Perfectly Normal

Slang words for body parts and other sexual terms dominated the question box during each of our sexuality classes for fifth graders for eight weeks. Even after the students read…

I’ve passed The Book Loving Gene on to all three of my children. I recently sent them off on a road trip with their grandparents and the biggest concern was:…

I’ve collected so many great kid questions that I’ve divided them up into three different Perfectly Normal installments. This column includes the “Am I normal?” questions. It will be followed…

At eleven, my daughter has a friend almost a year younger that has begun menstruating. I’ll call her Faith. Maya and Faith have been BFFs for a while, so Maya…

Maya says, “When do you think it might be a good time for me to get a bra?” I say, “A girl usually knows when it’s time. Do you think…

“My friend says I listen to bad girl music because I like Katy Perry,” my almost eleven-year-old daughter, Maya, relays. “What do you think about that?” I ask. “I think…

When I was in high school, a classmate named Dewey passed me a pencil-sketched hairy vulva and darkened clitoris on college-ruled paper with a note reading “Is this yours?” Flushed,…

When Ahna turned five I realized it had, in fact, been at least five years since I’d been to the doctor. Moving from denial to awareness, I told some outspoken…

In the car, I began to wonder if everyone had noticed. Do people look at the presenter’s ass? Replaying when I was up at the chart paper with my back…

It’s Saturday night and I’m sitting on the couch with my two of my favorite people. My son Jamin is in seventh grade and his middle sister, Maya, is a…

This summer we adopted three male guinea pigs. We’d been told it’s best to have two males only or two males and a female if you are going to keep…