An Awkward Period

In fifth grade at Christ the King elementary school, we learned sex education with a curriculum called "Gifts and Promises."  I think it was a two week program and the first twelve days were spent learning about how Jesus loves us so much and the very nicest thing we could do for Him would be to wait for marriage to even smooch and how if we ignored this advice, we'd burn in Hell.  This was par for the course in Catholic school, but everyone held on to our seats because we knew from older friends and relatives that the last two days of "Gifts and Promises" included graphic details about puberty, sex and childbirth.  What ten-year-old wouldn't be excited about that?

On one of the last days, they separated the girls from the boys and told us all about how our bodies were temples of the Holy Spirit and, oh, by the way, enjoy bleeding out the vagina once a month for forty years, ladies.  This was the first I had heard of this period thing, and I was absolutely devastated.  I ran home after school and very dramatically told my mom I hated being a girl and that this whole thing was unfair and nothing I would ever sign up for.  She patted me on the head and told me that boys go through puberty too.

"Yeah, but what happens to them?  We have to have PERIODS.  What happens to boys in puberty, Mom?"  I thought of my boy cousins, five of whom lived directly across the street from me.  I tried to remember if any of them had experienced dramatic transformations like Michael Jackson in the "Thriller" video or if they had whispered about secret once-a-month penis bleeding or anything like that.  My mom was (and is) shy about talking about sex, so all she told me was, "You'll learn all about it in 'Gifts and Promises."

The next day my mom was sitting on the front porch with a couple of our neighbors.  I came around our corner coming home from school, looking like a Catholic Laura Ingalls Wilder with two braids in my hair and a perfectly ironed uniform.  I was walking slightly ahead of a big group of kids from our block, and I was very very excited.  As soon as I saw my mom, I screamed out, "MOM!!  GUESS WHAT??  BOYS HAVE WET DREAMS!!!"