Princess and the Pea

Prelude: 10 is not too early....

I spend part of my professional life being a therapist, primarily to women and couples struggling with fertility problems (see my other blog). With that said, people have been asking me if I have seen the new hot HBO series, Tell Me You Love Me. The series follows the intimate lives of four couples, including the couple therapist played by Jane Alexander. She counsels the various characters around issues of sex, intimacy and commitment.

I read the opening reviews in the newspaper and finally got around to watching the first episode while folding three loads of laundry. After I got over my OMG reaction to the sex scenes, I settled in to the story lines. The asexual couple (the only parents among the cast of characters) is confronted with their ten-year old daughter’s shy announcement at breakfast that she had gotten her period. The mother, after taking care of the child, goes into a self-blame outburst, asking her husband what they might have done wrong. Mom searches her memory bank for a reason: Was it the soy milk she was fed when she was a baby?

Of course the conflict at hand is that there is now an emerging sexuality in the household. But given my curiosity about talking to your daughter about coming of age, I thought the episode was timely. Girls can have their periods starting as early as age eight, and although people seem to think that girls are menstruating so much earlier these days, they aren’t really. A pediatrician at a reproductive health conference I attended says that on average girls are having their period 6 months earlier than several decades ago, and that “precocious” puberty is rare. I suppose that should be some solace to mothers, who might predict that their daughters will have their periods around the same time other women in the family did.

That means I have three years to go with my ten year old. But my mother never prepared me -- and I was a late bloomer so there was plenty of time for a prep talk -- so I think I’ll bring it up soon.

Basking in Bonding

The other night I sat in my bed with both my daughters flanking me, several books in hand. I had been away for a week and this was catch-up time. My daughters are 7 and “almost” 10 years old. I’ll call them “Adele” and “Rosie” in this blog (maternal protective instinct).

Adele, the younger, had scrounged up an old worn storybook on “The Nutcracker” which I proceeded read aloud. “So who is the hero this story?” I asked at the conclusion. Stumped in silence, it was unclear to them. Was it the wooden toy nutcracker – or the magical prince boy it turned into – who valiantly fought off the rat king and his army of mice? Or was it Herr Drosselmeyer, the mysterious godfather, in the shadows directing the story? Or was it the hero the girl, Clara?

Oh, a girl. On the spot, they concluded that it was Clara. After all, it was she who threw her toe shoe at the rat king and knocked him out.

They thought it was all very funny and squealed with laughter. Then, Rosie, the elder looked at my pile of books on the nightstand. “The Female Brain. What’s that about?” she asked. “Oh, it’s a book about how different the brains of women and men are,” I answered.

“Mom,” exclaimed Rosie, “That is SO obbbbvious.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Well, boys… they are just, you know…’’ She motioned with her both of hands shooting straight out from the sides of her forehead head, like making a track in the air. I interpreted her pantomime as “single-minded” but waited for her to find the words. “Well, they are just so physical”. And then she shifted her arms into a Pop-Eye strong man motion. “They are just so Grrrhhhh,” she grunted. This sent Adele into a fit of laughter and she ran downstairs to retell the whole scene to her father, who was watching… you guessed it, a ball game.

I basked in this moment of maternal bonding, which, according to the book, The Female Brain, triggers oxytocin, the bonding hormone that ignites nurturance, cuddling, protection and survival. I imagine my brain was “marinating” in this hormone, as the author likes to say. I wondered how many moments we’d be having before my Rosie’s brain would be marinating in estrogen – which is anytime in the next few years as puberty begins.

Earlier that evening several friends and colleagues had sent me links to the news story of the epidemic of pregnancies among 11 year olds in Portland, Maine, and where the school is now offering contraception options to middle school children. I looked at Rosie and shook my head. I guess 10 really isn’t too early to start talking to girls about – well, puberty – but sex, too. We haven’t even told her that the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are make-believe – although I’m sure she knows this and is respectfully honoring the imagination of her little sister and the conumer rewards these characters deliver.

This news story about 11 year olds is timely as I have been grappling with when and how to talk to girls, and wondering how and when other mothers are doing it (see survey link).

So, how are you mothers out there handling the topic of sex with your kids? How about the topic of sex in your adult relationships?