How does your culture or spirituality play a role in how you talk about sex and relationships with your kids?

•  Raising kids in a culture of curiosity feels like the most influential part of talking with my kids about relationships and sex. No mysteries. We discuss science and social norms. Shame has no place in discussions about our bodies and our curiosities about bodies.

  
  

• I feel a pressure to talk about sexual health education, healthy bodies, sex and relationships with my kids. That pressure is steeped in how I think/feel my mother-in-law will perceive these topics and I think her lens is influenced by her catholic upbringing and conservative lean. I often rely on my mother-in-law for childcare, and so this is a delicate and complicated dance. But I try my best to resist and get my children this critical information!

  
  

• I was raised Catholic and regardless of how much exposure I have received about different ways of thinking and being open about one's sexuality and even physicality, I am still not comfortable in my own skin. I'm not sure how much of this pseudo modesty has seeped into my parenting. I do know that having a son means we talk about consent in many of our conversations about relationships. And I definitely do this through an identifying female lens. I'm not sure if that's totally fair either. I have been able to reflect openly with my son that the culture in which I was raised has informed how we talk about sex and relationships and perhaps that's the real win.

  
  

• Unlearning my own religious shame based ideas about sexuality and not bringing it to the kid's understanding about sex and relationships. Talking about freedom of expression, self worth, and body autonomy in a world that doesn't often express that as "normal" for women.

  
  

• I don't have anything on this one.

  
  

• I'm finding myself getting deeper into spirituality and more angry at organized religion for how it's built this failing patriarchal society. In the last few years I've brought in mediation and the use of pendulums-- encouraging my kids to learn and play. My garden has been growing more medicinal herbs, for both ingesting, smudging, steeping. Affirmations as prayers. Rituals as routine. Even monthly menses in my house plants.