Conversations That Stick With You

My mom was always open about sex and sexuality when I was a teenager. My mom was a teen mom; she had my oldest sister when she was fifteen and another sister a year and a half later. She was very terrified that my younger sisters and I would follow in her footsteps. She would talk to me about safe sex all the time, she would tell me that when I thought I was ready to let her know and she would take me to planned parenthood. I didn’t tell her the first time because I wasn’t near her when it happened; it was on a dare and I was stupid and younger than I should have been.

Then when I was fifteen and had a boyfriend for a summer, I was pretty sure I was ready. I knew he was and at the time that was all that mattered. When you are young being raised by your mom who is not very affectionate, and her partner who is as affectionate as she knows how to be, you crave affection. That was me at this time in my life and for a long while after. So, I went to my mom and told her. We were in the kitchen of our home. I said “Mom I think me and **** are ready to have sex” I was afraid and also not because she had said to come to her, she had begged me to come to her. Her response is something I will never forget.

She looked me in the face serious as she could be and said, “Do you really want that stupid sperm swimming in our body?”

I laughed out loud and thought about what she said. He was so handsome but he was pretty dumb. What teen boy isn’t though, and what teen girl knows to want better. I was the girl who fell head over heels for a boy who said she was pretty though she didn’t feel that way and needed to hear she was loved.

The result was my mom did follow through and took me to get on the pill. I did have sex with that boy, one time and never really talked to him again. Sex was not something I wanted, the connection was what I wanted and I didn’t feel that. Could also have been that the whole teen neighborhood listened at the door when it was happening, but who knows.

The lesson I learned from this. My mom could be trusted, if she said she wouldn’t get mad she really wouldn’t. I also learned that my daughter will always know I love her, she will feel all the affection my husband and I have. I want her to not be a teen out there searching for love. When a boy tells her, she is pretty she will reply “thank you” She will not fall in love because she needs validation. My daughter will always know her worth.