She has been watching that condom ad keenly

Mr Wanjohi Gachie, a professional lawyer, during one of his sex education classes at Ndumberi Girls Secondary School in Kiambu. Sex education is an albatross around all parents’ necks. PHOTO | ERICK WAINAINA |

What you need to know:

  • Sex education is an albatross around all parents’ necks
  • Some topics, if they remain unfinished, have a freaky way of catching up with you
  • If you see them doing their own PG rating by shutting their eyes or running to hide, then know that it is time for real parental guidance

There’s a condom conspiracy on national TV. Okay, I am pushing it. See, this rubber ad comes at prime time. It is ingenious.

Opens with a woman’s manicured hands fondling the ribbed surface of an orange basketball. Sexual sub-text is written all over it. Each time it comes, I hit the remote’s button to the next station. Only to find it there. And the next station too.

My daughter has been watching it... and me. Keenly. I knew this pop quiz was coming: “Dah-dee? What is that advertisement about?”

“I don’t know.”

I did not lie. What I wanted to say was, “I don’t know how to tell you about this.” But I stopped mid-sentence.

LESSONS LEARNT

Lesson: Some topics, if they remain unfinished, have a freaky way of catching up with you.

This happened several years ago. Still, it goes to show that children become aware of some stuff earlier than we think. We are watching a documentary on TV about the albatross. The large long-winged sea birds are kissing.

“What are they doing?” we ask baby girl, trying to gauge her knowledge.

She is embarrassed to say what it was. Which gives us the feeling that she thinks kissing is somewhat inappropriate.

Lesson: Sex education is an albatross around all parents’ necks.

On their last educational trip, our daughter’s school visited an ostrich farm. On the way home from picking her up, she was full of stories.

She told me about Somali and Maasai ostriches, and their inherent differences. Which I did not know.

“When the male wants to get with the female, it fusses around it,” she educated me about the mating patterns of these large flightless birds. I did not know this, too.

Lesson: In this matter, the worst mistake I can make is bury my head in the sand. I know that much is true.

It has become a common scene in our living room. Whenever there is a kissing scene on TV or two actors seem as if they are about to lock lips, our daughter covers her eyes.

“I don’t want to see,” she says through her little hands. “Have they finished?”

Other times, she runs and hides behind the three-seater, then asks us if they have finished.

“Finished what?” I will ask, to which she will either keep a studious silence or peek through her fingers to see if the scene has ended.

Lesson: If you see them doing their own PG rating by shutting their eyes or running to hide, then know that it is time for real parental guidance.

We have been reminding our daughter about courtesy. For instance, always knocking before she enters our bedroom. And to lead by example, I rap on her bedroom door when I want to check on her.

Pudd’ng has grown up. Whenever she comes to me wrapped in her towel and has a wardrobe malfunction, she covers herself quickly or cries, “Dad, don’t look!”

That is a far cry from the baby who, just the other year, would carry her potty to the living room and, no shame whatsoever, comfortably do her number ones and twos while watching us.

Lesson: When they start showing signs of self-awareness, know that your old public potty days are numbered.

One of the hardest subjects to share with one’s child is reproduction. Most of us expertly skirt around this subject. I reckon it is because, for most of us, while growing up, this was a taboo topic.

From what I have heard Pudd’ng say, she knows that babies grow in the mother’s stomach. What she does not know — I think — is how they get into the stomach. Which is good enough for her, for now.

Lesson: A little knowledge — especially when it is on the lips of a voluble little child — can cause blushes.

My daughter knows that, in her own words, I “write magazines” for a living. She loves flipping through the magazines I bring home, asking gazillion questions.

Last month I bought a couple of glossies. As Pudd’ng flipped through one of them, she came to a page with the condom ad, in all their four colours.

She froze. Studied that page as if she was reading for her bar exam. I am waiting to be put on the witness stand.

Lessons: If I play hide-and-seek, my daughter will stumble on facts, or, worse, fiction or half-truths — and there will be hell to pay. That is one.

Two: Remote-controlling some issues can only get you so far.