Throughout the years, my husband and I have tried to impress upon our children that they could talk to us about any subject.  We’ve prided ourselves in being very open-minded and felt this was very important in our relationship with our children.  We never wanted them to feel frightened and alone, feeling they had no one they could talk to when different situations arose in their lives.

We are a combined family, a total of five children; three being my husband’s biological offspring and two being mine.  Four of the five are very close in age, within a span of five years from the youngest.

When they were small I started with my assurance to them that there was nothing so big or terrible that they couldn’t tell me.  I never felt I had that assurance growing up.  I never felt I could share all my fears and anxieties with my mother so I wanted it to be different with my children.  I remember their tiny faces looking up at me, four nodding little heads confirming that they would always share.

As I opened the door to unlimited sharing I attempted to practice reserve in my reactions to what they told me.  I didn’t want them to think I was judging them by some look of horror, terror or frustration they might read on my face.  It started off easy enough, my youngest daughter telling me that a little friend at daycare “gave her the bad finger”.  Maturely, I discussed with her that the finger wasn’t actually “bad” but the meaning behind it was.

My husband’s son expressed frustration upon entering the car after school at about age ten and fully immersed in the school’s sex education program, exclaiming, “I know that girls have to wear those tampon things and that sucks but us boys have to have wet dreams!”  Of course I did the mature thing and let my husband handle that one.

There was the time my daughter was watching a movie where the little girl said that she came from the stork and another answered that she came from her parents’ having sex.  My daughter, just a little thing, ran up to me in the kitchen saying, “I don’t know what sex is but it sounds fun.”

My husband and I both worked in corrections so we had knowledge in areas that we never wanted our own children to venture.  We were constantly informing them of different drugs to watch for, those drugs disguised as candy, different manipulations to watch for and the consequences of making poor choices.  They called it the “drugs, sex and rock-n-roll” talk which I am sure they got tired of and probably daydreamed about other things while we were going through our litany of dangers to watch out for.

As they started entering junior high and high school the innocent sharing stopped and the selective sharing started.  They were very normal children and started using discrimination about what they told us.  I am thankful for that as I learned that we must be careful what we ask for.  As we knew they had “secrets” amongst themselves we didn’t pressure them to “tattle” on each other except for one rule; if one of them was doing something hurtful and harmful to themselves or others then we needed to know.

I do remember my daughter, about age fourteen, calling me and asking me if she was correct in her definitions of oral and anal sex as well as intercourse.  I gasped and asked, “Where are you, what are you doing, and who are you with?”  I don’t think I kept the surprise, concern and “freaking out” tone out of my voice.  She replied that she was at her friends’ watching a movie on television that I told her to watch because it was very good and informational about teenage sex and pregnancy.  I guess my “let’s be open with each other” policy was getting harder as they matured.

As we were a combined family we tried to go out to dinner once a week.  We would go to the same restaurant and  had some great conversations. The youngest got educated about a lot of things during those conversations as the older ones shared stories from school.  She learned about french kissing, condoms and whatever other topics were included in the others’ sharing.  We sat there for hours talking, laughing and just enjoying each other.  It was a “neutral” setting and seemed to be easier to share.

Now they are young adults with the youngest being seventeen.  And of course, as we all know, there are now stories about when they were younger that were never shared at the time.  As I said, they all learned selective sharing skills when they reached junior high and high school and I am thankful for that.  After they graduated from high school they moved forward in their lives.  Moving away was a good thing because I, as a parent of adult children, did not need to know everything that they were doing!   In fact I didn’t even want to know.

We all need to discover ourselves without our parents’ hovering, a term of my oldest daughter.  I do inform all of them if we start hovering to let us know because one of the hardest things as a parent is to let them explore, discover themselves and become who they need to be without our perceived expertise that we know who they need to be.

Through the years I was always aware that they shared what they wanted and left the rest out but I did feel confident that they all knew they could come to us with the important things.  And of course we do hover a bit, continuing to tell them that they do not have to go through anything feeling afraid and alone.