got a set of books for different age groups for girls on the whole thing. The set starts off with a book about our bodies, modesty, etc, and then another book moves into puberty, and then at least one book for older girls about how a boy saying that he will die if he can't just stick it in for a minute is a damn LIE. Which boys never really grow out of, I've discovered.

I have no idea when to broach this subject with my kids. I've bought bad-touch-run-away-quickly-and-tell-a-grown-up-you-trust-right-away kind of books, but nothing that comes near to covering the birds and the bees. I know that this is something that I must tell them, because if I don't tell them then some other kid, at some point in time, will be available for a demonstration. I absolutely must beat that other kid to the punch. But when? The schools have started phasing this stuff in beginning in third grade, I think. It was fourth grade when I was growing up. They seperated all the boys and girls and herded us into separate classrooms to watch a film strip about our private parts. I distinctly remember this in fourth grade because it was my first year at Prince Edward and I was like, what is this about? I had absolutely no clue what was going on and my mother's inability to explain this shit to me didn't help. Looking back now, I think I could have gone another year without that information. Ultimately, I don't think that information was my downfall into promiscuity, beer drinking, experimental science fair drug usage and generalized hell-raising in high school, but I think I could have gone another year of my tender life without having been exposed to that information at that age. I will say that fourth grade seems old, unless you started school when you were four like me.

I look at my daughters, full of innocence and naivete, and I know they aren't ready for this information, even though my older daughter is starting to develop breasts and when she hits nine later this year I guess I can medically call her pre-pubescent. I have enough problems keeping them from being exposed to generalized sluttiness, all versions of Degrassi, and cheer organizations that not only buy uniforms that a stripper could wear, but hire an obscene amount of male coaches (why is that not weird to so many other moms?) Hello, get a fucking clue. There is a very specific reason that some men position themselves to work professionally in gyms with girls of this age range wearing leotards.

I don't know what I'll do when that special piece of paper comes home from school next year with my older daughter for "The Session About Our Bodies" or whatever they're calling sex education nowadays. Do I refuse and say maybe next year? Even if all of her friends are going, and me saying no will make her a pariah? Do I say yes even though I feel like it's too early because it's better to be armed with correct information than ignorance? Add drugs, alcohol, gangs, guns, internet safety and all the other shit kids have to deal with these days and my god, what a messy world we are sending our kids out into every day. And that was just generalized for kids. For my daughters, I will have the additional issues of birth control, date/acquaintance rape/sexual assault, sexual harassment, the glass ceiling, why it's okay to be smarter than boys, body image, eating disorders, girl bullying (which is FAR WORSE than what boys do to each other unless it's locker room tea-bagging), makeup, hormones.... Yeah, a lot of those are boy issues, too, but it's a whole other world out there for girls. I don't know if I'm ready for all of this, but I can't seem to get the calendar of life to slow down on me.