The 12-year-old looked up from his book and asked 'what's a dyke?' 'It's a barrier to stop the sea flooding the land', I said. He looked puzzled. Ah. 'It's also slang for a lesbian,' I went on. 'Oh, that makes more sense,' he said, and went back to his book.
Now that's a conversation I would never have had with my parents aged 12 or even 22, come to think of it. It seems not only have books changed since my day but so have our relationships with our kids. My parents never did the birds and bees talk, I found out all I needed to know from behind the bike shed at school, from friends, the problem page of Jackie magazine and sneaky reads, under the bed covers at night with a torch, of my dad's Dennis Wheatley books.
Sex just wasn't discussed. My mum would go bright red and start stammering if even the most oblique reference came up and Dad was in a world of his own and, presumably, felt that having daughters rather than sons made 'all that business' Mum's domaine.
Once puberty kicked in Mum went on high alert. One lunchtime when I was at Sixth Form college, she came home early to find me and my best friend and a male friend eating sandwiches. 'What on earth is going on here?,' she shrieked. 'Er, we're having lunch,' I said. Clearly she suspected we were planning a threesome after we'd finished our cheese and pickle and Cokes.
After I'd left home we went on holiday and my younger sister was allowed to bring her boyfriend. Mum hauled me to one side and hissed 'keep an eye on them, they can't be left on their own for one minute in case they, well you know.' I did know.
Such was the atmosphere of embarrassment about sex in our house that I can still clearly remember going hot and cold while watching Ryan's Daughter with my dad. As Sarah Miles got down to it with Robert Mitchum, I leapt out of my chair, announced loudly 'think I'll make a cup of tea, anyone want one?' and disappeared into the kitchen at warp speed. I was probably about 17 at the time.
Contrast that to just a few nights ago when my 18-year-old son wandered in to the sitting room as a girlfriend and I were watching Hope Springs. He happened to appear just at the moment when Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones were trying to get down and dirty but realising nothing was going on downstairs for poor Tommy. 'Oh blimey, he can't get it up', says the son and we all laughed.
I'm relieved and kind of chuffed that somehow, I'm not sure how, I'm just not embarrassed to talk about sex and answer any questions my kids have. They know gay men and women and don't think twice about it. I'm proud they're enlightened and non-judgemental.
How times have changed. Well, kind of. The husband of a friend of mine was delegated to have the facts of life talk with his son. He kept putting it off until my friend ordered him to get it over and done with. The poor man waited until it was dark, took his son out to the car on the drive, sat him in the back, then climbed in the front seat and kept staring straight ahead while he did the deed. He'd have got on well with my mum.
Brilliant. My 7 year old had to do some homework tonight on hedgehogs. He recited that the recent zoo trip to Bristol has taught him that hedgehogs had 1005 prickles - who the hell counted those I wonder? We discussed how their tummies were soft then I explained that the baby hedgehogs feed from their mothers teats. My son swung round from his fact writing and stared in horror. I was bemused and asked him what he had written and on reading back he'd written 'tits' and said to me "Mummy you are soooo rude!" He's handing in his homework tomorrow and I haven't made him change it yet. I thought the teacher would be amused. I was in hysterics. He also has been taught the 'F' word at school by an older boy who thinks that it is amusing to get the younger ones to extend their street vocabulary...
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