Human Development

Golden Boy's class is studying human development this month, or as the kids say between giggles and outright snorts, Sex Ed. Mind you, only about a quarter of the book they're reading is actually about puberty and sex. Oh, and nocturnal emissions. What fun THAT chapter will be! Most of it deals with decision making, honesty, doing the right thing, etc. It gives scenarios and asks the kids to think about how they'd handle them. One of them talks about families with adopted children, about a parent losing a job, kids cutting classes at school, things like that.
The school sent home copies of the text book ahead of time so the parents would know what the kids were learning. Golden Boy's BFF from school showed the diagram of a woman's reproductive system to my mom and said, "That's just gross. Do you see the baby in there?!"
So today Golden Boy whips out his treasured cell phone to call me after school and tell me they talked about "Umm, you know *pause* that stuff *pause* that's inside a male.... *quietly whispers* um, yeah, sperm? Well, we talked about it today." So since he's opening the dialogue here, I ask him if he understood it, if it was confusing, if he had any questions.... and instead he moves onto the next subject.

Not since my little angel was born have I felt so unsure of how to handle something as the mother of a BOY. At what age do boys er, discover themselves? When is he going to insist his little brother return to his own room, because he needs personal space? I do the laundry and change the sheets, and I'd have noticed any "emissions"... but what else do I need to be aware of?? For cripe's sake, I was never a BOY (as my husband likes to point out when I wonder why they act like savages sometimes) When we were kids we obsessed over who was getting boobs and periods first. What the heck to boys wonder about??