{"id":17875,"date":"2022-03-23T15:25:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T19:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/?p=17875"},"modified":"2024-08-27T16:57:57","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T20:57:57","slug":"sex-ed-a-la-helen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/2022\/sex-ed-a-la-helen\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex Ed a la Helen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Sex Ed a la Helen\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p>Sex Ed a la Helen<br>\nSister Aloysius taught us arithmetic and English; Father O\u2019Neil or as the older girls called him, Father What a Waste, taught us religion. When pressed for an explanation as to the nickname the grade 12 girls told us with smirks that we were \u201ctoo young\u201d. No one taught us about sex. And, Eileen, Joan and I had many unanswered questions.<br>\nAt this time, my mom, Helen, she of the green eyes, sharp tongue and huge stomach was expecting yet another baby.  They were hoping for another girl after three boys. Being the eldest and only daughter, I was not interested in sharing the limelight with some prune faced infant.<br>\nPuzzlement surrounded the imminent birth and I was charged by Joan and Eileen to press Helen on that issue.<br>\nFate found me seated at the piano in our living room, practicing scales. Mom was vacuuming behind me. I never understood why she did that; I suspect she was not a lover of music. I stopped mid scale, staring at the keys I said, \u201d Mom. I have something to ask you about sex.\u201d<br>\nClick\u2026 the vacuum was silenced. I stared harder at the keys, waiting as the silence expanded around me and endeavoured to escape the living room<br>\n\u201cYes Dear. What would you like to know\u201d.<br>\n\u201cWhere does the baby come out?\u201d Heavier silence as she pondered the question. (She must know I thought in a panic!)<br>\n\u201cHmm\u2026same way it went in\u201d Click\u2026on went the vacuum cleaner.<br>\nNext day in the school yard, minutes before the first bell, I was surrounded by 11 year old girls with big eyes anticipating the result of my research.<br>\n\u201cThe belly button. It comes out the belly button\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sex Ed a la Helen Sister Aloysius taught us arithmetic and English; Father O\u2019Neil or as the older girls called him, Father What a Waste, taught us religion. When pressed for an explanation as to the nickname the grade 12 girls told us with smirks that we were \u201ctoo young\u201d. No one taught us about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoir"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17887,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17875\/revisions\/17887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}