Potty Training...And Then A Rant on Sex Ed

Have I mentioned how much PMS sucks? Have I? Because it really does. Fortunately, I am expecting my period anytime today. Yay? I guess. My husband would probably say yay because he's ready for me to not be quite so neurotic. [insert evil laughter here] What would he do if I got pregnant again? [more evil cackling here]

Anyway, new topic. We bought my daughter a potty chair. We have no intention of potty training her, but I would like to be able to go to the bathroom in peace. I guess I should rephrase that to say that we have no intention of potty training her at this time. Eventually we will. Anyway, going to the bathroom is much harder when you have a child constantly trying to flush the toilet behind you. So, if I can tell her to sit down on her potty chair, maybe she will, and I can go to the bathroom without her help.

It's funny. Potty training is the only milestone I'm not in a hurry to get to. Maybe that's because it requires so much effort on my part. Rolling over, crawling, walking, etc. That was all her. I just provided a little encouragement. Potty training? Way more involvement from me. I guess more involvement from daddy, too, but I have a bad feeling it's going to be a conversation starting with, "She's a girl, so you'll be better at this part." Clever. Try to throw in the compliment that it's something I'll be good at, but no dice. He'll be helping as much as I will. Actually, if that conversation does happen, it will probably be more joking than anything. He's a very good daddy.

The only time that I will accept that argument is the birds and the bees talk. That is because I have full intentions of having a boy the next time around (like willpower will make it happen or something), and he will have to have that same talk with our son.

That's another thing I dread. "The talk." Seriously, in my area of the country (Texas), or at least in my area of Texas, we don't believe in sex education in our schools, so I will have to do that part. If you want to know how well abstinence education works, study my area where we have one of the highest pregnancy rates around (oh, yeah, our STD rate is pretty high, too). So, my talk will consist of telling my daughter the mechanics, and then that I will kill her if she has sex before she is married and financially stable enough to have a baby(what a hypocrite I am!*), and then I will proceed to tell her about her birth control options because I don't want grandchildren while she is a teenager.

*At this point, she will, in a rush of teenage hormones, tell me that I am a horrible mother and that she hates me, and then she will point out that my wedding was only 3 months before she was born, so there was no way that she was planned or even a "honeymoon" baby.

So, as you can see, I'm looking forward to that talk.

Just a quick little note on abstinence education: it doesn't work. I went to school in a small town. I graduated with 45 people in my class. I remember a couple of years before I graduated, I went through an counted the people in the graduating class (not mine, but the one 2 or 3 years ahead of me) who were parents (male and female). 25%. That's right. 1 out of 4 were parents. That's what telling teenagers that the only way to avoid pregnancy is to not have sex gets you. Teenagers ignore that. They'll have sex anyway. I say that we teach them to do it safely.

They actually had a guy come in and tell the students in junior high and high school that condoms don't work. You can still get pregnant; you can still get STDs. No birth control is failsafe. Therefore, you can't have sex or else you will be diseased and pregnant.

I know from experience that no birth control is failsafe. Yeah, the pill failed me. I was not on antibiotics; I took it everyday before I went to bed. I'm just that lucky 0.00001 or whatever percent who is blessed with a child (see next post).

The entire presentation of this man was crazy. In fact, we had to have parental permission to go. My parents, knowing how much my brother and I liked to escape from class (another future post), asked us if we wanted to go. They didn't care. We were old enough and smart enough to know this guy was full of it, so if we wanted out of class, they'd sign the permission slip. Both my brother and I decided not to. My parents were one of a handful of parents who denied permission.

I did get to see part of this presentation though. I was in yearbook, so we needed pictures according to our advisor. I didn't think the guy merited any mention in our yearbook, but I wasn't in charge, so I went to take the pictures.

Picture this: Man standing at the front with an overhead projector telling a group of 15 year olds about abstinence. He was explaining how condoms and birth control don't work, so THEY SHOULDN'T BE USED. Yes, that's right. Don't have sex, but if you do, don't use any protection. It doesn't work. Apparently, it never works. He didn't give any figures about how it works 90-something percent of the time if used correctly.

Now picture this: Roomful of about 50 or so 15 year olds. By the time I got there, about 10 minutes into the presentation, at least 10 were asleep. Not even trying to hide it. The rest were either about to fall asleep or were doing things to amuse themselves (did you know that you can throw a sharpened pencil at a ceiling and make it stick -- just like a little spear?). There were maybe 5 people paying any attention. Of the 50 in the room, only about half were still virgins.

So, I wish in this conservative little town that they would at least teach how to try and prevent pregnancy and STDs. They are welcome to say that no method is 100% except abstinence. They don't have to go so far as to put condom machines in the restrooms even (although I suspect they would be used a lot), but at least give the options.

Okay so my little side note turned into a full-blown rant, but once I get started, I can't stop. Sorry.