Parenting Without a Manual
with Talyaa Liera
I'm Talyaa, the poster child for the concept that there's no one right way to be a parent. I went from stay-at-home attachment-parenting mom of four to being the non-custodial parent, working as a professional writer and channel-psychic. Let's talk about throwing away the parenting manual and exploding the myths and mystique of motherhood!
Check out my personal blog at Juxtapositioning.
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The day is coming. I can deny it all I want, but it is coming and there is nothing I can do about it. My daughter is hitting puberty. And likely she is going to date. Boys. Maybe girls. Whatever. Either way she needs a mother’s advice about dating. Right?
Part of me wants to hand out phrases like “They only want one thing!” and “Keep your legs together!” but not only does that place me squarely back in 1956 (maybe 1856) but it also misses the point entirely. Want to hear what my mom’s dating advice to me was? When she found out I was, at 15, headed out for my first date, she pulled me aside, lowered her voice, looked around conspiratorily, and asked, “Do you NEED anything….?”
Condoms. It took me a couple of years but I eventually figured out she was asking if I needed condoms. At the time I was light-years from condoms but could have used some advice on how to talk to boys, what to do when he stuck his tongue in my mouth, and how to be assertive, courageous and confident.
Thankfully, things have changed for most of us. Look at the First Family! (I want Barack Obama to be MY dad in some weird time-warp childhood do-over.) Interestingly, according to a poll over at Shine, 70% of us feel we did not receive good dating advice from our mothers. Yikes! So how can we fix this for our daughters?
My daughter Serena willll be entering 6th grade at her middle school this fall, and even though 1) she told me at age 7 that she would never ever ever get married, EVER, and 2) so far she speaks with slight disdain about classmates who have boyfriends, the odds are good that at some point she WILL date. Better to be prepared, so I am compiling a list of topics to discuss with her, but honestly, every time I think of my baby dating or (avert eyes!) having sex I get a little queasy.
So I am asking your help. What dating advice helped you? What have you or will you tell your daughters? What can I tell my daughter? (Hellllp!)
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LOL, apparently you aren’t the only one who isn’t sure about this!
My kids are only 4. Obviously it’s not the same, but I insert comments here and there into their mostly pretend life - such as, when Miss E told me that her boyfriend Prince Thillip had hit her but she still wanted to marry him, I told her that no girl deserves to be disrespected and - well, you get the picture. Hopefully it at least sets the ground for some kind of healthy outlook. My kids still think kissing is “eeew” and I’m really OK with that.
I think age 10 or so is a good time for the “what they want” talk, and also the “what do married women do if they don’t want kids” talk.
I have some ideas for conversations, but frankly, since they are not “tried,” I don’t know how helpful they will be.
I don’t recall much advice my mom gave me about dating. Probably because in her case, she met my dad at 13 and was certain from that hour that he would be her life partner (and he still is). I didn’t even entertain the idea of dating until I was 17. Mom probably made a few pertinent comments over my childhood, but nothing that comes to mind. Other than “there are plenty of fishies in the sea.” And “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage - you can’t have one without the other.”
SKL | July 16th, 2011 at 8:23 am