The coolest place to hang out in Toledo is the library! It is also where most of my blog posts are written. It’s a beautiful building. I’m sitting in a study room as I write this and I wanted to share a few pictures I just took of the library.
I just wanted to share how much I enjoy coming here.
What’s your local library like? Do you spend a lot of time there?
A couple of nights ago my husband and I were conversing about aging and death. Specifically about my grandmother who passed away a few years ago. She was 91 and still very sharp mentally – she knew everything that was going on as she was dying. It was painful to watch.
My grandpa, on the other hand, who died a few years before her had dementia so by the time he died it was like we had already lost him long ago. I asked my husband if he thought it was better for your mind or your body to decline first.
Maybe we should have been a little more cautious in our conversation because our six-year-old daughter was in the room and after a few mentions of the word “death” she burst into tears and said, “I don’t want to die!”
I let my husband take the lead on this one. I thought my explanation of death would be too depressing. I don’t believe there’s anything after death. You die and that’s it – you’re gone. But how do you say that to a crying six-year-old?
I said, “Everybody dies. It’s a part of life.” My daughter then said she wants to be a ghost so she can live forever.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really knock down the ghost idea. We really had no idea what to say.
My husband added that it’s important to live your life to the fullest because we will all die one day. I definitely agreed with him on that one and I was hoping that would be my daughter’s main takeaway from the conversation.
My daughter said she’d wish upon a shooting star to be a ghost and then as she left the room she said, “Say goodbye to the real world and hello to the death world.” It was pretty creepy.
I thought I was better prepared for this.
My mother died when I was five so I had to deal with death at a very young age. I remember feeling a lot of confusion. I would ask where my mom was, and no one would answer me. My daughter deserves a better explanation than what I was given – which was no explanation.
So please help me out – what did you tell your kids about death?
Also, my husband never was able to answer my question – would it be better for your mind or your body to decline first? If you feel like answering that I would love to hear it.
I was terrified of sex growing up. I knew very little about my own body and talking about sex always came with a negative connotation. It was always taught to be a bad thing.
I went to high school in the late 90s in rural Ohio. At the time, schools in Ohio were not required to have sex ed and if they did, it had to be an abstinence-only curriculum.
Forget training about orientation and identity (which I later learned could have saved many of my classmates some heartache, frustration, and fear) – we were lacking in even the fundamental basics. I didn’t even know how my body worked.
My classmates and I assumed if you have sex, you either get pregnant the first time or you get sick and die – either way you’re going to hell. It didn’t help that there were a lot of pregnant girls at school. See! You really do get pregnant right away!
I was a little more fortunate than my classmates because I was an exchange student and spent my junior year in Denmark, a place with very comprehensive sexual education. I was 16 and for the first time heard about masturbation in a positive light. We were always taught back home that it was wrong to touch ourselves. I had never explored my own body. I had an orgasm for the first time in Denmark and at first, it scared me. It was new but I soon enjoyed it. Why didn’t I know about this?
I returned from Denmark armed with knowledge that made me less fearful. Of course, I was more than willing to share this knowledge with my curious and repressed teenage friends in Ohio.
I lost my virginity at 18 to a person I was serious about. It was his first time as well. It’s a fun memory and I had no regrets.
I’ve also been very fortunate in only getting pregnant when I really wanted to.
If I went to high school now, with my late-30s horniness and experience, I would definitely relax and have a little more fun – maybe fuck the football team.
Would I say that to my daughter? Probably not. But I don’t want my daughter to fear sex either – maybe just have a healthy respect for it. I don’t want her to see it as a bad thing.
In Denmark, there seemed to be this rite-of-passage where a mother takes her daughter to get birth control around her fifteenth birthday. I think that’s a great idea and I plan on doing that with my daughter. I don’t know if she’ll need birth control then, but I’m going to make sure it’s readily available and she knows how to use it.
I graduated high school over 20 years ago. So what’s it like for kids in Ohio today? A quick Google search revealed that not much has changed. Sex ed is now required in schools, however, the curriculum is not required to be comprehensive and it must emphasize abstinence.
A little further research showed that now even anti-abortion groups have affected sex ed in Ohio. The curriculum must also emphasize adoption for unintended pregnancies.
The consequences of having a child out of wedlock must also be taught.
Check out Ohio Code Section 3313.6011 for the full list of requirements for sex ed and see why I’m disappointed in my now red state.
I hope my daughter will be more knowledgeable than I was as she works her way through childhood but it’s pretty clear she’s not going to get that from school. It’s up to me.
What was sex ed like in your school? Did you fear sex? Did you see it as a good/bad thing? I’d love to hear your stories.