My Daughter's Sex Ed

My teen daughter's school has a program ... I would call it Sex Ed. But they have a more politically correct name for it. Something like Family Life Sciences. So once again I get to face my station in life as a dad making sure his young teen daughter learns what she needs to know about sex. Mom's job, right? I wish... I know I have a role to fill too.

As part of the program, my daughter brings home sets of questions that Mom and I get to answer together and our daughter gets to answer separately. Then she brings both sets of answers (hers and ours) back to school without Mom and I really knowing what will come of it. But it is a good exercise. Not just for her, but for her Mom and I to be thinking about these things.

The questions often get me pondering ... a good thing, no doubt and inspired this blog. One of the more tame questions: What do you think of teens dressing sexy? That had me stalled as to how to answer.

You see, dressing sexy is such a subjective label. Does it mean wearing revealing clothing? Or clothing that accentuates some part of the body? If either of those are the case, then I might consider their school gym clothes as dressing too sexy. How do you make the separation between dressing to be beautiful, dressing to be sexy or just dressing to be comfortable on a hot day? Or are they somehow the same, but different? It's like asking what shade of gray is overly gray. So ... somewhere in that subjective gray mess I have my ideas of what dressing sexy means and it generally involves highlighting and accentuating the sexually attractive features in a big way. A "whoa" inspiring feat.

Also, quite frankly, I'd rather not think of teens as sex magnets. But that is the influence our society seems to promote. Be a girl, be sexy... And my daughter isn't going to wait for me to decide when she is ready to be a woman...

Fortunately right now my daughter takes after Mom and doesn't do sexy. Their style tends towards comfortable, lazy, nothing too showy. In fact, we've been trying to upscale my daughter's appearance. Trying to get her out of the ratty cotton jacket that she likes to wear everywhere. Trying to get her to pay more attention to her ratty hair and personal hygiene. But I know there will come the day when she'll try for "whoa" and I know I may have to be ready to be mean Dad. Backed by mean Mom. I know there may come the day when she'll decide to be one of the sexy girls. "No, you can't go out in that ... not until after you're married."

One of my role models who raised daughters says "Most women will know more about sex by the time they're 18 then most men will their whole lives." While somewhat anecdotal, it reflects on me knowing my role as a dad with daughters.

What is too sexy ... a vision caught somewhere between the reality of active hormones, the ideals of attractiveness and the ever changing decorum of modesty... Um, that shade of gray.