I’m tired tonight, so I’m posting an older column that I’ll be playing off of in a new post Wednesday.

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Can I Still Be a Grandmother Even if I Don’t Believe My Daughter Had Sex?

They tell me that I am going to be a grandmother next month.  I guess it could be true.  My daughter married a year ago — Ryan, nice guy, we like him — and now her expanding abdomen indicates about eight months of pregnancy. I have also been given medical evidence: spooky alien sonogram photos of a developing male fetus with my daughter’s name imprinted in the margins.

But still, I’m not sure, because I learned long ago that babies originate with a sex act, and I don’t really believe my daughter’s had sex.  Oh, I know she has, but I can’t internalize it; I can’t own it.  Therefore I fall into a logical nether zone.

I really want grandchildren, so I have to reconcile this quickly.

Oh, I’m not squeamish.  I’m not even conservative.  I’ve always been unguarded and honest with my kids.  Knowing I wouldn’t be the only, or the most tantalizing, source of information about sex, I started early and was forthright.  I shared the facts and my values.  I told them that intimacy is not something we take lightly, nor should we feel shameful about physical love.  I preached balance.

The main gist of my preemptive sex talks boiled down to two things.  One: Wait.  Two: Come to me.  With questions.  For advice.  Or just to talk.

“I want you to grow to be strong, content, functional adults,” I said.  “I won’t be judgmental.”

Sounds healthy, doesn’t it?  It’s what a progressive, education-minded parent is expected to say, and it felt damn good to say it.  As a matter of fact, I advise all the savvy parents out there to say it, and by savvy, I mean those of you who realize that your cute little munchkin is in reality a nascent hormonal time bomb.  Start when they’re young.  Say it.  Verbatim.  Go ahead, use my exact words.  You have my permission.  But I warn you: It works.

The munchkin might actually grow up and talk to you about sex.

“So what?” you say.  After all, if they pay attention to the first edict — Wait — how hard to bear could the second one be?  It’ll just be two adults having an intimate conversation.

No, no, no.  No. You see, one of those adults will be in their 40s or 50s, a mortgage-paying, real-job-working chump with decades-old stretch marks and the wisdom that comes from cellulite; the other will be in his or her early 20s, possibly still in college, with you paying tuition or car insurance or both — what I call a faux-adult.  They can’t have a real conversation about sex—they’re faux!

They have some of the responsibilities, and they do their part, but payday’s not all on them yet.  This isn’t like when you sat them down when they were nine or ten, and ignored the slight unraveling inside your heart as you told them about “someday sex.”  This IS someday.  It’s here, your heart’s unwound, junior is contemplating getting naked.  You are old, and nature has actually given your offspring authority over a brand-new, good-looking, revved-up reproductive machine.  Nothing you can really do.  You can’t take the keys to this one away.

Yes, you guessed it, the unthinkable happened to me:  My adult daughter actually DID come to me.  To talk about sex.  It was what I’d hoped for, and I handled it like a mental patient.

I’m not going to tell any of her business.  It wasn’t anything extraordinary or freaky.  My point is my unexpected reaction.  Sure, it’s natural and even good that we parents can’t sexualize our children. But, I was really taking this to an extreme.  Externally, I spoke clinically and openly and thoroughly and with understanding.  Then I said “I love you. Have a nice night.”  And I hung up that phone and stood gaping at it, shivering down to my bones, as if it were the agent of evil.  A chant howled in my head. Ick! Ick! No! No! I sprayed the phone with Lysol.  Then I shook off that conversation like a boxer just sucker punched.  As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.

I’ll take it to my grave.

I’m really quite surprised by my usually open mind’s unwillingness to give a little on this one.  But there you have it.  I have not been able to reconcile my philosophical stance on sexual education with the reality inside my Mommy head.  My babies! Dealing with animal urges! Oh, I have the conversations.  I do the right thing.  And you should too.  But you may, as I have, need to engage in a diagnosable dissociative episode in order to accomplish the feat.

I just thought all this openness would feel better.

My son was gracious enough to focus on Number One of my sex policy: Wait.  When he was in high school, he informed me—unprompted, bless him—that I should not worry about him having unprotected sex.  He wasn’t even sure he was up for sex at all, ever.

“Do you realize, Mom, what they do to us in school?  Every year, from 7th grade onward, in increasing detail, we are told over and over about AIDS and venereal disease and how easily a girl can get pregnant.  I’ve come to the point where I’m afraid if I look at a girl too long, a baby will pop out, or some part of me will start to itch.  And even if I could have as much faith in latex as everyone thinks I should—then I have to worry about the girl enjoying it. You didn’t grow up with the popular use of the word orgasm. It’s hell.”

That was four years ago, but I am still taking his word for it.  No sex for him.  He’s waiting.

Forever.

But seriously — how spectacular that all the sex-ed candidness in my home and at school made my son as uneasy as I am.  That’s why we give the information, isn’t it?  So young folks will make educated decisions.  All well-informed decisions involve confronting fear, just as most appropriate parenting decisions.

The right way is damn uncomfortable and embarrassing.  That’s why it’s not called the easy way.

Speaking of which, I offered to let my daughter approve this column before I sent it to my editor.  She passed.

“I don’t need to read it,” she said. “You may be all riled up, but I never told you any of the really embarrassing stuff about my sex life.”

Ick! Ick!  And so it seems, the fact that I’m going to be a grandmother is the least of this circus.  I just hope I’m still around when she has to confront her own little angel’s foray into the flesh, and his smart-ass retorts.  I imagine that’s the real joy of being a grandmother.

This column first appeared in  Port Folio Weekly on June 3, 2008.

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