If easy does it comes hard to us

Ideally what our boys and girls want is someone who can talk with them comfortably about sex. Someone who is not embarrassed. Someone who becomes neither bothered nor excited over the subject. Someone who is easy within himself.

We have repeatedly read these specifications! They are the ideal ones no doubt. But we haven't been brought up ideally. And not many of us can reach this ideal.

However, there are some things we can do to help us feel at least somewhat more comfortable.

The first of these takes us back to the matter of language. Betty's mother used the funny old little-girl term. That made her feel more comfortable because it was more familiar. On the other hand, for some people the less familiar words are the more comfortable ones. In speaking of bodies, for instance, some feel easier using such terms as "vulva" to designate the whole external female genital area, "vagina" for the opening and the channel inside, "clitoris" for the "small, humpy place that has such good feelings," as one girl described it, and "penis" and "testicles" or "testes" for the male organs.

And so as the first step to help get you at ease, choose whatever terms are the most comfortable for you. (In spite of the advantages to your child of using familiar terms, your maximum comfort--which may be shaky anyway--comes first!)

The next thing is to be frank about your feelings concerning the terms your child uses. If you can accept them sincerely, so much the better, as we have said. But don't be insincere. Insincerity makes you less comfortable. Moreover, your distaste will be sensed and will become a deterrent to frankness between you.

It's better to stop your child if his language distresses you (even though you know again this isn't ideal). One mother said, for instance, "I know you and some of your friends use those words. But I don't personally. And I've never liked them. I get too embarrassed. So let's not, around me."

Supply your teen-ager with words if he fumbles. But don't make your condemnation of his words an over-all, indiscriminate business. Let him know you know that some people use such terms decently and that your feelings against them are personal with you.

This brings us to another point: If you feel embarrassed on any score in talking about sex, better say so!

Right straight out: "I feel uncomfortable talking about sex! I wish I didn't. But I do."

"I still feel a bit tense!" confessed Betty's mother, when Betty came with more wonderings several months later. "When it comes to the sixty-four dollar question that we've never really gone into . . ."

Betty giggled. "Yes, Mom, you've always blushed whenever we've come within miles of that one! We almost got to it a couple of times and I could feel you backing away."

"Or turning and running!"

Then Betty's mother managed something else that held value. You can try this one also: Be frank about the mistakes and embarrassments of the past instead of evading them.

"Like the time you spelled out that four-letter word and asked me what it meant!"

"Yes," nodded Betty. "You got red as a beet and said I shouldn't say anything so horrible ever again. So I made up my mind I'd never ask you anything again! My! I was mad . . ."

"Uh-huh," thought Betty's mother. She knew, as you no doubt also know by now, that it's good to: Let your child get his old hostilities out for all the times you have not attended adequately to his sex education. It may help clear the air and make him more friendly. And if he's more friendly you'll be more relaxed.

"After all, I felt hostile to my folks for holding out on me. Why shouldn't Betty feel angry at me for having held out on her?"

She hadn't forgotten, and you don't need to either, that it helps to: Try recalling how you felt when you were young. This can bring more understanding of how your child feels right now.

Out loud Betty's mother continued: "I was stupid to renege on that most important question!" Once more acknowledging her mistakes.

"Yes, you were," Betty agreed, the bitterness quite apparent.

"You didn't like me at all for it." Mirroring Betty's feelings.

"No, Mother, I didn't. If you'd told me things straight out, you could have saved me from a lot of worry and fretting . . ."

"I realize it, darling. But believe me, I didn't know enough to then."

"But you're doing all right now!" Betty's smile was radiant. "And it's twice as hard, I know, when you've had parents as old-fashioned as yours."

Then with rapport reestablished Betty confided, "I still have a lot to get straight. The basic facts--those I've managed to pick up. But there are so many details I can't figure out . . ."

As Betty went on, Mother found herself listening and answering with fewer qualms than ever before.

When it comes to you and your child, if, after thinking everything over, you still feel you don't want to, or can't, go into such discussions, if you feel that you would be too uncomfortable in coping with such questions--don't drive yourself.

You can possibly find someone else for your child to talk with. A doctor. A psychiatrist. A minister. (There is a whole group of pastors these days interested in psychology.) A family counselor. A psychologist. A gifted teacher.

Or, if you choose, you can go to someone for yourself. To help you revamp your own attitudes. You can, for example, join a group where parents can discuss their own feelings under trained leadership in an endeavor to become easier and more comfortable inside.

However, there may still be a hurdle, not in you but in your child.

Even though you get past your own old prejudices, it still may be hard for your child to discuss these matters with you. His feelings may get in the way more than with a person about whom he cares less. For one thing, he will perhaps feel less concerned with a more distant person's opinions of him should he reveal thoughts he has believed were "bad." For another thing, he may find it easier to talk to an outsider since many of his sexual worries and embarrassments arose originally from imaginings that were born out of his relationship with you, his parents, in bygone days.