How we got here (or not)
Monday, September 3rd, 2012 12:16 pmSo anyway, the conversation somehow, by way of one of those meandering routes where you can’t remember how you got there, came around to reminisces of the time, when we were kids and unofficially found out about the ‘facts of life’. When I say ‘unofficially’ I mean the kid at school who always knew these things first and spread the news, generally inaccurately and with furtive glee.
Furtle it seems, was appalled to find out at the tender age of seven or eight, that a ‘lady gets pregnant when a man wees in her bum’. Frankly I’d be appalled, too. If such misinformation is still in circulation in the primary school playgrounds, we may do well to reinforce it. Kids wouldn’t go near each other until well into their twenties, armed with that belief. Teenage pregnancy might stop over night.
I can’t actually recall, now, how I was told by the friend who knew all. Certainly by the time I attended a ‘sex education’ class at school with my Mum (there was a very sanitised film strip for my nine or ten-year old eyes) in attendance to ensure that my childish mind remained uncorrupted, I was able to answer her query as to whether I had any questions, with a jaunty ‘I already knew all that’.
So clearly I was either fibbing, or had found out and the official lessons simply confirmed it.
I do remember however, being vexed by the issue of the ‘outie’ belly button. I had seen a number of heavily pregnant women whose belly buttons had turned inside out. In this case, the sage at school, one David B1 informed me with all due conviction and gravity, that this was an indication that the ‘baby was done’ and that the woman could simply press the ‘outie’ and give birth. This made eminent sense to me at such a tender age, but I couldn’t work out why they didn’t just press the ‘outie’ and have done with as soon as the baby was ready. Again my sage advisor had the answer. “Well, if you are already carrying bags, you don’t want to carry a baby, too, do you? Best to wait until you get home and can put them down”. He’d clearly given this a great deal of thought. And I was convinced.
1Initial only, to prevent the very slight chance of embarrassment should he happen across this journal.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bluesman knew the chap at Grammar School, but this was some years before…
Furtle it seems, was appalled to find out at the tender age of seven or eight, that a ‘lady gets pregnant when a man wees in her bum’. Frankly I’d be appalled, too. If such misinformation is still in circulation in the primary school playgrounds, we may do well to reinforce it. Kids wouldn’t go near each other until well into their twenties, armed with that belief. Teenage pregnancy might stop over night.
I can’t actually recall, now, how I was told by the friend who knew all. Certainly by the time I attended a ‘sex education’ class at school with my Mum (there was a very sanitised film strip for my nine or ten-year old eyes) in attendance to ensure that my childish mind remained uncorrupted, I was able to answer her query as to whether I had any questions, with a jaunty ‘I already knew all that’.
So clearly I was either fibbing, or had found out and the official lessons simply confirmed it.
I do remember however, being vexed by the issue of the ‘outie’ belly button. I had seen a number of heavily pregnant women whose belly buttons had turned inside out. In this case, the sage at school, one David B1 informed me with all due conviction and gravity, that this was an indication that the ‘baby was done’ and that the woman could simply press the ‘outie’ and give birth. This made eminent sense to me at such a tender age, but I couldn’t work out why they didn’t just press the ‘outie’ and have done with as soon as the baby was ready. Again my sage advisor had the answer. “Well, if you are already carrying bags, you don’t want to carry a baby, too, do you? Best to wait until you get home and can put them down”. He’d clearly given this a great deal of thought. And I was convinced.
1Initial only, to prevent the very slight chance of embarrassment should he happen across this journal.
bluesman knew the chap at Grammar School, but this was some years before…