I love taking long drives with my son. That's when I find out how much he knows about life. I realized this week that my son really doesn't know anything about sex. Zilch. Nada.
"Why are people mad when two gay people live together, dad?" he asked me on our way home from San Diego. Paul sometimes sneaks up behind me while I'm watching MSNBC and CNN, so he is aware of all the political issues being discussed on TV.
My wife had to cut short her vacation with us in San Diego because she had to be back at the office. I had to drive the car back - 330 miles - from San Diego to Las Vegas, with Paul yakking it up behind me all through the trip, except when he decided to take a power nap sprawled on the back seat with his mouth wide open.
"Because it's unnatural for two people of the same sex to live together, Paul," I replied.
"Why? They're just living together," he retorted.
"I'll be darned," I thought to myself, "when should I tell Paul about the birds and the bees? When do I explain to him why he has a penis and why it's always hard in the morning?" My wife thinks that ten is too young, that we should wait until he's older. How much older?
I can't wait to tell my son about girls. He still hates girls, though I'm quite sure that there's a stirring there somewhere. My wife and I often catch him playing with his thing in the morning while watching Cartoon Network. Once he asked us why his penis was hard in the mornings.
His favorite show on Cartoon Network is "iCarly." In fact, he has to make sure that he is home at 8 p.m. on Saturdays so he can watch "iCarly."
"Do you like Carly, Paul" I asked him last Saturday.
He looked at me with that half-threatening smile and the next thing I knew I got a punch on my right triceps. That stung. God, this little guy can punch. In his mind, he has already warned me against teasing him about girls so every time I tease him I get smacked once. Lately, his punches have started to sting.
Is there an advantage in early learning about the role sex plays in the relationship between the sexes?
In my case, my parents never had to sit me down and explain to me why boys and girls are built differently.
I must have been six, going on seven, when I walked down the staircase of the two-story home that my parents rented in Pasay City, the Philippines. As I came down the last few steps, the maids - I vaguely remember that we had two maids at the time - were standing next to the kitchen stove and shushing me. They half-whispered, "Nag pa-pam-pam." (They're doing the pam-pam thing.)
I didn't know what "pam-pam" meant. Hell, I was only six.
The maids quietly motioned me to the front end of what must have been the living room. Beyond the living room, in the front part of the house, was a room that my parents had rented to a couple. I had no concept of how old people were; to me, they were just adults. The man, whom I had never before seen, was an officer in the Philippine Army. It was right after the Second World War and there were mopping up operations against the Japanese stragglers in the Philippines. The man was always away on missions.
I saw that my older brother was already peering through a hole in the wall of the bedroom. I nudged my brother aside and took a look. There was another hole in the wall, so he just slid towards that other hole.
I saw the man on top of his wife and they were going at it violently, in rhythm.
That, my friends, was the start of my sex education.
Years later, I figured out why people in the Philippines referred to the act as "pam-pam." It was an allusion to the "pom-pom" girls who with their wide open arms and legs welcomed the GI Joes who had liberated the Philippines from the Japanese.
I often wonder if I should sit Paul down already and have that all-important chat with him. Some of the kids in his Track and Field club obviously know about sex already. One of the sub-bantam boys (six to eight years old) was horsing around on the team bus with one of the older teammates when he made a hole out of his left thumb and index finger. He then thrust his right middle finger into the hole he created, kept thrusting and laughed hard.
There are girls on that track team and they were on the team bus with us, so I guessed that the seven-year-old kid was talking about what he would do to one of the girls.
My son saw what the seven-year-old did but had no reaction.
This is a conundrum. Should I teach my son about sex? Should I wait until he gets sex education through his school? I want to sit him down soon because I am impatient for him to emerge from that stage where all boys hate girls (he'll be eleven in January), but my wife is terrified at the prospect of him knowing about his sexuality. I tell my wife that Paul might fall in with the wrong crowd and learn about sex the wrong way. She said, "what are you worried about? You're his nanny. You know everything that happens to him 24/7." Good point.
I think she wants him to lose his innocence at a much later age than his peers so he can enjoy his childhood longer. And she wants to hang on to him as her little son for as long as she can. But, he's starting to rebel. When she calls the house and Paul picks up, Paul can't wait to put down the phone and go back to his video game. I don't exactly approve of video games being the focus of his life, but at least he is now asserting that his life is separate from his parents'. That's a good sign.
Oh, by the way, about San Diego. It was actually my wife's first choice as our destination city after we sold our house in South Orange, New Jersey in 2007. There were very few houses for rent in San Diego at the time and the houses for sale were way overpriced. Las Vegas was our second choice. We moved to Las Vegas because there were lots of rentals and the houses were already starting to come down in price.
We knew that in another year, we could snap up a nice bargain in Las Vegas.
My wife and I both loved San Diego. We loved the harbor, the many sailboats and speedboats that lay in anchor in the Bay. We loved the beach on Coronado island, the world famous Imperial Beach right next to the Hotel del Coronado. Paul absolutely loved the beach. He didn't mind the cool water - kids love the cold surf that adults simply can't stand - and I had to pry him loose. He would have stayed in the water all day if I didn't insist that he came out.
Sea World is unbelievable - especially the night shows. If you're in San Diego, you must go to Sea World. The Zoo is great for the kids, but it's brutal on old folks' legs and knees. Thank God for the escalators in the middle of the trees, or how else could old folks get back up after going down the rolling hills of the San Diego Zoo?
We took in a tour of San Diego and Coronado Island on the Old Town tourist bus and squeezed in a trip to Legoland in Carlsbad, 30 miles north of San Diego. I slept on a bench in Legoland while Paul and his mom were two kids exploring and going on rides.
It was in the low 80s during the day and in the 70s at night. I caught the TV at the lobby as we were walking back to our hotel room. The weatherman mentioned in glee: "It was 112 degrees this afternoon in Vegas, folks."
