From the Mouths of Babes
They say that kids say the damnedest things. Although this may be true, I have come to a new discovery that maybe the elderly do too. With the exception of a few, many are inexperienced with the world that has come to be today. What was taboo in the past is now what people talk about openly. They experienced things differently due to stricter social customs and lack of technological evolution. Today’s rapidly evolving world is new for them and many are left with envy for how great today’s younger generation has it.
I went into the retirement residence close to my house with the assumption that whoever I chose to ask the magic question, would probably give me words of wisdom; along the lines of something that my grandma or grandpa would tell me. But when I asked Beryl and Valeria “What’s one thing you wish you knew when you were younger,” they unanimously, without deliberating any other answer, told me they wished they knew more about sex when they were younger. Stunned, I asked them what they meant.
“Well, when we were your age we never learned about sex in school. Your parents never taught you about the birds and the bees and it wasn’t something you talked about to anyone. Most of us, as we were supposed to, waited until marriage. By that time, it’s not like we could really change our mind if we didn’t like the sex.” They continued by saying how they had to learn everything “the hard way” and because their mothers wouldn’t even teach daughters about their period, when they received theirs they thought they were bleeding to death.
Something we take advantage of today is how much more comfortable society has become with sexuality. These women, well into their eighties, are only now finally able to openly talk about things like these. They gave me a good laugh. Here I was, ready for some cute elderly advice, and instead I was sent a message that these women wished they had more sexual “experience.”
So people, from the mouths babes: appreciate your sexual freedom and the invention of the tampon!
Photo Credit: Olivia Vanderwal
Olivia Vanderwal
Olivia Vanderwal is a wanderlust enthusiast, a writer of delicate words, a player of all things acoustic, and a singer in and out of the shower, determined to follow a career in the writing industry. She hopes to dive into scriptwriting for television while dipping her toes in the songwriting business and also juggling a novel of her own one day. Keep her in your prayers.