One of my favorite books as a girl was written by a woman named Judith Viorst.  The name of the book was:

My Mama Says There Aren't Any Zombies, Ghosts, Vampires, Creatures, Demons, Monsters, Fiends, Goblins, or Things……    (but sometimes even mamas make mistakes…)

It was a fabulous book.  I used to look at it all the time; actually, I think I still have a copy stashed somewhere. 

As I’ve alluded to so much in the past, I still think of myself sometimes (most of the time… ok, pretty much all the time) as a girl, rather than a woman; not sure where this mindset came from.  As a matter of fact, I still think of my childhood friends I still know as girls; funny that hadn’t clicked with me before.  When I meet someone in my age range as an adult, I think of them as such.  As for me and mine, however, we seem to be eternally stuck in youth.

One of the downfalls in this is the stunning fear of disappointing my parents.  Inside, I am still the child and they are still the authority, and most of us learned young you don’t do that.  I know I did.

I grew up in a very religious household.  The main TV we were allowed to watch was Little House on the Prairie, and the oh-so classic police show, C*H*I*P’s.  Other than that, it was highly questionable – take “Mork & Mindy”, for instance – they were living together!  No way, José.

As for sex, it was for marriage; period.  My family can be easily broken up into the “good” kids and the “not so good” kids – and every one of us can tell you who fits in each category.  My youngest brother, who married extremely early to his first serious girlfriend, is good.  I, the perpetual virgin, am good.   The other three siblings are, well… not so good.  There was “S”… “E”… “X”… before there were vows.  They lived with people before getting married. 

While my parents are amazing, kind, and loving people, and they always came around to being great about things after the fact as far as how loved each person was able to feel, the initial response was, well, frightening.  Also, being treated in a loving way later does not mean that they would ever say that it hadn’t mattered that it happened.

I watched the reactions to my brothers and my sister.  I saw a response I did not ever want to be on the receiving end of.  This is especially true if you think about my very close relationship to my mother, built on loving and needing her SO much in past times, as she was my rock through much of what I went through.  Each time it happened to my siblings, it was very much a cautionary tale for me of what not to let happen with my parents.

A couple of years ago my mother finally admitted to me in a phone conversation that at this point, she doesn’t expect any of us to get married prior to sex; and while that was a great thing to hear, I still think that she meant “to the person we were going to marry in the end”. 

Problem is, we can’t know if that will happen – we can’t even expect it or necessarily want it to.  It certainly can’t be a reason for marriage – what a huge mistake!  That does mean, however, I’m officially going against my parents most powerful belief system, which they hold dear.  I get the impression they take dissention on this as a failure of parenting to a certain extent.

My parents are human.  They are just people, like all of us – and they have built up what they believed based on their own personal life experiences.  My mother had a horrible childhood that involved some disturbing abuse – it’s no wonder that sex has never been on the top of her list.  She honestly doesn’t seem to have an interest in it short of procreation.  My father was raised by very strict religious parents; his father was a prominent minister in our church that authored book upon religious book.  I don’t think he has a very strong sex drive either.

These were their experiences.  They took from them what they could, and they made an amazing life and raised 5 happy children, and are still married.  Every one of us could take a page from their book and learn from it.

This does not, however, mean they had the perfect idea on everything.   None of us do.  I had a different set of life experiences than they did.  It caused me to feel differently about some things than they do.  That should be ok – no, scratch that – That IS ok.  

Now I just have to get my mind to believe that.

…Because sometimes, even mamas make mistakes.