tonight...at the dinner table...SEX!

Hubby and I believe that dinner is a BIG deal and should always be together at the kitchen table.  Even if it's pizza or McDonald's or a really BIG family dinner when the older kids are here with the grandkids.

So, tonight...somehow the conversation got to being a woman now compared to when I was Sophie's age...only a million years ago!  We talked about the following topics -

• birth control and its relative newness and the power to be able to control the number of children a woman has
• how long woman have had the vote
• only 100 years ago...my great grandmother was considered an old maid at 15 and it was arranged for her kidnapping by a man to ruin her reputation so that she would HAVE to get married to a man she did not love...or even like!
• when I was in 7th grade I never had a choice as to what elective I would take...girls took cooking and sewing...that was it...nothing else.
• it was common for my mothers senior year in high school (1962) for most girls to become pregnant and have to get married, they were not given the opportunity to graduate from high school.
• abortions were illegal
• women were clearly second class people
• there were no sports teams for girls
• that in China, they are required to only have 1 child and they prefer male children because it carries on the name

We were met with very educated comments like....that's stupid! Why would some girl do that and get pregnant.  Were they too stupid to use condoms (which brought up many other topics like syphilis), and how there were girls for doing the nasty and girls that were for marrying and keeping pure.

We also talked about my Mother's cure for the problem.  She always told me that they should put something in the drinking water that would render everyone sterile.  And to have children you have to pass a million tests and really have to think about having children.  Mom should not have had children and wouldn't have had she had a choice in her day.  But, in her day...you fell in love, got pregnant, got married and that was it.

It was an interesting conversation with my 14 year old daughter.  And it's amazing how it was NOT that long ago!

Have you had these conversations with your children??