Chapter 5 - The Talk

When my parents got home, I somehow managed to convince them that I hadn't spent the afternoon doing something that was, well, considered perverted back then. Not that they asked, but there wasn't much of anything else on my mind. Heck, a lot of people still consider it perverted right now in 2020.

Perhaps they put down my nervousness to the upcoming talk about the 'Birds and the Bees.' Maybe I even pulled off being my normal self. The subject never came up even when I was an adult and we reminisced about growing up.

It's hard to believe it in these days of natural foods and eating healthy, but when I was thirteen years old having a TV dinner was something special. With Mom working we had them every so often when things got too busy for her to cook, and I didn't mind a bit. In fact, I looked forward to those TV dinners.

As you can see from the ad, it was assumed the 'little woman' would be at home while the macho man was off working to support the family and she would have dinner hot and waiting for him and their 3.7 children when he arrived home. It wasn't expected he would call home if he was late, it was her job to cope and damn well have that dinner hot and ready.

Notice the not-so-subtle images. The clock behind her - she's ten minutes late with dinner. The woman is wearing a fashionable outfit and she's obviously been shopping because she has a great, big hat box next to her stack of TV dinners. About the only thing it lacks is a pipe in the husband's mouth as he reads the paper while she does all the housework.

OK, I'm cynical, but that attitude wasn't all that rare in my youth. I suppose it can still be found in isolated pockets of machismo to this day. That was a time when one person could support a family with one job, something we look back on nostalgically these days.

Now Mom was a great cook, but what teenager (or pre-teen) ever notices things like that. I just expected a great dinner on the table every night, that's just how things were. TV dinners were different, more modern, and so they had to be special. Those memories remain in my head, but I wouldn't touch one of the things with a ten foot fork. I have higher standards now and Mom eventually taught me how to cook. My thirteen year old grandson who - as far as I can tell, intends to stay my grandson - would be outraged to find one of those aluminum-clad monstrosities in my freezer.

I got distracted again - let's get back to 'The Talk.'

Oh heck! I'm going to have to explain something before I can get to 'The Talk.' I later found out I grew up with exceptional parents. In my parent's era, sex was something you just didn't talk about! In her later years, Mom told me that her grandmother told her that she just had to close her eyes and endure her wedding night for the sake of having children.

Really?

In my teenage years, the whole free love movement was gathering steam. By the time I was in college, everybody was talking about sex quite freely - at least on campus where there weren't many old fuddy-duddys to be scandalized. Well, there were a few that actively sought out fuddie-duddies to scandalize, but I didn't hang with them. It wasn't until much later that I realized my parents were exceptional, they could actually talk a bout sex with their son and not get embarrassed (well, not too much) or tongue-tied.

These days we might consider waiting until a kid is thirteen waiting rather too long for 'The Talk,' but some of my friends never even got anything more than 'keep it in your pants' as guidance. Since puberty was yet to happen to me, I doubt talking any earlier would have helped. As it was, I didn't understand some parts until I had a girlfriend to give me some details about the whole thing. Julie was very good at explaining, but that's another story.

I can remember being fascinated and repelled at the same time. I really wanted to know all the details of this sex thing, but having my parents make references to themselves about sex was something I couldn't fathom. And, very unusual for the time, or maybe any time, they were both there to give me 'The Talk.' I did get an answer to the question about where a penis goes in a woman's body, but thinking about my father's penis in my mother's body was something that blew my mind.

Well, of course that had to happen or I wouldn't be here, but really!

I have to say they covered the pure mechanical aspect of sex rather clearly, I was able to follow that part, despite the ugh factor of realizing my parents did stuff like that. Since I had yet to hit puberty, it was hard to apply to my body, but it made a lot more sense than some of the stuff I heard from my contemporaries. When they got to the part about how a woman's body prepares for sex I have to admit I was a bit jealous. It seemed a lot easier to me to be the female, none of this erection stuff and finding the target. Especially with my recent experience with wearing a bra, I really wished I could be the female in all this stuff.

Then Mom told me the facts about girl's bodies. How they develop breasts and just what menstruation and periods were and what girls did about it. She said it was something I should know even if it was not going to happen to me. Someday I'd have a girlfriend or a wife and needed to be understanding. Little did she know that after what happened in my bedroom that afternoon I was very interested in how a girl's body developed.

But they didn't stop there. My folks wanted to make sure I knew that sex was more than just coupling two bodies together. Love, respect, consideration, playfulness, and acceptance all played a part as important as getting a sperm to find an egg. In fact, since this was the dawn of effective birth control, sex no longer necessarily led to getting pregnant.

And there's where they gave me the whammy. No man with any self respect or consideration for his partner would take a chance on getting her pregnant unless they were married. Period. If you start a child, that responsibility lasts for eighteen years and nine months at a minimum. No excuses, no 'I didn't think it could happen,' no 'protection is her responsibility.' No way, no how. If you are man enough to have sex then you damn well better be man enough to be a father.

Not all of it stuck in my thirteen year old brain, but enough of it did to give me a lousy night's sleep. The day had taken some serious turns that would affect me for the rest of my life. That takes some serious consideration.