Category Archives: Memories

The Life Cycle Library for Young People

Memories, Musings, Reading

As mentioned in the previous post, I partially learned about the birds and the bees from a set of books my mother gave me after being unwilling (embarrassed?) to answer a legitimate question about sperm and eggs.

The Life Cycle Library for Young People is a set of four books whose “Note to Readers” includes:

The story told on the following pages is one of the most fascinating and important ones in the life of every human being. Doctors … are still trying to discover the details of the process by which a tiny cell no larger than a speck of dust grows to be a growing, eating, crying, laughing, loving baby.

It was published in 1969 by The Parent and Child Institute of Chicago.

As I mentioned in that other post, I was not ready to read a set of books about sex. I didn’t open them until one afternoon when my friend, Cindy, was over. I doubt we read the glossary that talked about such topics as “going steady” or “sophistication.”

We probably didn’t think the drawings were dated, since they were what we saw in newspapers and magazines every day.

No, I remember we skipped to Book 3, page 133 and read the section on “Sexual Intercourse” which begins:

The most intimate way for a husband and wife to express their love is through sexual intercourse. Sexual intercourse is the act which enables the male sperm and female egg to unite to begin the life of a new human being. The primary purpose of sexual intercourse for all other living things is reproduction of the species. For a husband and wife it is also an emotional and physical expression of love.

It goes on to discuss foreplay, erogenous zones, arousal and orgasm ((even the woman’s!)), then discusses conception.

I’m pretty sure I only ever read that section of the books and maybe the parts about childbirth.

Really, it is not surprising I equated sex with conception after all, is it?

 

Sex Education in the 1970s

Memories,

‘Round about the time I was in 7th grade, I must have had some questions about sex. We had been exposed to “sex education” in grade school. The girls went into one room and the boys in another. In the girls’ session a teacher stood in front of the class and talked about having a period and then showed a film about having a period and about how an egg is fertilized. I am not sure what they talked about in the boys’ session.

I remember my mom asking me if I had any questions about what I’d learned. I did. I wanted to know exactly how a man got his sperm got into a woman’s vagina so it could fertilize the egg. I imagined a doctor and a large syringe type instrument might be involved. My mom’s response was that she didn’t want to talk about it ((although she denied that in later years)).

She gave me a set of books instead. I was too shy to read them, especially when I saw that there were drawings of naked people in them, so they sat on  my shelf for a few months.

In 7th grade science our science teachers were expected to teach life-science. This time boys and girls stayed in the same room. My teacher was Mr. Ludwig, who was young and quite dashing. He explained how a man got his sperm in a woman’s vagina to fertilize the egg. (The man and woman lie naked together and the man put his penis in her vagina and the sperm came out). My thought? No way. No way did that happen. No way did my parents do that. No way was I ever going to do anything like that. Several of my female classmates agreed with me.

My friend, Cindy was less disgusted with the idea and when she was over one afternoon we looked at the books my mom had given me.

When I started 8th grade, not long after school began in the late summer, the teachers went on strike. Kids were still expected to go to school so we were all gathered in the auditorium and were shown movies. One of the movies contained some adult themes, including discussion of sex. Someone in the film mentioned having sex more than once.

I was shocked. I assumed that you only had to do it once, ever. Like on your wedding night. The sperm that the man put in the woman would wander around her body and whenever she wanted a child, a sperm would fertilize an egg.

My friends laughed at my ignorance and said that you had to do it whenever you wanted to have a baby.

Yeah, I was not so pleased to hear that.

The Little Bible

Memories, Things,

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a very long time — I even searched my archives because I was sure I’d written about my Little Bible before. It is so tiny, it should have been lost years ago, but I have always known pretty much where it is.

Cover of the Little Bible, much worse for wear

When I was young, not long after I learned to read, I think, I was given a tiny book that contained excerpts from the Bible. In fact, the cover page makes the claim that “The Little Bible Contains Selections from Every Book in the Bible as found in the King James Version.”

Aunt Ginny must have given it to me.

We were not a regular church-going family, but I definitely had questions about God and religion and I must have felt the need to learn “The Lord’s Prayer” for some reason. So, I turned to page 75 in my Little Bible and memorized “Mathew 6:9-13.”

I don’t know how long it took me to memorize it, but I do remember going into the living room and reciting it for my father who, if I remember correctly, was surprised enough to ask where I learned it. When I showed him the Little Bible he didn’t believe me at first.

First part of the Lord’s Prayer

I was very proud of myself for learning “The Lord’s Prayer” by myself and, for years, proudly recited it whenever we happened to go to church.

I wonder if I’d not memorized it then, would I ever have memorized it? I don’t know any of the other passages that are routinely recited at most churches, for instance, the Apostles’ Creed — I don’t know that by heart and I think it is shorter than the Lord’s Prayer.