The first topic of this column when it started about two years ago was on how I had recently taken our eldest child to the “Life Begins” talk at Naperville Central High School. And what a perfect introductory column topic it made.
For those not familiar, “Life Begins” is the somewhat light-hearted presentation on a very serious subject, put on by the highly skilled, professional staff of the Robert Crown Centers for Health Education. When talking to an auditorium full of fifth-graders about such matters as their bodies, the changes that come with puberty and where babies come from, one does need a particular manner to both hold their audience’s attention and to keep the conversation an appropriate one. Attendance is encouraged, not required.
That presentation two years ago was the first of the Robert Crown talks for our three children. As these things clearly break down on gender lines in our house, I’d agreed to take our boys (then in fifth and first grade) when it was their respective turns, and my wife would take our daughter (then in third grade) when it was hers.
The experience of accompanying our elder son to “Life Begins” was memorable not just for what it was – and, if you’ve never been, believe me, it is memorable – but also because it was in that talk where I received a message from a Naperville Sun editor asking if I would have interest in writing a new column for the paper.
It struck me that I should get such a message while sitting in that talk, the obvious stuff of which such columns – including that first one – would be written. After all, you can’t really find a more quintessential topic for a dad’s column than sitting in a theater full of a few hundred fifth-graders and their parents, listening to a talk about the birds and the bees.
“I was in the ‘Life Begins’ fifth-grade puberty talk at Naperville Central High School with my 11-year-old son, his co-ed classmates and their parents when that message came,” I wrote in that first column. “Not at all nervously checking my phone as a diversion from 90 minutes of fidgeting conversation about hormones, bodies and babies, I was intrigued. But what could I write about?
“By that point, I’d been out of journalism for nearly two years, having left two decades of newspapering behind for other endeavors, like attending fifth-grade sex talks.”
Fast forward two years, and it was our 11-year-old daughter’s turn to attend the Robert Crown presentation. And just as we’d agreed years ago, it was my wife who would take her. Though, much to my surprise, our daughter approached me beforehand and asked if I would take her instead.
Obviously moved by the request from our little girl, I asked why it was that she thought she’d rather attend the talk with me. “Because you won’t say a bunch of embarrassing stuff about it after we leave,” she reasoned. “You’ll just say, ‘So you get it, right?’ And we won’t have to talk about it at all.”
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The girl went with her mother as planned.
But, just as the timing of that editor’s message struck me two years ago, so too did that comment from our daughter. In her mind, I’d become the parent of least resistance in this area, the one with whom she thought she could spare the full details – and she likely would have been right. Though, that would not have been the right thing to do.
“We didn’t all grow up with the aid of ‘Life Begins,’ put on by the Robert Crown Center for Health Education to help kids learn about puberty and the origins of life,” that initial column continued. “Where I attended fifth grade, ‘health class’ consisted of a gruff PE teacher/coach compelling us to shower more, wear deodorant and ask our parents those questions we had about our changing bodies. He was fired shortly after … for income tax evasion and what would decades later come to be widely known as identity theft. Naturally, this left my friends and I to figure out the rest at the home of our classmate, whose father had the three things we really needed: a satellite dish, a descrambler and late-night hours on the second shift.
“As you can see, I attended the ‘Life Begins’ talk with my son not just for his benefit, but also my own on the likely chance that I’d missed something important 30 years ago.”
My wife and I believed then, as we do now, that the Robert Crown presentations are a key part of healthy, accurate dialogue with our children on these subjects. It was just as important for our daughter to attend with her mother now as it was for our elder son to do so with me two years ago, and as the younger boy will two years from now. Believe it or not, there is something very disarming and approachable about discussing such a weighty subject in this forum, complemented by the talks we have with our kids at home, of course.
Public education will almost certainly be one of many areas to undergo reform in the years ahead. Here’s hoping the District 203 partnership with Robert Crown remains in place.
It’s too important not to.
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives and parents in Naperville.
Twitter: @RobManker