growing pains...

recent convo...

ME: Man, these boys are growing up so fast. Never thought I'd have sons that are 10, 7, and 2. Time really does fly. I can remember the day that we bought Deion home from the hospital. Kinda hard to believe that it was 10 years ago.

Mrs12: Time really does fly

ME: Won't be long before the girls and stuff start.

Mrs12: What do you mean?

ME: I mean, it won't be long before he'll really start to like girls and things will really take off.

Mrs12: Take off? I don't understand.

ME: He'll like girls and then they'll be calling the house all the time.

Mrs12: Oh no! Those lil fast girls won't be calling MY house!

ME: Excuse me (laughs)

Mrs12: You heard me. Some of these lil girls are fast. Too damn fast. They won't call my house.

ME: At one point in time, YOU were a fast lil girl that called somebody's house! LMAO!!!

Mrs12: Yeah. Whateva.



The truth is...as parents you can't imagine your child being interested and falling in love with another child. You tend to look at your child through innocent eyes. In reality, when they become teenagers...sex will become an issue. You can try to hide it from em. But you have to remember that kids are exposed to so many things that we weren't exposed to. Back in my day, it was cool if you could get your hands on a copy of Playboy or Black Tail (some of y'all know about that). Nowadays, you can find any nudity you want (including porn) on the 'Net (some of y'all know bout that, too! LOL)

I always laugh when I hear dudes talk about how they are gonna protect their daughters from horny lil teenage boys. They talk about "getting their shotguns" to let these lil dudes know what time it is. Can't say that I blame em. If some young punk showed up at my door with 2 earrings, gold fronts, and with his pants falling off his ass coming to see my daughter (if i had one)...I'd wanna shoot his ass, too. Nothing wrong with being overprotected but we need to be honest with ourselves. You can't hide sex from teens. You could walk into any high school and I'm sure that you'd find very few virgins. Some of us got started earlier than others. LOL. But it's a sign of the time. There will be girls that will come along a make my boys THINK they are in love. And they'll get their little hearts broken. You don't wanna see it happen but it's a part of life.

I went on to explain to my wife that I'll be sitting down with Deion one day and explaining to him the birds and the bees. I won't tell him "DON'T BRING ME NO GRAND KIDS" (like my mom did). I'll talk to him about girls. Tell him the pros/cons to sex. I would never advocate that he has sex but I'd be unrealistic to think that he's gonna wait until he got married. I would prefer that he's ready. I think you know when you're ready. I'd tell him about HIV/AIDS, STDs, and pregnancies. I'd also tell him what Dad told me.

Before you do anything with a woman...ask yourself if you would want to deal with this woman for the rest of your life. If she gets pregnant, that's what you'll be facing.

Treat a girl/woman the same way that you would want another man to treat your sister.

I never forgot those words.

At the end of the day, you can only inform them and hope that they do the right thing. Some kids will wait. I didn't. But I did the right thing. Some women will say that they should have waited. Who knows what my sons will do? I just hope that they listen.