Reality Check

The other day in the morning rush of preparing for school, Corbin frantically declared that he "forgot" that he had a paper I needed to sign. Since we were about to leave, I hurriedly implored him to give it to me so I could sign it. As he retrieved the paper from his backpack and thrust it at me, he made a hasty exit from the room. Ok.

I wasn't thinking it would be anything bad. Corbin is a great student and has never given us any trouble in the behavior department. I looked down at the paper he had given me entitled, Reality Check. It was a permission slip for sex ed.

All of the 7th grade was going to be having a two day sort of right of passage course including all topics sure to induce giggles, knowing grins, and lots of blushing. I know that lots of 7th graders these days are very savvy about these matters having grown up in the hyper-sexualized culture that we live in. However, I like to think that our household is pretty conservative, and that we have sheltered our children from much of the innocence-robbing influences of modern day society. We're not prudes, but we believe that kids should be allowed to remain as such.

I scanned the topics that were to be covered, and found nothing offensive or objectionable for a 12 year old boy. Corbin had already had "the talk" with his dad, so I didn't anticipate that any of the topics would be revelation to our son. In fact, I felt a little swelling of parental pride that we had been educating our child in a responsible and loving way.

Corbin returned to the kitchen to fetch the paper, his head ducked. Knowing he was a little embarrassed, I took the opportunity like any great parent to make him squirm a little more. "You already know all about this stuff, right Corbin?"

He proceeded to declare that I would be shocked to know what lots of the kids at school talk about. They say all sorts of "gross things". I told him that was the very reason that the school taught courses like this one, so that kids could get the right information rather than just picking up stuff from TV or friends. I then told him how lucky he was that he had a dad who had talked to him all about those things. He gave me a sort of grimace. I tried not to chuckle, and said, "You did talk to dad right, and he told you all about it."

"I guess." A sort of confused looking grimace.

"Well you get it, right?"

"Yeah, I know that the thing goes in like a place." Grossed out look.

OK, so it was a Reality Check, for me. Well good, glad to know we are doing such a bang up job! Way to teach our kids the correct terminology and mechanics together with the sacred nature of a loving, committed relationship. He totally has this down!

I silently signed the paper, and we left for another day of school. We are all still learning, right along with the kids I guess.