My mom came from that Catholic “let’s pretend it isn’t happening” school and I’m so glad that I managed to find other ways of finding information .My mom told me that her mom didn’t tell her anything about growing up or her period or anything and that she thought she was dying when it started the first time. That conversation along with the fact that i would bleed every month (and I assumed a Bandaid would do the trick) was all she ever said to me. When I actually started bleeding aged 10, she gave me a single box of pads and said, you’re on your own now. Buy more out of your allowance. I went another four years before I worked up the courage to do so and only because I was going to high school. I survived on wrapping toilet paper in bundles around my undies.

Thank goodness I found Judy Bloom and Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. Plus in Canada sex ed, even if it’s perfunctory, has been around for decades. Lucky for me, they did the talk when we were 9 years old so I knew what to expect. Even before the Google/internet days, there was Dan Savage, for example, hiding in the back of the weekly newspaper full of basic information and knowledge.

Not providing basic sex ed for kids should be up there with child abuse.