Talking about serious topics with parents in childhood

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Did your parents use to touch serious issues while talking with you in your childhood/teen years?

When I was a child and in my teens (and even now) my topics of conversation with my mother were always limited to the most basic ones - what marks I got, what I would like to eat and so on. Even when something important event took place in our family - somebody was going to marry/got pregnant/was going to sell a house/was in hospital - I usually found out by accident, overhearing conversation od adults who were talking about this at my presence almost as if I were mentally handicapped, incapable of understanding.

I was suprised recently when one girl I know told me that when she was a child, her mother always set store by teaching her and her sisters about such things like tolerance and stuff of this kind. Nobody was interested in holding such talks with me - I was never taught about for example moral attitudes or savoir vivre (except for one mention when I was 5 or 6 that it's rude to point one's finger at somebody) - my mother simply didn't represent intellectuals, I'm suprised when I read on forums for parents they normally talk with their kids about such issues - I'm simply not used to this.

I remember my mother telling me the scientific aspect of how babies were made as young as four. I watched Look Who's Talking several times so I had an idea. I also saw animals give birth.

Mine had to! I was a teenager when my Mum was diagnosed witha terminal illness. There was no choice but to tell me and my brother what it was and what was going to happen.
I learnt about death from an early age.

A lot of parents make the mistake of over sheltering their children.
Its usually because they are trying to protect you, because they love you.
And lets face it.
Being a parent is not easy. I'm not one, but I can tell its hard.
How on earth do you know how this unique individual is going to react to how you chose to raise them?
Impossible, really.
Most people just go with what they wanted from their parents.
Maybe mom's mom said way to much to her?

Who knows.

All I know is that my parents used to try and do that with me.
But gave up.
Especailly since I was stubborn, loud, and noisy.
I made it clear when I was little I wanted to know what was going on.
And when I didn't, I'd pry it from one of my siblings.
Or over hear it.

But then, there are some things I wish I had been sheltered from.


In the end, balance tends to be better then extremes.

Lol, in early childhood I lived in a village so small that according to one of our sayings "dogs barked with their arses" there and I had many occasions to watch cows giving birth and cats and hens doing this what you need to do when you want to produce the next generation so I couldn't be deceived with all that BS about cabbages and storks. But my mother tried

My gran used to have pretty natural approach in terms of making me familiar with an adult world even though she was only a simple, uneducated woman or maybe thanks to it. I loved her stories about the WW II - about a German soldier who bled to death in their cellar, about people so poor that when one Jew was killed they decided to dig him out to take his clothes off or about "incubus" who used to visit grandmother when she was a young wife

My parents were old-fashioned enough that they didn't really believe in telling kids anything. I don't know if it was any different for my brother (perhaps my dad gave him 'the talk', what with him being a boy), but I got the majority of what I knew from books. Which meant I understood it on an intellectual level, but I didn't actually have a clue about how things really happened.

I learned where babies came from, from a library book, when I was about nine. I remember itching to discuss it with my mother, but her telling me not to talk about things like that. I think I got some idea of what periods involved from a magazine, because I don't recall getting told about that either. The ONLY sexual/relationship advice I EVER got from home was 'Don't run after boys, let them run after you' and 'Don't bring trouble home'. (It took me years before I worked out that that meant not to get pregnant.) School biology classes only taught a slightly more complex version of what I already knew. The rest of my education came from 'friends' at school who were happy to mislead me, and from the few well-thumbed 'dirty books' that got passed round. Needless to say, I'm a big believer in proper sex education - and that does mean schools stepping in if parents won't, because there will always be parents who won't.

As for death...my dad was diagnosed with cancer when I was 12, and my entire family conspired to hide it from me. They told me he had this disease which was the non-cancerous version of another disease, and it was only when I saw a Cancer Research charity ad in the paper involving a guy with this same disease that I realized it was most definitely cancer. Even then, they wouldn't let me discuss it. I was in my twenties when he died, and it was the first funeral I'd ever been to, as well, which also really sucked. I'm not certain, but I think that I was also lied to about at least one family pet being 'given away' when it may have actually been put to sleep. I think coming face to face with death a little earlier would have hurt less than the deception.

I was usually the one bringing serious topics up rather than the other way around. Religion for example was something I discussed as early as age 5 in great length. At age 6 it was tradition to do your communion in Belgium, which I refused as I declared atheist. My parents luckily accepted my decision so they did take my opinion serious which I guess is a good thing.

My mother would NEVER agree if I wanted not to have communion (to tell the truth, it's good because a child has no right to decide about himself in serious matters, after all nobody ever died of having communion or confirmation, it's not a thing like circumcision that remains a physical sign on one's body). My mother's teaching me about religion was limited to telling me things like: "If you don't pray, God will punish you with lichen"

I don't think it is right to force such thing on your children. Apart from the permanent scar, circumcision and communion are just religious rites forced on your children without even asking how they feel about it. I am glad I never did communion and that my parents backed that decision despite heavy protests from the religious side within my family. It would have felt like fraude if I did that communion despite clearly not believing. Many kids in Belgium still go for it though, purely for the party and presents afterwards, which IMO is quite hypocrite though. Religious ceremonies should never be forced, after all in theory it involves a certain commitment or intention which those participating in it should be very serious about.

Oh, if one is a wise dude who will turn out in the future to be a person characterized by independent thinking, any religious ceremonies he was forced to take part in won't do harm to him. If he turns religious, he will be only glad and feeling grateful for this.

Lol, I would like to found a sect whose members worship a god looking like a toilet bowl - we could sue people for desecrating our object of cult covering it with feces I wonder if there would be people crazy enough to join me

I totally agree. What bugs me is that my parents weren't religious, they just had me baptized because at the time 'everyone' did - they never went to church otherwise, only for funerals. Yet later on when I changed religions I got this insistence of "You MUST be Church of England...we had you christened!" Like they'd decided and it was a done thing for the rest of my life. Nobody can ever make that kind of decision on your behalf.

In my own family it is pretty much the same, especially on father's side. Very religious people where church ceremonies and traditions are very important. I was the first one to refuse doing communion and it was not really appreciated by them, and my grandmother (who was very devotely christian) saw it happening shortly before she died. But well, those people reject everything that strays away from their conservative norms, I don't feel like this is my issue and that I should just play their game.

I hate to say it, but half of my family I wish to not deal with again. I haven't spoken them in years and I don't even want to.

My mother also doesn't go to church but she isn't an atheist either. I was baptized and later I had communion and confirmation but it's everything. I wasn't even forced to go to church except for retreat but I resign even from this when I was 18. My mother wants to be like others and wanted me to take part in religious ceremonies mostly because all people around did the same with their own kids. But I don't blame her as I have already written. Every time I was trying to touch the point of religion she started to yell at me that she didn't wish to talk about stupid things like that - not religion was stupid here according to her but the fact I asked her to ponder the possibility that Christianity and other religions existing now could be fake like Egiptian myths, lol.