An Education

For many years I would look at pregnant women, buggies, nappies and cooed over newborn babies wishing that I could have one or two of my own. Here I am, four children later and for the first time in many years can look at a newborn baby with joy for the parents but not longing for one of my own. As I come to the end of my reproducing days, others in the family are just starting to think about the beginning of theirs.

With sinusitis still bothering her, I was very surprised to see my teenager crawl out of her sick bed and insist on going to school last Monday. She had been off for a whole week and was on antibiotics, painkillers and nothing to eat but a slice of toast for seven days; she was weak and tired. I tried to get her to go back to bed but she was standing by the front door, pulling on her socks and muttering something about a note home that I should have read two weeks previously.

Heading to the fridge and a wad of notes home twelve thick (and only just being held on by a fridge magnet) I found the note in question. This was the week of sex education. I had signed a form and sent it back to the teacher ages ago. Looking back at my sick child, she was pale and lethargic but I reckoned no better subject than Sex Education to perk her up a bit.

That afternoon I picked the children up from school and looked at my eldest. She still looked sickly but mentally preoccupied.  She turned to me and said “Well, that was a very interesting day at school wasn’t it?”  I asked her what she had learnt and she replied “EVERYTHING”. Turning the radio up to distract the ones in the back I made further enquiries. “What kind of everything?” She looked at me with knowing smile and shouting to be heard above the radio she bellowed, “Oh you know” she continued, “Penises, vaginas. That kind of stuff”. 

Once home she had a lie down. Not sure whether it was hearing about the facts of life or sinusitis causing her weakness and pain, I filled her up with painkillers, a cup of tea and a cold flannel for her forehead.  Meanwhile her sister had a friend round to play. The two girls disappeared into her bedroom in their uniforms and came out in something less grey.

Each wearing a pair of my high heels, they were squeezed into white jeans and t-shirts. What I wasn’t expecting was that they both had a pillow squashed up under their tops. “LOOK!” said my daughter “I’m Miley Cirus and I’m pregnant”. Oh dear. Then her friend piped up “I’m Ashley Tisdale and I’m pregnant too, and it’s TWINS”.  They couldn’t have been more topical. I looked over at my recently sex educated daughter, she threw the flannel over her entire face. And groaned.

I put on Sky News to distract myself and the first story to come on to the screen was about the multiple births in Belfast. The nine year old’s in heels watched in amazement. “SIX babies?” said our daughter’s friend. “That’s like three pairs of twins at once?” I told them that is was rare (only one in every four million births apparently) and that the correct term for six babies born at once is ‘Sextuplets’.

Miley Cirus turned to Ashley Tisdale and whispered loudly “Sexlets. SEX-LETS?”. Obviously the word ‘sextuplets’ was not in High School Musical or Hannah Montana and therefore had yet to enter their vocabulary. They were silent and looking at each other intensely. Then she said “Wow. When I’m older I’m going to have sex-lets”.

Getting up, they patted this bumps and carried on walking around the house in the heels. Not five minutes later they had returned with a magazine. Inside there was a feature about the woman in America who had given birth to eight babies. “Look Mum – eight babies”. I explained that it was even more rare to give birth to octuplets and the woman used something called ‘IVF’. “Ivy who?” asked Miley Cirus. “Go and play Hide and Seek” I told them, remembering the days when play was all so simple.

Nipping onto the computer I called over my eldest and asked if she wanted to watch a baby being born on YouTube. She came over and we sat and watched a German woman give birth at home, in her front room. It was a short five-minute clip. The commentator had a stern Germanic accent and it sounded like she was reading out a list of car engine parts rather than narrating the miracle of birth but I don’t think my daughter noticed.  She was transfixed. Still with wet flannel clamped to her forehead she and I watched for four minutes as the mother panted and pushed until the baby made its way out of the womb and into a German front room.

I cheered and clapped like I had witnessed the winning goal in the World Cup final. It was my attempt to make up for the apathetic commentary. My daughter said “Oh my God”. I explained that although we had watched a five-minute video, in reality it could take anything up to two days to get to the stage of actually giving birth.  As a heavily pregnant Miley Cirus and Ashley Tisdale walked past in their heels, she muttered, “I’m going to lie down. I’m not ever having children”.

You have to hand it to teachers. I can’t think of a more challenging task that giving a classroom of pre-teens sex education lessons. But as for contraceptive advice, with Germanic YouTube Birthing videos I think I have it covered.