by Tracee Sioux

I just read Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults by Logan Levkoff, sexologist and sexuality educator.

This book covered every single aspect of sexuality that might come up with your kids.

I was shocked virtually the whole time I was reading it. Not so much by the content, as by witnessing my own emotional responses to the content in connection with my daughter. Truthfully, reading it was not a pleasant one for me. It brought up issues.

That said I thought it was a very wise. Levkoff points out that if we, as parents, aren't talking about sex with our kids we'll be the only influence in their lives not putting in our two cents.

Which is extremely dangerous for our kids as all the other influences are promoting a very unhealthy sexuality.

Sex is everywhere. But, not really the good kind. It doesn't take a genius to realize that our kids are exposed to blatant, inappropriate sexuality with negative messages and connotations multiple times a day - and that's just during the commercials.

If there is any hope for daughters at all parents should be talking as openly and honestly as possible.

This, I believe with all my heart, in a cerebral kind of way.

In reality when my daughter asks me a question concerning sex I feel as though my conservative parents have temporarily inhabited my body to the point that I hear my own mother's voice come out of my mouth, "where did you hear that?" with a hysterical accusatory urgency.

Okay, I don't actually say that, but it is my first irrational instinct.

The truth is that I don't feel my own sexuality is a healthy one. It's more of a reaction to the oppressive anti-sexuality of conservative religion mingled with rebellion, an intellectual political response, a teaspoon of good old fashioned Christian guilt, a lifetime of hormonal biology, more than a few mistakes and regrets, influenced by hyper-sexual contemporary culture that becomes increasingly offensive to me, with some violent and abusive sexual trauma thrown in, mingled with a good dose of busy maternal exhaustion. The combination of which doesn't leave me feeling very equipped to pass on a healthy sexuality to my children.

That said, reading Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults did better prepare me for some contemporary questions I'm bound to face as the parent of contemporary kids. I hadn't really confronted the modern-day reality that kids are exposed to an advanced sexuality with little nuance and they are going to be bold enough to ask me some provocative questions.

I want my kids to come to me. I want them to trust me. I want them to believe me to be more of an expert than the other kids on the bus. I want them to look to me for sound advice.

Except that I don't ever want to talk about it again. In fact, I don't want them to ever know some of the sexual stuff they'll be exposed to even exists. See that? It's gonna take a healthy dose of courage to have conversations with my kids about sex and sexuality, after reading the book I feel better armed with adequate information.

Sexy

Did you know that it is now common for girls to start their menstrual cycles when they are nine years old? Pubic hair and breasts begin showing up one to two years prior to menstruation, which put many girls in precocious puberty or early puberty at around age seven.

I find this shocking.

My first reaction is to find out the cause of such early development and put an abrupt and definitive stop to it before it effects my daughter.

Yet, immediately, I realize that I do not have that kind of power as a parent.

It's not something I get to decide, like how much and what kind of television she's exposed to. It's pretty much up to God and some kind of backwards evolution.

Evolutionarily speaking females are having babies later in life, as opposed to earlier, right? Marrying and reproducing later rather than earlier. Why then, would the biological event of puberty be happening sooner rather than later?

Doing a Google search on the early maturation in girls was upsetting at best. There are lots of theories, some credible and some not, and it's kind of hard to tell the two apart.

The best article I found was Growing Up Too Fast published in the Denver Post, by Jackie Avner who took the time to research the various theories.

Now, as you know I already told my six-year-old daughter Ainsley that we, females, bleed every month to explain the tampons and pads. She sees me naked nearly every day, as I can't seem to train her to leave me alone in the bathroom. So, the pubic hair and breasts are things we've discussed frequently and openly.

I must be honest though, I previously told her she'd probably get breasts and hair when she was about 12 years old, because that's when I got them and I thought it was hereditary. I had to amend that information and inform her that these things might be happening several years earlier.

Logan Levkoff, Sexologist & Sexuality Educator and author of Third Base Ain't What It Used to Be: What Your Kids Are Learning About Sex Today- and How to Teach Them toBecome Sexually Healthy Adults had this to say on the topic of early maturation of girls, I think that there are two issues to consider: the implications of early menarche and how we teach our girls that an adult body does not mean that they are supposed to engage in adult behaviors and how to we teach our girls to love their bodies (and their menstrual status), when they get so many messages about how horrible having a period is, Levkoff said.

Also, Levkoff added, we need to teach fathers to remain present and affectionate with their daughters even as they physically transition through puberty.

As a mother, I can not control the onset of puberty, however I am her primary influence about the attitudes surrounding her femininity.

If I am curled up on the couch whining and moaning about how horrible my period is or muttering against God and his blasted curse, there is not much chance she will look forward to, embrace or accept her own period in a positive way regardless of when it happens for her.

Avoiding the issue that very young girls do have very adult bodies on today's elementary school playground would very likely backfire. But, for today I have to digest this information before I can begin that dialogue. In other words - she might be ready for further discussion but I, most certainly, am not.

And her Daddy, maybe we won't tell him about puberty till she's 13 and he's prepared for it - I'm only kidding! Jeez.

Further resources:
This is a fairly recent New York Times article about different cases.
This article blames early menstruation on childhood obesity.
This article describes gonadotropin-independent precocious puberty
This article insists it might be the absence of a father and the presence of a step-father.
This article hypothesises it's exposure to unknown contaminants.
These studies link early puberty to the mother's exposure to estrogen (in creams or medication) or similar hormones during pregnancy.
This article blames it on hormones present in cow's milk and a lack of attachment parenting.