Sex education

Well, my son recovered enough from the Liverpool defeat to go to school the next day. He said he had to because it was a very important lesson. Knowing that his school does not do much for Year Six after the Sats, I asked him what the important lesson was about. Sex education was his reply. Hmmm.

When I picked him up from school, I asked how the sex education lesson was.

"Well, we learned about stiffies."

"That's right. Boys get them when they hit puberty."

"And I asked her a trick question."

"What was that then?"

"I asked if men's chest hair comes in patterns and she said she didn't know. But they do, like some are in the shape of a cross."

"If you know, why did you ask her?"

"I just wanted to test her knowledge."

What I didn't know was that he planned to continue his sex education at home with his bezzie mate. On the computer. Watching YouTube.

I heard hoots and hollers coming from the room we keep the computer in. Ah, I thought to meself, they're having a really good time on that computer game. Then my daughter came home with two friends, and I busied myself making an impromptu dinner for five children. Spaghetti with crab and onions and tomatoes. Delicious. Or so I thought.

During the meal there was lots of giggling going on. I caught one girl redhanded scraping my lovely meal onto someone else's plate. Then when I was cleaning up, I found a load of paper towels. Now we are a recycling household and paper towels don't just get chucked in the bin for no reason. I looked under the paper towels and found the spaghetti. I was starting to get pissed off, and an alarm bell went off in my head.

"Go see what the girls are doing on the computer," I told my husband.

Clump, clump, clump down the hallway he went.

"Nothing," he said. "They're playing a game."

Hmmmmmmmm.

I went down the hallway myself, softly and quietly, and peered through the crack in the doorway. They were watching a man take his clothes off. The boys had apparently watched the same thing or worse. I chucked all the children out but my two. They got sent to their rooms. Incredibly, I had never put on parental or access controls. They have it now. They'll be lucky to access the Telly Tubby website.

I blame myself. I was naive about them. I mean I was 12 once. I remember fishing "Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Sex (but were afraid to ask)" out of my dad's underwear drawer. I don't have that book because I learned all the answers when I was 12. But the internet is a big, uncontrollable resource. There are so many porn blogs out there (which I was going to write about one day). I should have known better but now I do. I don't like to be a hypocritical parent but I have to be. I hate to spoil their fun but my house isn't going to be the one they all visit to look at this stuff. Maybe I should get a copy of "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex."