(Dad, don’t read this post.)

First some facts: I find the Guttmacher Institute’s reporting about American teens’ sexual activity very reassuring. In the wake of all the hullabaloo about Plan B (the contraceptive pill) and all the 13-year-old girls running out to get it so they could have sex — which REALLY conservative pundits? We’re going right there?? — some fact-based reality is nice to grasp.

Just to throw some stuff out there:

“Only 6% of teens have had sex by age 15.”
“On average, young people have sex for the first time at about age 17.”
“Among sexually experienced teens, 70% of females and 56% of males report that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner.”
“Teen sex is increasingly likely to be described as voluntary.”

So, okay. Why is this stuff important when you’re talking to your kids about sex?

1. Not EVERYONE IS DOING IT. Even among seniors in high school, despite the bragging, not even half of the teens are regularly engaging in sex. This should help take the pressure off our kids to fit into the perceived culture.

2. It’s not inevitable that all of our kids are going to be sexually active before they reach adulthood. So treating teen sex like something that’s just going to happen may not be the go-to strategy to adopt.

These facts help me to breathe a little easier when I think about my children making decisions about sex. Talking to children about the importance of “saving sex for marriage” is not to say “only bad people have sex outside of marriage”. That is certainly not the message I intend to send (because HELLO), but to give my children some strategies for delaying sex until adulthood if possible (after 18) and for making it part of a longer term relationship (something else their mom didn’t bother with for the most part).

My buddy Carpetbagger pretty much addressed a lot of the questions I am constantly asking myself about talking to my kids about sex as they get older. I’m just reproducing some of his comment here.

“…Do we tell kids ‘do as I say, not as I do (did)’ because…

f) all of the above?”

Let me start out by saying that, in my opinion, children don’t need to know all the details of their parents’ sex lives. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lie and tell them I was a virgin when I got married — although I’m not going to tell them that any time soon. It’s none of their business. I have no intentions of giving them a blow-by-blow account of my sexual past. Which I think I can safely avoid while still not lying outright. (I may be proven wrong on this. Time will tell.)

So, to run this down:

a) Yes, I am doing my best to teach my children what the Catholic church teaches. I will expect them to have doubts and ask questions, and I pray hard for the guidance to help them explore these things. There are a lot of issues I have with the Catholic church. I expect when my kids are adults, it will be easier to talk about the questions together. In the meantime, I’m going to mouth the party line. Not because I think it’s the end-all-be-all of answers for all time. But for now, it works.

b) and e) Yes and no? I had pre-martial sex, and not just a little of it. For awhile, I treated sex as very pleasant exercise. I was also very careful (duh). Do I regret having premarital sex? Yes, some of it. Not all and every instance; the premarital sex I had inside of committed relationships was vastly superior to one-night stands or short-term sexually-based relationships. And sex in marriage is, in my experience, hands down, the very, very best. This is kind of the version of my sex life that I plan to share with my kids if I have to.

Using hyperbole, which the Catholic church tends to do — i.e. Tom’s example of “damaging our souls” — is likely to inspire plenty of eye-rolling from teens. However, talking in terms of remorse — i.e. I’m not really proud of my sexual past, I do have some regrets — I think that is honest, and I think kids respect honesty.

c) and d) YES! I don’t want my children to become parents before they are ready. I don’t want them to catch herpes or (God forbid) HIV. As much as I will tell them why saving sex for marriage/LTR is important spiritually, it is even more important for their emotional and physical well-being. I have some resources outside of school-based health classes that I plan to use as my children get older. I’m going to take my daughters to a midwife or gynecologist (something my mom never did) when they are 16, if not earlier. I’m going to teach my kids about their bodies and in as much as I can about the power of sex.

If my children decide to have sex before they are married, which is fairly likely, I want them to be able to come to me without fearing punishment. I want them to come to me about birth control and sexual health. I don’t want them coming to me when it’s “too late” as it were. So I have to start having these conversations. I’m trying not to freak out about it, because that will close off communications.

Once they are adults? I doubt they will talk to me about their sex lives. I will have to hope that I can give them the confidence to know what they want, to know that waiting for a mutually loving and respectful relationship is superior to anything else, that they will have the tools to remain safe. I don’t think sex is bad or dirty, I don’t think bodies are bad or dirty, and these lessons more than anything, are things I want my kids to internalize.

I had sex because I was curious, because I didn’t know any other way to explore my sexuality, because I had problems with authority. Losing my virginity at 18 wasn’t all that fantastic; it was something I did to get it over with. That’s kind of screwed up. I don’t want my children to have sex for the first time just to not be virgins. Granted, sex got better; I learned more about my body (confession: I had started masturbating as a teen), and had the confidence to ask for what I wanted. I didn’t get in situations where I was in danger. I had the further confidence to insist on condoms. And when I did get into an LTR, I went on the pill, and discovered that sex in an LTR was better than hooking up.

Well, got that off my chest. I have a few years to see how all this thinking plays out in real life, I suppose.

1. Grocery pickup.
Recently, the big chain grocery store near me started offering curb-side pickup. At first, I didn’t even consider it. I usually planned my meals, wrote very specific lists, and sent Dan. Or, if it was absolutely unavoidable, went myself, usually with children in tow.

But one week, I looked at our schedules, looked at my cupboards, and thought, “Hm. It may be time to see if this curb-side thing is worth it.”

It totally is, my friends. Totally. (Unless you really like grocery shopping. I recall being happy when Dan said he would do it regularly as long as I provided good, specific lists for him.)

Meal planning, list making, and grocery shopping usually take me about two hours — if I’m wrangling kids, longer. (Hey, maybe I’m not that good at it.)

Meal planning, list making, and using the pickup service takes me 45 minutes. And costs $5.

I regularly use it now, about twice a month, and oh my gosh, it makes me feel like an entitled, precocious bourgeoisie, but I’m not giving it up. I do have to get a little bit better at making sure I have everything on the list (this week, I forgot a red pepper and coconut milk, so I still have to make a store run — I can probably ask Dan to do it).

There are cons: you may not find everything online. You may need to accept less expensive or more expensive substitutions, or not accept substitutions at all and go without. I have no clue how it works with coupons. I am not a coupon clipper despite my best intentions. And of course, some people in the area absolutely hate this grocery chain for very valid reasons and shop elsewhere.

But it’s working for me. It’s given Dan and I a lot more time in our lives. For $5 and the other tradeoffs I mentioned, it’s totally worth it.

2. Pedicures
I don’t know what else needs to be said about this. Pedicures went from a rare treat to a regular thing in my life. I get one about once a month, maybe twice a month during the summer (and not as often during the winter). Sometimes I take Kate with me; sometimes I go by myself. I have two places I regularly go. And at one of those places, I also get some waxing done when needed, and the less said about that, the better.

3. Our nanny.
Just saying the phrase, “We have a nanny” is another thing that makes me feel horribly, horribly like a one-percenter. However, having a nanny during the summer is one of the best decisions we ever made, and I will make it again as long as I have to. She is fantastic with our children, they all adore each other, and having her at the house gives my children the freedom I remember from summers when I was a kid. She doesn’t put up with any crap; she’s a taskmaster. But she’s also a ton of fun. From my point of view, it’s nice to get up and go to work without having to rouse the household; and it’s nice to come home to a neat house.

She starts next Monday. I can’t wait.

What are the little or big indulgences that get you through a week?

Part of the block in many parts of my life is that at this time, I am not finding much pleasure in anything. Everything (almost everything) seems like a chore, like something I *need* to do (and probably not for me).

I’ve also got a lack of focus problem, and I wonder if that’s part and parcel of just not liking anything right now.

I am simply overwhelmed at work, so the project that I am on that seemed like a challenge at one time, now has my writing brain freeze-locked. It’s just something I’m trying to slog through. I want it to go away. I also want to care about how good it is, but due to the fact that it’s grown from a challenge to an overwhelming, Herculean task, it’s hard to care anymore.

And when I’m not at work — well, we all know the refrain: kids, dinner, homework, soccer, baths, violin, blah blah blah.

I am never signing the girls up for soccer during the same season again. It’s been a nightmare of logistics, and I think the majority of Saturday games, Flora and Kate have been scheduled to play at the exact same time at two different fields. Because of Dan’s schedule, I either plead with my FIL to drive one of the girls or hire the nanny.

Additionally, taking three children to one child’s practice is exhausting. Thank goodness for picnic tables and playgrounds, but I’m constantly running back and forth and up and down between fields and playgrounds.

I’m afraid this lack of pleasure is leading to weight loss. I don’t actually know because I don’t regularly weigh myself. When you don’t have much of an appetite anyway, and nothing tastes good, it is easy to not eat enough. I am eating regularly, just probably not enough.

And reading, while harmless in and of itself, is leading to other problems. Namely, reading has become an escape hatch for me. I’m doing it to turn off my brain, not even for enjoyment anymore! I have to start picking some better stuff, because lately it’s been more about sticking it out to see what actually happens.

Dan and I got into an argument about something recently, and he challenged me: “Are *you* happy?” he asked. And I had to stop and think about it. It’s not that I’m overwhelmingly unhappy. But truth is I don’t have anything enjoyable in my life. I’m getting by with the little things I do have — Black Keys concert, Kentucky trip, dinner with a friend, Flora’s First Holy Communion party, little things my kids do, sex with my husband — but I don’t know that I would classify myself as happy. Overwhelmed, yes. Definitely. I told someone recently that my life is perfectly mundane, just busy. (Very, Very Busy.)

And I’m not really depressed, either. Maybe I have some dysthymia going on? (Although, I have to say, low self esteem is not one of my problems.)

Then again, maybe this is how it goes. Life, I mean. I don’t really have anything to bitch about.

If nothing else, at least I have something else to bring up in therapy.