Sex Education for Girls: Part II

I know, I know...the timing is simply uncanny! On this Valentine's Day, I have decided to continue discussing my worries of raising two girls and teaching them to be sexually responsible. Because as a hormonal mom in her fifth month of pregnancy, it is never too soon to start worrying about this kind of stuff, right?

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As I mentioned in my other blog post, my own sex education was spotty at best. Following what I'll call a strict, La Grange-style, abstinence-only approach, I was assured that having sex before marriage would leave me pregnant, penniless, and ruined forever so no "nice" boy would ever want to touch me.

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Needless to say, these insightful teachings resulted in some scary close-calls and some supremely reckless behavior when I finally did start having sex...not until my 20s. Because I never bothered to get on the pill. Why? I don't know. It didn't occur to me. I only slept with serious boyfriends, and the pill was for other girls. Promiscuous girls. I was NOT promiscuous. I was a good girl! (Most of the time.)

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Until the dark day when I had to go to Planned Parenthood for the morning-after-pill. (I guess you can say our protection failed...as in, ripped in half.) The nice lady who gave me the morning- after-pill asked me what my current birth control methods were. "Uh...condoms?" I answered.

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"Hmm," she replied. "You know that condoms are only 85% effective, when they are used correctly? And mostly, they aren't."

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"Yes," I replied. I'd heard these statistics before. Hadn't everybody? But I guess I never thought about them in terms of my own peril and demise.

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"Wouldn't you feel better getting on a more reliable form of birth control, such as the pill?" asked the nurse.

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I had no good answer. Because there was only one answer. Yes, I needed to get on the pill. Why hadn't I done this before?

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So thank you Planned Parenthood Nurse for getting me on the pill. For this, I will always have a warm spot in my heart for you.

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Anywho, I am determined to do a better job preparing my girls for the consequences and responsibilities of sex better than my parents did. (Sorry Mom.) Though I don't want to be slipping condoms under their pillows in junior high (Oh God!), I don't want them to be afraid to come to me if they need to talk about sex.

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And I want them to fully understand the negative, dire, and life-changing consequences of having sex...on all levels.

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I asked my friends Susanne and Dan about this. They have a teenage daughter.

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"Marley will be smart, so you should engage her intellectually," said my friend Dan.

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Of course! Engage her intellectually? This I can do! And so, I have devised a fail-proof sex education plan to ensure that my girls will grow up as clean and pure as a first winter's snow. (Okay, so at least they put off having sex for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE, preferably for the rest of their lives, or until I am dead.)

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When my girls turn 13, hit puberty, or start getting invited to boy/girl dances (whatever happens first) they will be charged with a very special assignment. They will have to create a PowerPoint presentation entitled Pregnancy and STDs: Foul Aftermath and Food Stamps. They will have to complete said project and present it to me before they leave the house. EVER.

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As part of their assignment, they must outline in detail:

-The deadliest STD

-The grossest STD (with pictures)

-The most embarrassing STD, or the STD most likely to generate ridicule from others in gym class (with pictures)

-The most common STD

-The different types of STDs that, once contracted, you will have for the REST OF YOUR LIFE

-An overview of the failure rates of all protection.

-An overview of the lifestyle of teenage moms.

-The percentage of teenage moms currently on welfare.

-How much it costs a year to raise a baby.

-First hand accounts of grisly childbirths.

-What the inside of a homeless shelter looks like.

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I am pretty proud of my little plan here. What do you think? Anything else I should include? What else will scare the crap out of them?