Musings at Altitude

I think my anxiety is just now starting to ease – but for just a few minutes now, life was really, really tense.  Those of you that are parents will soon know exactly what I’m talking about. 

With my wife out of town, I picked up my 13 year old daughter at the bus stop at her normal time and we proceeded with the normal mostly meaningless banter from the bus stop to the house.  I guess I should be honest that it was probably meaningless to me but very meaningful to her because she was complaining about the goalie selection for the hockey playoff game tonight, how all her friends agreed with her, and how it was absolutely wrong that she wasn’t going to the game tonight since she’s the biggest fan (her big sister and her brother-in-law are going with me this evening, thus leaving the 13 year old at home – OMG – a truly criminal offense I guess).  Fortunately, the drive was only about 2 minutes, so she packed those two minutes full of hockey related discussions.

But when we got home, the anxiety increased tremendously.  When we got out of the car, the conversation went something like this:

Her: “Dad, you have to help me with my homework tonight.”

Me: “What homework?”

Her: “Dad, I have sex ed homework tonight.”

Me: “Call Mom.  She’ll help you with it.”

Her: “Dad, Mom said you’d be able to help me with it.”

Me: “You’re kidding me.”

Her: “Dad, it’s about dating, not about sex.”

Me:  “OK then.”

You wouldn’t believe how many excuses I was thinking of in advance just in case it really was a sex education questionaire.  I was just about to call her Mom and scream into the phone when the “it’s about dating” came out, so a bit of calmness arrived although skepticism abounded.

When we got inside, my 13 year old sat down in my office chair with her 4 pages she needed to cover with me and sure enough it was about dating…at least to start…and then it covered communications, and the need for openness and honesty between the child and the parent, and the need to overcome the awkwardness of talking about sex to ensure that honesty.  How ridiculous is that!  We parents don’t get embarassed or feel awkward when asked about sex.  Come on.  It doesn’t create any anxiety at all!  Or at least I’d never admit it.  Not to my 13 year old anyway.  And I know she couldn’t have possibly figured it out when I immediately tried to get out of it and divert her attention to something else or calling her mother.  Yep, no awkwardness or anxiety at all on my part.  Nope, none at all.  PS. Thank goodness it was about dating.