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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From how Stuff works dot com. Helloly, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Christen and I'm Caroline. And we have talked about

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Speaker 1: siblings and sibling relationships on the podcast before. We did

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Speaker 1: a podcast a while ago on whether birth order affects

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Speaker 1: your personality and also did a podcast on sister relationships.

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Speaker 1: And every time, all each of those times, um people

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Speaker 1: wrote in saying, Hey, you know, I'm an only child.

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Speaker 1: I feel a little bit left out of this research.

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Speaker 1: Only children feel left out of everything. Yeah, what about

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Speaker 1: what about us? I know? So today we are going

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Speaker 1: to talk about you only children. This is for you.

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Speaker 1: And I'm looking at you right now Caroline, because guess what, folks,

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Speaker 1: Caroline is an only child. Mostly my brother would argue

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Speaker 1: with you, but he is my half brother. I was.

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Speaker 1: I was raised an only child. My brother is thirteen

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Speaker 1: years older, which I like to remind him of he's old.

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Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I had a good childhood. I was.

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Speaker 1: I was a little spoiled. I gotta say that I

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Speaker 1: fit that I fit that part of the series tip.

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Speaker 1: But I think I ended up find him a nice person.

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Speaker 1: I'll let people I like. Strangers talk to me on

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Speaker 1: Martha in the morning, you know, I'll give people money sometimes.

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Speaker 1: Marda is Atlanta's real And I try not to make

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Speaker 1: eye contact because I really don't want strangers to talk

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Speaker 1: to me. But I'm getting up my attention. Let's let's

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Speaker 1: talk about some Yeah, let's talk about some stereos because

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Speaker 1: I'm standing at the opposite end of the spectrum. Um.

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Speaker 1: Old time listeners might already know that I'm the youngest

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Speaker 1: of five children, so I mean, Kristen and I really

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Speaker 1: shouldn't even get along. Yeah, and my oldest sibling is

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Speaker 1: five teen years older than me, talk about super old.

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Speaker 1: How old is your middle sister? The next one up

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Speaker 1: is four years older than me, So we're quite a

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Speaker 1: quite a spread. Um, but you have so. So my

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Speaker 1: my stereotypes are what Caroline lastborn children. It's not it's

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Speaker 1: not pretty. I mean, you're adorable, You're considered the baby

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Speaker 1: of the family. You know you you are. You tend

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Speaker 1: to get away with things. Um, you kind of get

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Speaker 1: away with murder. Mm hmm um. Yeah, you're your your

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Speaker 1: social and outgoing financially responsible and charming, and let's not

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Speaker 1: forget manipulative. And if you listen to the psychopath podcast,

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Speaker 1: it does not mean that our youngest children or psychopath.

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Speaker 1: And I'm only and and I'm left handed. Oh lord,

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Speaker 1: this is not some bad things. Uh. Well, you know what.

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Speaker 1: Uh the as as most you probably know, the stereotype

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Speaker 1: for only children not so flattering either. This is coming

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Speaker 1: from psychologist Kevin Lehman, who was the author of the

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Speaker 1: Birth Order Book, and he was talking to CBS News

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Speaker 1: about birth order stereotypes, and he writes that only children

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Speaker 1: are firstborns in triplicated, you're even more responsible. Hey, and

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Speaker 1: you're even more of a perfectionist, and you usually get

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Speaker 1: along with people older than yourself. But you also tend

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Speaker 1: to be critical, self centered, unnecessarily structured. I do like

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Speaker 1: routine and horribly lonely. That is not true. That's in

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Speaker 1: my notes lonely, lonely. Um, yeah, well, only children. It's

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Speaker 1: interesting because when I was growing up, the thing that

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Speaker 1: people told my parents most was she's so mature for

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Speaker 1: her age. I was. I was a little adult. And

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Speaker 1: that's what a lot of people say about only children,

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Speaker 1: because you're just hanging out with your parents all the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was a blogger at the Wall Street Journal, Sarah

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Speaker 1: Scheffer Munio's, who wrote about how she was worried that

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Speaker 1: her her six year old only daughter was becoming kind

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Speaker 1: of too much of a little adult because you would

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Speaker 1: have these fake phone conversations all the time, but she

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Speaker 1: would talk about things that charining stuff. Yeah, she had

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Speaker 1: her overheard her parents talking about, like, you know, the

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Speaker 1: recession these days not good. Well, you know, but part

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Speaker 1: of that, part of what that leads to, um is

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Speaker 1: higher verbal scores. Only children tend to have higher verbal

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Speaker 1: scores on tests and everything because, um, they've been surrounded

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Speaker 1: by adults speaking adult language. You do talk pretty good,

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Speaker 1: n y'all. Um. But it's important to to talk about

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Speaker 1: only children these days too, because thanks to the recession,

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Speaker 1: more parents are opting for only child households because guess what, folks,

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Speaker 1: Raising a kid, Uh here's breaking news is not cheap.

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Speaker 1: According to the U S Department of Agriculture, raising a

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Speaker 1: child in the United States cost around two d and

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Speaker 1: eight six thousand dollars and that's not including college. And

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Speaker 1: that's probably an average child that's probably not like a

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Speaker 1: verrucous salt type who wants everything and the golden goose.

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Speaker 1: But according to the Pew Survey of American motherhood, only

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Speaker 1: three percent of adults said that one child was ideal,

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Speaker 1: whereas forty six percent said two was the ideal number

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Speaker 1: of kids. Okay, but it seems like, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: seems like, uh, it's it's really shooting up there, the

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Speaker 1: amount of people having just one child. Right, even though

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Speaker 1: we might not think that that, there's still some this

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Speaker 1: this negative association um with having an only child for

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Speaker 1: some reason in our our collective psyche. But the number

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Speaker 1: is rising. Um. And since the early nineteen sixties, according

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Speaker 1: to the National Center for Health Statistics, single child families

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Speaker 1: have almost doubled to about one in five. So you

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Speaker 1: are not uncommon, right, I'm not alone despite being so

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Speaker 1: so alone. Um, But it's interesting that you mentioned, um,

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Speaker 1: you know that that all a very small number of

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Speaker 1: people consider it ideal to have only one child, and

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Speaker 1: that if that's sort of an idea that persists, and

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Speaker 1: it's all g. Stanley Hall's fault. Yeah, he is known

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Speaker 1: as the father of modern psychology. But my goodness, doctor

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Speaker 1: Hall did not really like only children. Now. He said

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Speaker 1: it was a disease in itself be an only child.

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Speaker 1: And this comes from an eighteen nineties six study that

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Speaker 1: he conducted called of Peculiar and Exceptional Children, in which

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Speaker 1: he studied these these anomalies which were only children at

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Speaker 1: the time, and uh, he just thought that they were

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Speaker 1: complete and total misfits. Now, granted, we're talking about a

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Speaker 1: study conducted in eight might not have the same kind

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Speaker 1: of methodological rigor that is study today we would hope

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Speaker 1: would have. But grand Will Stanley Hall is really the

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Speaker 1: one who perpetuated that negative stereotype. It is only snowballed

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Speaker 1: since then. And psychologist Tony Falbo from u T. Austin

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Speaker 1: called Hall a product of his time, and it really was.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I've done a lot of family research, genealogy research,

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Speaker 1: and it was not uncommon to find a branch of

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Speaker 1: the family that had a whole lot of offshoots. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I had some relatives who had thirteen kids. I'm like,

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Speaker 1: what do you do with thirteen kids? You don't live

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Speaker 1: on a farm, you don't have to milk cows. What

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Speaker 1: are they all doing? How do they fit in the house?

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Speaker 1: But I mean it wasn't uncommon. Well, it makes sense

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Speaker 1: because a lot of the that preference for larger families

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Speaker 1: goes back to um more agrarian times because children were

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Speaker 1: more seen as resources who could farm the land. And

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Speaker 1: this is a cross cultural thing that California State University

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Speaker 1: research your Adrian uh Muncius has noted. She studied why

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Speaker 1: that only child stereotype exists, and she says that it

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Speaker 1: exists almost everywhere, and it's because, um, you know, they're

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Speaker 1: they're more helping hands if you have land and you

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Speaker 1: have more people to attend to it. Right. Falbo said

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Speaker 1: that Hall's childhood was about the fraternizing and socializing children enjoyed,

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Speaker 1: the large number of brothers, sisters, and cousins, the adventures

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Speaker 1: and explorations in the countryside, and a house filled with kids. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, his is a perspective that I can understand

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Speaker 1: and that I have experienced from someone in my own life.

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Speaker 1: My freshman roommate in college came from a very large family.

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Speaker 1: She was very close with all of her brothers and sisters. Um,

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Speaker 1: which is great, I mean, more power to you. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's great to have those really close sibling relationships. But

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Speaker 1: she honestly, honestly felt sorry for me that I had

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Speaker 1: grown up as an only child, and I'm sitting here

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Speaker 1: like I had a lot of toys. I was. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think that's the thing. They're they're obvious

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Speaker 1: benefits on either side, because it all goes back to

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Speaker 1: that issue of resources. Because on the one hand, I

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Speaker 1: even though, um, you know, my next sibling up was

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Speaker 1: four years so there was always kind of a gap. Um,

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Speaker 1: but you know, I might have had the resources of

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Speaker 1: having you know, other kids around to play with if

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Speaker 1: I wanted to, although at certain ages they were like Chris,

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Speaker 1: when you're too young, they'll play with your dolls alone. Um,

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Speaker 1: Whereas you got the undivided resources of your parents, which

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Speaker 1: is why Tony Falbo um at U t. Austin has

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Speaker 1: concluded that, you know what, being an only child is

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Speaker 1: pretty grand. Yes. Salbo points out that when a college

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Speaker 1: education has to be provided for one child as opposed

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Speaker 1: to you know, three four, it's more likely that the

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Speaker 1: one child will not only go to college, but also

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Speaker 1: maybe sent to a more prestigious, expensive school because maybe

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Speaker 1: the parents have saved money, or even if they haven't

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Speaker 1: saved money, there's just more resources to send that kid

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Speaker 1: to possibly a better school. And along with that, parents

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Speaker 1: have only children do tend to set higher, um, set

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Speaker 1: higher expectations for that one child that they have, which

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Speaker 1: might be one of the reasons why they do. As

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Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, Caroline, tend to score higher on achievement tests, right,

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot of it. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: pressure put on only children, like you said, and and

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Speaker 1: it's the same kind of thing as firstborns experience. So

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Speaker 1: your your oldest sister might have experienced something like this,

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Speaker 1: And UM, only children and firstborns tend to have a

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Speaker 1: lot of that parental pressure. They tend to be perfectionists

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Speaker 1: and they're like, Okay, mom and dad have a lot

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Speaker 1: of expectations for me. I'm going to try to to

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Speaker 1: please them. And so both only children and firstborns tend

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Speaker 1: to be people pleasers. They want to make their bed

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Speaker 1: the best they want to. They want to do really

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Speaker 1: well on their homework and pitching for with household chores

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Speaker 1: and everything like that. But when everything shakes out. UM.

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Speaker 1: Tony Falbot, who has been studying only children since the

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Speaker 1: seventies UM, which includes going back and re studying those

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Speaker 1: old studies that were that were conducted, she found that, UM,

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Speaker 1: when you put a bunch of people in a room.

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Speaker 1: You know, old are only children, people like me from

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Speaker 1: large families and everything in between. Their personalities are indistinguishable,

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Speaker 1: you know, they don't stand out as some sore thumbs.

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Speaker 1: Who are you know, in the corner sneering at everyone.

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Speaker 1: Maybe those people have anxiety disorders. Um. Yeah, and found

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Speaker 1: those books the single child families. She actually covered a

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Speaker 1: hundred years worth of studies about only children and came

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Speaker 1: up with, Yeah, they're fine, They're really not disadvantaged. There

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Speaker 1: was a two thousand four study by Douglas Downey of

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Speaker 1: Ohio State University. He looked at more than twenty thousand

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Speaker 1: kindergarteners and found that teachers rated only children as having

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Speaker 1: poorer social skills in their peers who had at least

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Speaker 1: one sibling, and the teachers said they had less self control,

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Speaker 1: few were inter personal skills, and more behavioral problems. But

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Speaker 1: what's interesting is that when Downey performed a follow up study,

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Speaker 1: follow up analysis of these kindergarteners who were then in

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Speaker 1: fifth grade, there really was no different in their social

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Speaker 1: skills between the only children and the kids from big families.

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Speaker 1: And that's he pretty much talks that up to look,

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Speaker 1: kids have friends. I mean, you might be an only

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Speaker 1: you might be yeah, I don't know, have less developed

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Speaker 1: social skills if you're an only child going to school

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Speaker 1: for the first time, going to preschool or kindergarten. But

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Speaker 1: that that pretty rapidly disappears as you joined play groups,

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Speaker 1: maybe play sports, or you know, take lessons of some kind. Basically,

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Speaker 1: kids do get that interaction, and the interaction is what

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Speaker 1: helps them develop social skills, right. And the reason why

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons why Downey went back and looked

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Speaker 1: he in two thousand ten got together with another sociologist,

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Speaker 1: um and they drew on data from the US National

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Speaker 1: Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to look at thirteen thousand

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Speaker 1: middle school and high school kids and rather than having

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Speaker 1: teachers rating them, instead asked these kids to name five

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Speaker 1: friends in their school in the process that would be

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Speaker 1: termed pure nomination, and they found that only children were

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Speaker 1: just as likely to be named as friends as those

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Speaker 1: kids who had siblings. So they were thinking, oh, well, hey,

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Speaker 1: you know what looks like looks like they catch up.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you lag behind a little bit at first when

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Speaker 1: you're having your imaginary phone calls about the banking crisis. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I tried to have an imaginary friend

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Speaker 1: one time, because I just like, as a child, I

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Speaker 1: was aware that other people had imaginary friends, and I tried,

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Speaker 1: and I just thought, well, there's no one here. This

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Speaker 1: is really boring. I'm gonna go back to playing with

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Speaker 1: my barbies. None of these imaginary friends are interesting enough,

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Speaker 1: critical critical. But let's talk about China, because Tony Falbo

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Speaker 1: studied four thousand children in China, because what better place

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Speaker 1: to study, uh, only child pathologies than in the land

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Speaker 1: of the one child policy exactly that has been in

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Speaker 1: place for thirty years. That is a lot of people

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Speaker 1: growing up without siblings. Um, yeah, she's as Faldo says

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Speaker 1: that people were worried that these quote unquote little emperors

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Speaker 1: as they call them, would not reflect China's collective as

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Speaker 1: values and that they would end up with an entire

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Speaker 1: generation of self centered brats. But she found that that

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Speaker 1: wasn't the case. But it seems like that policy, she says,

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Speaker 1: is being relaxed because it really has tax to the

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Speaker 1: country's social services system. So it seems like more people

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Speaker 1: are going to be able to have more than one child.

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Speaker 1: But it's a question of whether they want to. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Beijing Institute interviewed the city's young adult population who

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Speaker 1: were only children, and fifty percent said that they did

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Speaker 1: want one child, and twenty five percent said, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't need kids at all. That's a

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Speaker 1: huge chunk. That's a really big chunk of the population

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Speaker 1: that they interviewed. That so they didn't want any children,

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Speaker 1: which leads to more worries about the social services system

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Speaker 1: and who is going to care for the aging population. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's that's the one big impact um with only children,

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Speaker 1: especially with the aging baby boomer population, because as your

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Speaker 1: parents age, if you're an only child, I mean that

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Speaker 1: you're you're the resource as your parents get older. It's scary.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's scary to think that. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of an exception because I have a half brother

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Speaker 1: who would help me, and I mean I we would

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Speaker 1: help each other. Um. But yeah, I mean I can

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Speaker 1: see how scary it is to be an only child

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Speaker 1: and be responsible for your aging parents who are sick,

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Speaker 1: and you have to make decisions all on your own

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Speaker 1: about well, you know, can they take care of themselves anymore?

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Speaker 1: Do they move in with me. Do I put them

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Speaker 1: in a nursing home, you know, stuff like that. I

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Speaker 1: had a friend whose father passed away a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: and she was responsible for a lot of the stuff

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Speaker 1: that comes along with what you have to deal with

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Speaker 1: in terms of paperwork, expenses and all that stuff, and

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Speaker 1: it was a lot for her to handle. Maybe that's

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Speaker 1: the flip side of, you know, receiving all of those

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Speaker 1: parental resources up front when you're growing up. It's like, well, hey,

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Speaker 1: guess what, kid, Now it's your turn. Yeah, yeah, you

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Speaker 1: owe your parents like that. But China in the United

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Speaker 1: States are not the only places where only children and

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Speaker 1: a and a lowering birth rate in general is happening.

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Speaker 1: Newsweek recently reported that this is going on a lot

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Speaker 1: in Europe, especially in Italy, which has one of the

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Speaker 1: lowest birth rates in the world at an average of

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Speaker 1: one point eight. How you have a point eight child,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Average of one point eight per woman,

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Speaker 1: which is fewer births than deaths every year. And by

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Speaker 1: the way, yeah, I know that since one point it

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Speaker 1: is an average, it doesn't mean that you can have

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Speaker 1: a point before people jump on their smartphones or laptops

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Speaker 1: to send an email right, um, and some of the

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Speaker 1: according to Newsweek, some of the issues that lead to

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Speaker 1: having fewer children are, you know, we've touched on it,

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Speaker 1: economic uncertainty, working parents, and some thing I've read about

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Speaker 1: before in other situations, parents who wait to have kids

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Speaker 1: and end up wanting to maintain that lifestyle. People who

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Speaker 1: are either getting married later or just getting married and

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Speaker 1: then having children later, they're accustomed to a certain degree of,

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Speaker 1: you know, a certain lifestyle, they might want to maintain it.

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Speaker 1: You know, like, oh, well, we have just one kid,

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Speaker 1: so we're gonna go off to Tanzania because we can

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Speaker 1: afford it. Let's go on safari. Um. There's also better

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Speaker 1: contraception in migration to urban areas. So if you really

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Speaker 1: have the strong desire to live somewhere superurban, you know,

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Speaker 1: not get a house with the yard, get an apartment instead.

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Speaker 1: You probably don't want to have seven kids, I guess.

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Speaker 1: But demographers that were interviewed by Time magazine also noted

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Speaker 1: that they've noticed in studies that they've done of parenthood

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Speaker 1: a lot of times if you have people who have

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Speaker 1: one children will fall in love with that first child

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Speaker 1: and really want another. And maybe that's for that Um.

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Speaker 1: That peer research, you know, to two children as the

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Speaker 1: ideal number kind of comes and they just want to

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Speaker 1: keep going. Yeah, you have one, You're like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: you're the coolest thing in the world. Let's get another one, right, Well,

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Speaker 1: going back to Falbo, she said that many poles show

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Speaker 1: that lots of families have a second child for no

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Speaker 1: other reason than to prevent the first child from growing

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Speaker 1: up without siblings. So there's a lot of reasons that

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Speaker 1: people have more than one, and a lot of um,

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Speaker 1: a lot of negativity that's imposed on those parents who

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Speaker 1: choose to have only children. You know, they feel a

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Speaker 1: strange it seems like a strange guilt for just having one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that Time magazine article really talked talked to a lot

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Speaker 1: of parents who felt guilty. They felt attacked by strangers,

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Speaker 1: you know, and I just it's none of your business who,

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Speaker 1: you know. You don't know why people are only having

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Speaker 1: one child. They could have made the decision for whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: or maybe they're just unable to. But there were psychologists

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Speaker 1: back in Freud's day who were encouraging families to adopt

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Speaker 1: a second child or adopt however, many children, if they

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Speaker 1: could not conceive a second one just to emotionally balance

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Speaker 1: the family well, and Freud himself also wrote that only

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Speaker 1: children were prone to sexual identity problems. So, I mean,

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Speaker 1: for a century plus, only children have been battling these

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Speaker 1: negative stereotypes. And maybe the sooner that research from Falbo

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Speaker 1: and others leaks into the mainstream. You know, parents of

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Speaker 1: only children don't have to worry that their children will

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Speaker 1: be selfish, maladjusted, lonely, miss and thropes. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it depends on the parents. It depends on what you want,

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Speaker 1: how you grew up. You know, a friend of mine

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Speaker 1: who grew up as an only child wanted seventeen kids,

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Speaker 1: you know, but then she had her first one. She's like,

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Speaker 1: that was a tough pregnancy. This is an expensive a

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Speaker 1: little bundle of joy what I don't know, two hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty six thousand dollars. Yeah, could be a nice

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Speaker 1: thoughts for that, Trann could change uh, And so I

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Speaker 1: think just to maybe to sign off and to uh

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Speaker 1: for for a little added proof that you know, in

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Speaker 1: addition to yourself, Caroline, there are plenty of success will

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Speaker 1: only children out there. How about some notable only Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: Chelsea Clinton, obviously, Robin Williams Tiger Woods, Sarah Michelle Gellar

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Speaker 1: for Tiger Maybe Tiger Woods isn't a good example of

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Speaker 1: tiger hey, but successful, Yes, athletic, proud parents were very

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Speaker 1: involved in his golfing. Um, Sarah Michelle Gellar, because I

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Speaker 1: know there is a legion of Buffy fans listening right now,

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Speaker 1: Alicia Keith and Natalie Portman, Carrie Grant, Swoon, Elvis although

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Speaker 1: he was technically born a twin and his twin died

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Speaker 1: um and kind of haunted him. John Updyke, Lance Armstrong

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Speaker 1: and Frank Sinatra. And here's a quote from Natalie Portman

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Speaker 1: about being an only child. She said, I would have

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Speaker 1: never been an actress if I weren't an only child

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Speaker 1: because my parents would have never let me be the

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Speaker 1: star of the family at the expense of another child.

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Speaker 1: So there you go again. Resources it's a stage. It

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Speaker 1: is a stage. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, my mom didn't.

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Speaker 1: My mom had me was like done, well they did.

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Speaker 1: My parents didn't want kids, you know. My dad had

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Speaker 1: my brother from a previous marriage and he was like,

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Speaker 1: I'm good. And then one day my mother was just like, Chad,

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Speaker 1: I want a little girl. And he was like, well,

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Speaker 1: I guess if it's a little girl, it would be fine.

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Speaker 1: And so then my aunt tells a story. She's like,

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Speaker 1: I just prayed to Jesus that your mom and dad

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Speaker 1: would have a little girl, and he answered my prayers.

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Speaker 1: Here you are today. That is precious. So yeah, I

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Speaker 1: guess I got lucky. Yeah, so so our is one

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Speaker 1: of the loneliest number. Absolutely not, No, five was five

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Speaker 1: was a lonely number. Sometimes, even though there were other

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Speaker 1: children in my house, I did play by myself a lot. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my family. I just family dynamics are very interesting and

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Speaker 1: it varies from family to family. Yeah. Sure, my mom

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Speaker 1: was the oldest of five and she was and is

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Speaker 1: a little dictator. So only children, I hope that I

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Speaker 1: hope that you um will send us your experiences being

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Speaker 1: of being an only child and dealing with that only

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Speaker 1: child stereotype and parents out there too who have chosen

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Speaker 1: to have one child. Have you received any kind of UM,

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Speaker 1: any kind of pressure from parents or friends or just

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Speaker 1: random strangers. Yeah, I also want to know if only

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Speaker 1: children out there have felt the need to hide it,

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Speaker 1: because I always get the same reaction from oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I would not have thought you were an only child.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, because you're so well adjusted. Thank you,

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00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,399
Speaker 1: so send us your thoughts. Mom Stuff at how stuff

395
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Speaker 1: works dot com is our email address, and we've got

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Speaker 1: a couple of emails here in response to our episode

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Speaker 1: on sex education. In my episode, I should have said

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Speaker 1: two episodes on sex ed um and I thought that

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Speaker 1: these were great because they're directly from kids right now

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Speaker 1: who are in the school system. So this is coming

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Speaker 1: from Alison. She's sixteen years old, and she writes, I

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Speaker 1: really enjoyed your podcast on sex ed and would like

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Speaker 1: to share my experience in the public schools. When I

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Speaker 1: was in middle school, my science class was given the

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Speaker 1: scare Tactics sex talk one day, where he learned about

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Speaker 1: STDs and all the bad things sex can do to you.

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Speaker 1: I was a very innocent seventh grader who didn't know

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Speaker 1: anything about sex at the time, so after the talk

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Speaker 1: I had to ask my friends about some of the

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Speaker 1: things she mentioned but didn't explain. Uh. Then in tenth grade,

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Speaker 1: I took biology and simply fell in love with the

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Speaker 1: subject because I had such a wonderful teacher. When we

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Speaker 1: got to the human reproduction unit, she put a jar

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Speaker 1: in the front of the room and let us write

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Speaker 1: down any questions about sex we would like to ask anonymously.

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Speaker 1: She answered all the questions at the beginning of class

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Speaker 1: each day in a very straightforward and uncensored manner. I

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Speaker 1: feel like that was the perfect sex education, uncensored and straightforward. Anyhow,

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Speaker 1: now I'm getting very familiar with the scientific aspect of

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Speaker 1: sex and reproduction, and I'm also looking forward to going

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Speaker 1: to college to study neurobiology. Yeah. Thanks Alison. This is

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Speaker 1: from Tatum. She's the I'm sixteen and I recently went

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Speaker 1: through sex ed in my school. It was taught in

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Speaker 1: my health class and it was a part of a

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Speaker 1: unit about the body and stuff. Sure, we talked about abstinence,

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Speaker 1: but my teacher went through other methods to prevent pregnancy

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Speaker 1: and s t I s as well. The thing is,

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Speaker 1: we are not eligible to take this class until at

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Speaker 1: least sophomore year, and some people don't take it until

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Speaker 1: senior year. And I know for a fact that at

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Speaker 1: least one of my classmates had been sexually active for years.

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Speaker 1: It just seemed to me to be a little late

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Speaker 1: in tackling this. Of course, it is better late than never,

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Speaker 1: but all of the sex ed previously was more about

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Speaker 1: dangers and not about preventing them. I think that maybe

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00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 1: this should be more constantly addressed over the years, and

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Speaker 1: not just in set time classes, because by the time

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Speaker 1: the set class comes along, it may be too late.

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Speaker 1: Perfect example, a girl in my grade just had a kid.

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00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 1: She got pregnant by the second semester of her sophomore year.

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Speaker 1: But what I can say is that the awkward factor

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00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,200
Speaker 1: went from my eighth grade science teacher blushing at having

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00:24:52,200 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: to write down the names for genitalia too. More open

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00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 1: discussions in the health classroom. I just hope that those

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00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: open discussions can come a bit sooner. So thanks to

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00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: Tamon Allison and everyone else who has written in moms

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00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com is email address

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00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 1: and we'd love to see you over on Facebook as

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00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,199
Speaker 1: well and on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and of

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00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: course you can head over to the blog during the week.

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00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: It's at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to

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00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.

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00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most

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00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes. Brought

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