Kathy's Ecuadorian mom never talked about sex or sexuality with her. As a mom herself, Kathy is trying to do things differently with her tween daughter. And sex educator Brittany McBride shares strategies for affirming family conversations about our bodies.
Featured Expert:
Brittany McBride is the Associate Director, Sex Education at Advocates for Youth. She is responsible for strengthening the effectiveness of sexual health education instructional materials and their delivery while supporting youth serving organizations and school districts in providing sustainable and equitable sex education. Prior to joining the Advocates team, Brittany managed multiple teen pregnancy prevention programs funded by the Office of Adolescent Health in the state of Louisiana. Brittany also served as a curriculum consultant for the charter management organization Firstline Schools. She graduated from Tulane SPHTM with a Master’s in Public Health and earned a B.S. in Biology/Chemistry from Xavier University of LA. Brittany is based in New Orleans, LA. Learn more about her work here.
Brittany recommends this resource for sparking age-appropriate conversations about sex-ed with kids and teens.
If you loved this episode, be sure to listen to How to Teach Consent in Our Families and When Talking to Mamí about Sex Is Hard.
We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration so send us a detailed voice memo to virginia@lwcstudios.com. You might be on a future episode! Let’s connect on Twitter and Instagram at @TalkToMamiPapi and email us at hello@talktomamipapi.com. And follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts.
Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi everybody. My guest today is Kathy. Kathy's trying to raise her 12 year old daughter, Salome, in a safe and non-judgmental environment where they can speak openly about sex, puberty, bodies, and relationships. But some tension has arisen between Kathy and her own Ecuadorian mom, because they never spoke about these things when Kathy was growing up. Let's get into it.
Kathy: Hi, my name is Kathy. I am a child of a biracial family, you could say. My mom came here from Ecuador when she was 21 years old, and my dad immigrated from the mid west to Miami, which as you can imagine, was a big culture shock for him. In my family, we call my mom, Mamí, and my dad, Dad.
When I was younger, my relationship with my mom was really great. She was my protector. She was so affectionate. But then, as I became an adolescent, it got much harder. My mom found topics such as talking about sex, or your period, or sexuality just completely were not... Something that you didn't talk about. So, my mom never talked to me about that stuff. You don't have sex until marriage. Even something like using a tampon was like, "Oh my God, you can't do that." I was growing up here with a completely different sense about what was right, I mean, what she thought. And I was constantly telling her, "Mom, stop trying to push your ideas, your shame around sexuality and your body on me. Because I don't feel that shame."
I have a daughter now, she's 12 years old. Her name is Salome. Amazing, open, confident personality. She's also dealing with a lot of the stuff that girls her age deal with like body image issues, self-esteem. And I'm very intentionally trying to not do what my mom tried to do with me.
We were in Ecuador visiting with some cousins and my daughter jumped on her, on her male cousin's back, like piggyback. And my mom was like, "Oh Salome, what are you doing? Nice girls don't do that." And I pulled my mom to the side and I was like, "Mom, you will not teach that to my daughter." You know? I never do that with my mom, but I was like, "You will not teach that to my daughter. You will not teach her that there is something wrong or shameful about the way that she's behaving. And you will not assume that there is something inherently wrong or bad about what's happening here. I don't like that."
Kathy: She's been raised with a lot of openness to talk about sexuality, about sex, about her body. I mean Salome knows that she can ask me about anything and I will have a conversation with her about it. I want my daughter to be free to express herself. I don't want her to have any kind of shame around her body, around her sexuality. I don't want that imposed on her. But then, there's like the real world, and the different pressures, the social pressure she has to grow up with.
Another thing that I've had conversations with my mom about is my mom is kind of like... My mom's a wonderful person, she's also an amazing human being and a huge source of inspiration in my life. But my mom also grew up with a lot of body image issues. So, a lot of obsession with being thin, and that is something that caused a lot of harm to me growing up because I just always felt like my mom was always admiring thin women. "Oh, pero ¡mira qué bonita! Mira ¡qué delgada que es!" And I wasn't. I was always like kind of struggling with my weight. I love to eat. And so, every time that my mom did that, my mom without telling me was saying, "Something's wrong with you."
And so, I've talked to my mom. I was like, "Mom, please don't do that around my daughter. Please don't tell my dad daughter that there's only one way to be beautiful because I don't believe that. And I don't want her to think that either." I'm trying to teach my daughter about listening to her instincts, about understanding her own body. So, these are all things that were never talked about with me.
Lantigua: I'm raising two boys so, Kathy trying to make body positivity, sex and sexuality things her family can talk about without shame really, really resonated with me. As we parent, how can first gen support and inform our kids about topics that were never modeled for us growing up? You know I had to call in an expert for this one.
Brittany McBride:
My name is Brittany McBride. I use she/her pronouns and I am the associate director of sex education at Advocates for Youth.
Lantigua: You heard Kathy's story. What did you hear as you listened?
McBride: I got goosebumps when I listened to Kathy talk and hearing Kathy's story. I took away from this very short clip that Kathy is a person who is very passionate about ensuring that her young child has the environment and the support that they deserve in order to navigate the life that they want to create. And I really appreciated her commitment to ensuring that her child received the support that they needed. And, unfortunately, it sounds like the support that Kathy did not receive growing up.
Lantigua: Yeah, let's broaden out a little bit. The intergenerational dynamics present in Kathy's story is that something you come across a lot?
McBride: Absolutely. I thought about this. I was like, this is such an amazing example of the cross section of just like what it looks like right now to have sex education and have conversations around sex education and consent, and gender norms across generations. And what's so exciting about this is every generation that continues to come along to push the envelope in a way that creates a safer environment for everyone.
Lantigua: I really enjoyed talking to Kathy because she's raising a girl. I'm raising boys, and I have taken basically a policy of, if you ask me a question, I will give you an honest and age appropriate answer.
McBride: Sure.
Lantigua: And it was an adjustment. So talk me through how parents, first gens, second gens, who want to not basically recreate the norms and taboos that we grew up with culturally speaking, how can we ease ourselves in our parenting into enabling body positivity and self-empowerment and self-knowledge in our kids?
McBride: I want to make it clear because people assume just because I do this for a living that it's easy for me. I'm a parent of two small children myself. I have a nine year old girl and a five year boy. And it's difficult and I do this professionally. So I first, always encourage parents and caregivers to give themselves grace. We are unpacking our own issues, and experiences and we are choosing to make decisions to amplify the thing that were really positive. And find ways to make adjustments so that spaces where there is a lot of room for improvement, we can take advantage of those. So that's the first thing I tell parents, give yourself a little bit of grace.
And so then secondly, I encourage parents to really identify those gaps where they're not as comfortable, or as competent in the content itself. Not all of us are sex educators, not all of us received sex education. So, do some research, find some great resources where you feel really comfortable. The idea is that we have the ability to navigate and find information as needed because we want to make ourselves askable adults. Figuring out how to navigate all of the information that's available on the internet is truly a skill.
McBride: And then, it allows the ability to model for our young people, you're not going to know all of the answers to every question. "Us as the adults in the situation, we don't know the answers to every question, but you matter enough to me. And it is so important to me that you get what you need, that I will find it for you, if I don't know, and I'm going to get back to you."
McBride: And then, the third thing is, don't do it alone. We want to make sure that we're doing this in partnership with folks in the community, folks in our families, of the school. This is truly a partnership. And if we all kind of come together to ensure that our young people have access to what they need, we can really create a complete education for our young person so that they have the life skills required in order to create the lives that they want.
Lantigua: I want to take a step back and ask what seems like an obvious question, which is why is it important in their development that we share and teach, and have an open line of communication about sex and puberty and sexuality with our kids?
McBride: This is all about ensuring that our kids have access to the tools necessary in order to get home to us safely. So, I love to think of the analogy of my kids are nowhere near driving, but the day in which they are, if they were to ever get a flat tire, I would hope that they had all of the tools required to get home to me safely because, ultimately, that is what's most important to me.
And while it might be a little bit challenging for some parents and caregivers to think of their younger kids as sexual beings, they are. And we're not always teaching our kids information with the expectation that it's going to be something that they need immediately. Never when I'm teaching sex education do I ever assume that the kids in my class are going to go out and immediately use that information within 20 minutes of receiving it. But I do know that, if down the road, if they're ever in a situation where they need to make an informed decision, they can, they have capacity to make an informed decision as opposed to have life happen to them.
Lantigua: So, as a parent, one of the things that I've learned, really, really learned is that what you say really matters. But what you do matters 100% more. And so, how can parents model and exemplify healthy behaviors around sexuality, and gender roles, and expectations and body image ourselves, so that our kids can see that in how we carry ourselves?
McBride: Yeah, absolutely. I think for parents and caregivers, especially like the guest shared, it was all coming from a place of love. There was definitely, I took away how much they respected their mom, and how close they were with them. So, I think it's about making a disconnect from the messenger and the message. And although, thats your, you know, that was the mom and… Love mom. Sometimes mom doesn't always share the right message. And knowing that us too, we're always going to make mistakes as well.
McBride: So, I think it's important about teaching our young people and then modeling for them: we're not perfect. And even though I am the adult in this relationship with the kids that I'm taking care of, I'm not perfect. I will not know the answer. I'm going to make mistakes. It's about modeling those opportunities where I have made mistakes and being able to apologize. It's about being able to keep an open mind, so that if my kids do come to me and say, "The way that you communicated something to me earlier really hurt my feelings. Or it didn't have a good impact on the rest of my day," that I have an ability to actually hear that, and not be defensive and not lean into the power dynamic of, "I'm the parent and what I say goes, and I know what's best."
Lantigua: All right, I have two more questions for you.
McBride: Sure.
Lantigua: This first one is a little sensitive because my sons are 9 and 11. And, since they could basically talk, I chose one word I, and I've made it nuclear. And the word is secret. I've said to them, if any adult, if any teenager, if anyone says to you that there is something between you that you have to keep a secret, that's your alarm that you have to run and tell me, or run and tell your dad. That was, for me, the simplest way for me to create really an alarm system in case my children, God forbid, are ever in a situation where someone is trying to take advantage of them.
Lantigua: So, what other strategies, or what other ways can parents communicate bodily safety when we're not around to protect our kids in a way that lets them know that they will be blame free and lets them know that you will protect them, if they come to you with information that someone else said might get them in trouble?
McBride: Sure. Something that parents can do from an incredible young age, from infancy is equip our kids with the ability to communicate about their bodies in a way that other people can understand. I know for some parents the cute words of a purse, and a cookie, and all of those are a lot more palatable sometimes for parents. But it's so important to teach our kids the correct anatomy for their bodies, so they can talk about it. And so, being able to communicate with a trusted adult, whether that be the parent, caregiver, healthcare provider, whomever that, "This part of my body is hurting. This is what I'm experiencing. This is different from my normal," and really allowing them the ability to stand in that ownership of their body, "I can talk about my body. I have control over what happens to my body," is really important.
McBride: And then, we have to respect our young people when they make decisions around their own bodies. It allows our kids to see that we are going to demonstrate for them respect for their own choices around their body. So, if my daughter tells me, "I don't want to hug Uncle So-and-so, I don't want to hug Aunt So-and-so," perfectly fine and we're going to hold them accountable to that. And then, we're going to hold our family accountable to that. And no one's going to make you feel bad if that's not what you want to do. And so, I think it's just about being accountable to that and then being consistent.
McBride: And then finally, my last advice would be teaching our kids about consent very early. I think it's a skill that anybody can learn, especially little, little kids, I'm talking three, four years old. And it's important to learn this skill so that they can practice it in a way where it becomes their muscle memory. So, right now, we're practicing consent with you taking your sibling's crayons while they're not looking and breaking a few and playing with them. But if we practice asking consent, if we practice getting a no and being disappointed about something where you really wanted a yes, and learning how to manage our own feelings without being coercive to another person, once they then, are able to find themselves in situations where it might be more of a sexual environment, they are able to then execute that skill with muscle memory in a way that will respect their partner. And also, demonstrate the amount of respect that they expect from another person.
Lantigua: What are some of your go-to sources for information to save people from the Googles?
McBride: Yes. So Amaze A-M-A-Z-E.org is an absolutely fantastic resource. It's specifically geared towards middle school age kids, but we also have an Amaze Junior for our little ones from 4 to 8 and these are really hilarious, short videos packed full of information across a multitude of topics. And I love it because you can create a playlist and you can watch the videos. And then, the kids can watch it. You can watch it together. It just can start a great conversation.
Lantigua: Thank you. Thank you so much. This was wonderful.
McBride: Thank you for having me.
Lantigua: All right, let's recap what we learned from Brittany.
Be an askable adult. Get used to looking up things and learning things you're not familiar with, so you can be a resource and a role model for your children on how to ask for information when they need it.
Stay humble. Acknowledging you do not have all the answers and apologizing for your mistakes will help your family communicate more openly and vulnerably, especially about taboo subjects.
And remember, get help. Find trusted adults in your kids' life, in your family, in your school and in your community. You do not have to go at this alone.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mami & Papi] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Kojin Tashiro is our mixer. Manuel [inaudible 00:18:34] is our social media editor. I'm the creator Juleyka Lantigua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @talktomamipapi. Please follow us and rate us on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, anywhere you listen to are your favorite podcasts.
Lantigua: Bye everybody. Same place next week.