Having 'The Talk' With Your Adult Kids About Parent Sex

All right, kiddies, we need to have a talk. The sex talk.

We know YOU don't need to learn about the birds and the bees because, Internet, and Game of Thrones, and Lena Dunham, but we need to have a long-delayed and awkward talk about sex so let's just get started.

Kids, do you know where parents come from?

Explaining conception is easy peasy. But we need to -- and I know it's kinda late here, we apologize -- but we need to talk to you about parent sex. Don't roll your eyes. For some reason The Talk about parent sex is way more awkward and often simply never gets done, but it's time to move forward. Your parents have sex. Yes, we do.

We've tried to hide that from you, or at least shield you, for long enough. If you'd thought about it, I mean, you would have figured it out, but we thought you'd ask questions when you were ready. But you're not. So, you are adults now, and it is time that you knew that parents have sexual lives. There's no need for intimate details, but we do need to discuss some things so we'll all be happier in the coming decades.

We need you to knock, for a start. Call ahead. And if you don't, then don't be shocked. We knock. We need privacy too, and not just because we need to put in our teeth.

The eye-rolling, "ew," "get a room," and laughing has got to stop. It's not cute or gross that we have an intimate life, it's just life. Like yours. We accepted YOU have sex lives. We need the same in return.

Don't open the bedroom drawers. We're tired of hiding stuff. And we're not sharing.

Single and widowed parents have sex, too. We may not be on Tinder but we enjoy tender moments. Especially now that nests are emptying and we're settled and not needing to set up house. We'll try to let you know if it reaches breakfast guest level, and we promise to practice safe sex. Probably. You may need to teach us more about that at some point.

We masturbate, too, by the way. Always have. Sorry you didn't realize that.

And, listen, if we have moved on into some polyamory or kink or group stuff or sex yoga, well, it's too late to corrupt your morals.

We realize we didn't do that great a job on having "the talk" with you. We are from generations that tended to either overshare or overprotect, but we didn't really have role models for this. We talked about our fears, yes, but talking about the pleasures with your offspring lacks a language and customs. We're sorry. We did better than the generation before. There used to be more of a tradition of this when men and women were separate and unequal and sex was for men, but that was better left behind and it's all kind of new now each generation. If we had it to do over again we'd talk more, even when you squealed, but we were the first generations to have both birth control and AIDS. We'd finally started talking about child abuse and sexual predators. We were terrified of being seen as creepy OR uncool. You'll do better. In fact, maybe this talk will help.

We probably forgot, while we were throwing condoms and appropriate sex-planation books at you, to mention the part about it being fun. Like, really fun. You hated it when we let on that it was for us, and we let that shut us up. But you're old enough now. Congratulations. Welcome to awkward, and you are welcome: you'll need it with your kids when you're old!

Now, when it reaches the point that you get involved with our healthcare and prescriptions you may learn about and need to consider our whole selves, not just the parental side we've shown you. Adult diapers and Viagra, lube and lipstick ... we're not dead until we're dead, children.

Aging's not a fairy tale, and some of our parts may check out before we do. Before we're done we may get various disabilities, or take on some pain issues or illness. Please don't think that makes us sexless or "over all that." Assume we are still sexually active and interested just as we'll still be hungry and need a warm bed.

At some point one or both of us, and the step-parentals we've given you, may need extra care, but that doesn't mean we stop caring. Going to the nursing home doesn't make us sexless children. As you're helping us get care keep our romantic and sexual needs in mind. And if the declining health or death of a partner steals that from us that is some of what we mourn.

Should we lose our memory we may wander off into a happy moment with a person not your parent: we give you permission now to reassure the staff that this is okay as long as both parties are happy. Don't let your youthful prudery spoil our fun.

And as you clean up our stuff we may have kept mementos, we may have left evidence of poor choices, so as you find them do not judge. There may be items of a nature that you think we should have thrown away, but here's the good and bad news: it never feels like time to stop being alive or time to hide the evidence.

As you come alongside our youth and pleasures so have we been there for yours. We actually did want you to enjoy your love lives and sex all along -- though we struggled at times to say that. And let us say now that we hope you have a happy old sexual life, too, when you're old enough.

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