Historical and Contemporary Romance Author

It’s That Time…and I Need Help!

This post is completely unrelated either to writing or to romance novels…well, perhaps tangentially to romance novels, lol.

Here’s the sitch. My daughter is turning ten in July. And she is starting to..um…bloom. It’s clearly time to have the mother-daughter facts of life talk–particularly the “if you start bleeding, you aren’t dying” discussion–and you’d think that as a romance novelist, I would feel completely up to the task.

The truth is, I feel a bit adrift. Partly, that’s because she’s my daughter, not some abstract person. But it’s also because I have no memory of how my mother did it (she must’ve, because I didn’t freak out) and somehow, this child’s adolescence has snuck up on me. She’s always seemed young for her age–unlike most of her peers, she still loves to play with Barbies and has no interest in reading Twilight (thank the heavens!)–and because my boys are so huge and she’s just on the tall side, it’s come as something of a shock to me to discover she’s an incipient adolescent.

I’m thinking I need some external resources to help me do the job. I’m thinking a book geared toward girls her age would be a good place to start. So, what I’d like is some recommendations. True, I could go look on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but I’d rather hear from others about what books they liked in this “genre.”

So, friends, lay it on me! The sooner the better!

6 Comments

  • Keri Stevens May 31, 2009 at 6:37 pm

    It’s So Amazing is the one I use with my sons. It covers just about everything (preread it so you can decide how much you want her to know). It’s cheesy, but fairly well done.

    Reply
  • Ulaume May 31, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    My mother used the Judy Blume classics – “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” and “Forever”. Of course this was prior to the modernized 2006 edition where they changed the belted napkins to adhesive pads – so there was an awkward conversation of updated feminine products that followed my original reading of these books. Margaret covers the changes of puberty and intro to sexuality. Forever was written for a more mature audience but did foster a PG-13 rated introduction into the birds and the bees.
    My daughter is only 6 years old, so I have held off passing on these books just yet and stuck to “Mommy Laid an Egg” – which is actually much more graphic and detailed than Forever, but easier to share due to the cartoonish anatomy pictorials. But when the time comes in a few years, I intend to share these two with her just as my mom shared with me.
    The other one I most recently picked up was from he American Girl series : The care & Keeping of You. It’s a great all in one female puberty that covers most everything in puberty except sexuality.
    HTH!

    Reply
  • Ericka Scott May 31, 2009 at 11:04 pm

    Oh Lordy….was it really 5 years ago that I went through this with my daughter? (She’s 15, almost 16 now)…Where has the time gone?

    We didn’t talk about sex/sex the first talk…I bought a book, The Care and Keeping of You…it talks about grooming their body from head to toe (and about their periods). She loved it. Later, when we got to the “talk”, gulp, I bought 100 Questions you’d never ask your parents. She really liked that one.

    Reply
  • Valerie Sims June 1, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    I just took Edward to the pediatrician for 5ths Disease this p.m. She has a 6th Grade girl. She recommended the American Girl book and said that the American Academy of Pediatrics has an excellent book.
    Good luck. I went to the library and asked the librarian if they had anything she could recommend for boys. They had quite a good selection.

    Reply
  • B.E. Sanderson June 2, 2009 at 7:27 am

    Even though it’s only been a few years since I had the talk with my daughter, I really don’t remember it. I think because I was sharing little pieces along the way, so when it came to the TALK, it was no big deal. I think I went with online aids, but I can’t find the link I used. I know there’s a ton of good info out there, though.

    Good luck.

    Reply
  • admin June 2, 2009 at 10:48 am

    Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, both in comments and by email. They’re very appreciated and helpful. I’m definitely going to be looking up some of these items.

    I have to admit, I did think of Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret, which was nearly brand new when I was growing up (showing my age, lol), but was really looking for something a bit more “textbook” like, I guess. My daughter is funny about what she wants to read and what she doesn’t, and fiction is very hit and miss with her.

    She LOVES American Girl stuff, though, so I’m thinking The Care and Keeping of You, which a number of you mentioned, is probably PERFECT.

    Thanks again!

    Reply

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