Begininng with the most recent tale: Buttercup and the sex education.
Turns out, the special education coordinator had been out “sick” for an entire week, and our wealthy school district has no room in its budget for Outlook’s out of office message. And if it can’t afford the out of office message, we can’t expect it to pay for someone else to pick up this woman’s email while she’s gone for five days, can we?
So anyway, Buttercup started the Project Self-Respect this past Monday. Character, self-respect, then puberty. I opted her out of drug awareness and abstinence education. She will take an extra math class during that time and finish a few assessments.
Alrighty so the puberty lesson was yesterday. The day before yesterday, I asked Buttercup if she’d started puberty yet. She answered yes, the correct answer. I asked her how she knew. “We saw a film in school last year” was her incorrect answer.
Argh.
Last night: “Mommy, we talked about puberty today in our class.”
Mommy: Well, let’s have it.
Buttercup: We talked about a period and blood and something about a baby.
Argh. Yes, that’s it.
Buttercup: The lady who was teaching the class? She’s 50. She can’t have children anymore. She doesn’t have a period anymore. Is that normal?
Mommy: Sometimes.
Buttercup: Well, she had surgery. So she can’t have any more kids.
Mommy: Why is she telling you all that, Buttercup?
Buttercup: Dunno.
What kind of surgery? Tubal ligation? Hysterectomy? Transgender? Why is this woman telling the kids her medical history? What does it have to do with anything at all she is there to teach?
Confession: I used to teach a very similar abstinence education class in schools, churches and communities. I know how out of hand these discussions can get. It’s still the instructor’s responsibilty to keep it under control and to keep her irrelevance at bay.
I’ve been trying to teach Buttercup for years how babies get here. She remembers sometimes, other times, she doesn’t really get it. Penises belong to naked baby brothers running around being the mocha Power Ranger. Vaginas are for tinkling. My sweetie is not retarded, let me clear that up right now. But the level of understanding for this hasn’t crested just yet.
One answered email and we could have had this explained in the very beginning. Brain injuries are weird by nature. One concept: got. Another concept: not got. It’s as simple as that. And as complex as that.
I’ll tie up a few other loose ends in another post. I kinda gotta get back to work.
Say it in comments…
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