Comments on: Prop 4: the Political Gets Personal

By: minxlj

minxlj — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:30:42 +0000

I’m so VERY glad I have a mother who has always made it clear that my decisions are my own, and that I have control of my feelings, opinions and goals in life. She never shied from supporting me and talking about all manner of things like this, even though my stepfather and the rest of his family were unbelievably ‘traditional’ in that respect.

His one and only piece of advice was, and I quote “Don’t you f*ckin’ DARE ever come home pregnant”. What he would have done if I ever had done, I don’t know. He was by all accounts a thoroughly disagreeable man anyway and I would never have asked for, or wanted, his support. I’ll never wish upon my future children any views like that…

By: xJane

xJane — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:16:55 +0000

sarah k.—I’m sorry if it got graphic, but I feel it’s important to articulate exactly why this is such an important issue to me. And I consider myself to be a privileged white woman; how much worse it is for others I cannot even fathom.

Kathy Quick—that is amazing. I’ve always been like your daughter, more desirous of doing it myself than having someone do it for me. But I know there are many people who either don’t have the opportunity/freedom to.

wren—that’s shocking. I would think that someone who grew up on a farm would sort of de facto know about sex…

By: wren

wren — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:07:24 +0000

My mother grew up on a farm and she wasn’t even allowed to see the cows giving birth!

Of course there was no sex ed in her home. No surprise she got pregnant with me at 19.

By: Kathy Quick

Kathy Quick — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:38:26 +0000

I recently bit my lip as my 3 year-old insisted upon very incompletely rinsing shampoo out of her hair in the community pool’s locker room. She wanted to “do it herself.” In that moment, I had a flash of a 17 year old woman I’d taken to her first gynecological appointment, frightened because she had uncontrolled bleeding after a Depo-Provera shot that two sets of parents – hers and her suddenly husband’s parents – had decided was necessary after, dang, the kids had gone and gotten themselves pregnant, gotten married, and had a baby while they were still each in their teens. A little too late. This same woman did not know how to wash her own hair when she moved into her in-law’s home because her mother had always done it for her. She was, I repeat, 17 years old. So watching my daughter step out of the shower, proud of herself for taking care of herself, hair still full of suds, I vowed to myself that I’d be damned if she didn’t learn how to take care of her own body to the best of her and her parents’ ability from the earliest age possible, from learning to shampoo her own hair to learning to prevent pregnancy. Thank you for this post.

By: sarah k.

sarah k. — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:32:27 +0000

I am a little physically ill after reading this. I cannot imagine how any parents ever thought ignorance would be a better teacher than knowledge. If I still believed in God, I might hope for a proper punishment for people who could induce this amount of needless pain and self-loathing in their own children.

Then again, I have absolutely no clue about parenting.

By: xJane

xJane — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:36:01 +0000

Thank you all. This was a hard post for me to write, but every time I see the ads for Prop 4 (actually I only see ads against Prop 4), I’m immediately transported back to a time when I might have needed the ability to abort a pregnancy. Would I have been able to make that choice? I honestly don’t know. But I had the choice and that’s the important part.

By: Jonathan Blake

Jonathan Blake — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:11:27 +0000

I am hereby recommitting to making sure that my daughters don’t grow up in ignorance.

By: Lessie

Lessie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:43:06 +0000

* Heavy sigh * my sister-in-law did end up pregnant before she got out of high school. Sex was a closed subject in their home. They shipped her off to live with her sister so she could avoid the shame (?) among her peers. What makes me sad is that she’s perpetuating the silence in her own home. She won’t let her three year old daughter watch when I change my son’s diaper. I think she thinks she’s helping Hailey, but I know she’s just passing on the ignorance.

My other sister-in-law that’s younger than me and still in high school seems to have a good head on her shoulders and I’ve told her that if she ever has any questions, she can come to me. I just don’t know if she will (especially now that I’ve separated from her brother, but that’s another story). I don’t think she thinks it’s right to talk about sex. So whatever her questions are, I’m afraid they may never get asked.

It makes me sad. I’m so not repeating that disservice with my boys. We’re pretty open in our home.

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:36:29 +0000

Wow. I can’t even imagine. My 18 yr old sister just told me that my parents (mum) never talked to her about such things either – not even about menstruation.

WTF is wrong with our parents?