Sometimes, no isn’t enough

It was a billboard on the way to the mall that touched off the storm. “Condoms,” it said in larger than your standard copier paper-sized letters “prevent more than just pregnancy.”

I pointed out the sign to my daughter and asked the very question no child wants to discuss with their mother: “you know what condoms are, right?”

Oh. My. God. Mom! I’m so glad none of my friends were able to go shopping today!”

“What? I’m almost entirely sure I probably wouldn’t have brought up this subject if your friends were in the car. Or not.”

Our laughter meets over the center console, and I snap on my left turn signal and decelerate.

Almost there. “Promise me you’ll talk about normal things while we’re shopping: Ask me if I’ve finished my homework or if I’ve read any good books lately.” I promise. We talk about everything. Well, I talk, she squirms in her seat and turns three shades of pink and tells me she already knows everything there is to know because of a health class last year that required a parent’s signature for her admittance.

And I know from experience that what she thinks she knows and what she truly understands are two things that don’t always match up.

“Remember when you thought you were suffering from appendicitis on the advent of your first menstrual cycle?” “Mom! Seriously?” She could say I am not entirely immune to the same misalignments. She wouldn’t be wrong.

“Remember when you thought I was faking a stomach ache when the nurse called you to pick me up from school, and I threw up in the car?” I’m not squeamish. She’s not either. We both know uncomfortable talks are important conversations to have.

I know there’s still time for these unpleasantries, which is why I don’t force the issue.

I just need to get the last word.

“Statistically speaking, teens are likely to engage in their first sexual experience at the age of 16.”

Two years. Two measly little years.

I can tell this little factoid surprises her.

“But I had the HIV shot,” she said as if I’d forgotten. Or as if a medication could inoculate her against all the things parents speak of that their children wish would get stuck in their throats.

“You had HPV shots,” I tell her, explaining the immunizations protect against an easily transmitted virus linked to cervical cancers. “It doesn’t take the place of basic precautions.”

Of course, it’s more than that.

It’s an emotional rollercoaster fueled by hopes and hormones. And like most human experiences, humans can’t truly understand them until they experience it for themselves. Can I change the subject? Did you see that ad? The one that tells parents how to answer if their kids ask to throw a party with alcohol?

“You mean it was longer than ‘Just Say No?’”

She laughs, but even she knows some parents have an easier time accepting alcohol as a rite of passage than human sexuality as one.

I suppose we all pick our battles. We can’t always “Just Say No.” Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.