To start: no, there are no “trusted male figures” in our lives. My brothers & father are all conservative, and I DO NOT trust them to properly explain things without shame and/or religious context.
My son knows the basics of reproduction, but I’ve never really explained what’s “normal” things for a teenage boy to go through… mainly because I don’t know!
I’ve definitely put it off, so he’s almost 14 and is much more physically mature than most of his peers (he’s got hair in places, shaves his face regularly, etc.)… but I’m embarrassed to admit that I know next to nothing about anything else…
Could y’all help me out? What did you go through that he should know about? What should I know about?
Many thanks to anyone who can help. Please don’t be unkind. Much appreciated.
EDIT: Thank you so much for all the advice so far!! Please keep it up!!
My son & I have very open communication & a very good relationship.
In this day and age with the internet, I doubt there’s much he doesn’t know about in terms of how it works.
I would pull up statistics on stds and on the cost of raising a kid. Explain to him that almost 1 in 8 people have herpes and it never goes away, and how teen pregnancy really can fuck up future opportunities.
I think today it is more important to counter the incorrect things a child could be learning from pornography than the basics like “your penis may get hard when you think about girls.” They probably know the latter but not about STDs, unplanned pregnancy, and rape / sexual coercion being major problems.