Now that my daughter and I are having more discussions about drugs and sex, I’ve been thinking a lot about the conversations that didn’t happen with my mother. 

When I was teenager during the late 1960s, my mother, and other parents of  her era, just didn’t talk to their children about such sensitive topics. Our sex and drug education primarily came during health classes at school and when a girl across the street got pregnant, my parents didn’t really talk to me about her situation. They just stopped allowing me to go over to her house. 

My mother bought me a book and my father often told his four daughters “Keep your legs closed.”  That was it. I heard about drugs and sex from the kids at school, just as my ninth grade daughter now does, and never really expected further discussion of the matter from my parents. 

The stakes are much higher now for our children. I made a silent promise when my daughter was an infant that I would do my best to keep an open dialogue about these life-changing issues. 

A few years ago when I started having hot flashes, I knew it was time to have a talk with my mother. Time and age always make a difference. I raised the topic of menopause and she joined in. We now take time occasionally for a bit of girl talk.

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