{"id":596,"date":"2019-02-18T01:06:32","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T06:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2019-02-18T01:06:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T06:06:32","slug":"the-birds-and-the-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"THE BIRDS AND THE BEES"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_0143\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Me at fourteen and a half, shortly after my big talk with Mama.\u00a0 Mama (lower right corner of photo) hadn’t yet recovered from the BIG TALK.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the Moonbeam Silver Medal for Young Adult Fiction, and awarded the 2016 Frank Yerby Award for Fiction. Available at: NewSouth Books: www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley and Amazon.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Back in the stone age, when I was a kid, parents seemed to assume that any information a girl got about S-E-X should come as a divine revelation, hopefully just before she got married. I didn\u2019t know what caused babies until I was fourteen and a half. I don\u2019t recommend such ignorance. You\u2019d think observation would have provided me some clues. We didn\u2019t live on a farm with breeding animals, but we frequently visited relatives who did. And even in the mill towns where we lived there were stray cats and dogs about. However, I\u2019m sure Mama had Daddy get rid of any females that began attracting admirers. Perhaps I didn\u2019t want to know any facts. I\u2019ll bet my younger sister had things figured out long before I stumbled over the information one evening at Aunt Hilde\u2019s house.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While the adults lingered at the supper table and the younger kids watched a snowy program on a black and white television as big as a small refrigerator, I looked through a large stack of Reader\u2019s Digest magazines. The title on one cover arrested my attention at once: \u201cHow to Tell Your Child the Facts of Life.\u201d I knew where babies came from, thanks to having asked my mother at a crowded family reunion eight years before. What I lacked was the essential information about what started the baby. Now at last maybe I had all the other facts here in my sweaty hands. I furtively turned to the article and began reading\u2014ovaries, hormones, periods, \u201cintercourse\u201d\u2026.what the heck? My parents? My grandparents, Aunt Murdess and Uncle Jim Bob? Impossible! There had to be an alternative method, and I was going to have to get up the nerve to ask Mama what it was.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It took several days. It was summer and my mother wasn\u2019t working at the mill. Because of a nervous breakdown several months before, she was home recuperating with lots of help from Miles Nervine. I finally got up courage to broach the big question. Better not tell her about the article\u2014and risk never being allowed to read anything at Aunt Hilde\u2019s house.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhat causes babies?\u201d I asked.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d Mama said, clutching her broom.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I managed to choke out the question again.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mama snatched the bottle of Miles Nervine from her pocket with shaking hands. She took a swig and then muttered, \u201cLater. Can\u2019t you see I\u2019m busy now?\u201d She began sweeping vigorously. Her face was scarlet.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It must have been two hours before she finished in the house and came outside to sit beside me on the front steps. \u201cY\u2019all go on,\u201d she told my younger siblings. \u201cPlay somewhere else.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

They didn\u2019t need the house to fall on them\u2014they figured out something was going on and drew closer. They weren\u2019t about to miss any excitement.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mama came up with plan two. \u201cYa\u2019ll can go to the store and buy some candy,\u201d she said and dug in her pocket for change. That did the trick. We rarely went to the little store down the highway, and we almost never had candy.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When the kids were out of hearing, Mama began telling me about the ovaries, but she called them \u2018egg sacks.\u2019 At some point in her 29 years she must have read an article similar to the one in the Digest, because the information agreed so far. Once a month, she said, one egg was released. The body got ready to grow a baby. Only most of the time that didn\u2019t happen, so all the materials were dumped, and that was what a period was. Now she sidetracked on to the subject of periods, which I didn\u2019t need, because I\u2019d been having them for a year.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Mama took another drink of Nervine and dropped her eyes. \u201cWell, anyway, sometimes, ever now and then, something happens to the egg and it starts to grow into a baby. Well what happens\u2026.It takes something from a, uh, man. Well, and, well, I think I better tell you more about the egg.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

She did. She went over every excruciating detail and then all the information about the period, even getting into sanitary pads and sanitary belts, and the importance of bathing \u201cprivates.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Just then my sister and my brothers reappeared in our driveway and Mama said, \u201cI\u2019m no good at explaining stuff like this. Do you reckon you could take everything I\u2019ve told you so far and figure out the rest?\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I leaped to my feet, relieved. \u201cYes!\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

And I did, thanks to Reader\u2019s Digest. A good thing too\u2014this was the nearest approach Mama made to discussing sex with me until well after I was married and had a child on my own.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By then, folks, it was too late\u2014one of those eggs had had something happen to it!<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Me at fourteen and a half, shortly after my big talk with Mama.\u00a0 Mama (lower right corner of photo) hadn’t yet recovered from the BIG TALK. My latest book, HALLEY, awarded 2015 Jefferson Cup Honor for Historical Fiction, awarded the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fayegibbons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}