My eldest child is 8 and we have had some very superficial chats about where babies come from but nothing detailed as yet. I've encouraged him to ask but he's not interested so far. That book looks good and I'll get it for future reference.

My mum was a Family Planning sex educator when I was young so we had heaps of books with all kinds of graphic pictures and detail at home and I got the right info at an early age. It was always very no-nonsense and not a big deal.

The most hilarious moment was when Mum came to my school to do the sex ed talk. I got major street cred out of it (she had some cool models and aids) and also came to be seen as the person to ask about sex by my schoolmates. Probably not appropriate since I was 11!

Man, that picture is freaky!!

Nice Brazilian wax though.

We're still at the calling it 'Mr. Winky' stage (he is only 1!) And we call his nipples 'snipples', which he finds really funny, and then looks for them. I love being able to use these kiddy words - don't know why?! Yes, these comments are irrelevant to the topic of teh day!

That baby looks like it is about to dive into a swimming pool! No, probably a birthing pool.

I didn't ever have 'the talk' with my Mum. She would have been open and honest about it if it had happened, but it never did.

At intermediate school we had the puberty lessons, and then a year or so later I started reading 'Dolly' and 'Girlfriend' magazines - and not long after that, Cosmopolitan - so when I asked Mum years later why we never had 'the talk', she said: "Because I knew you knew what you needed to know, and figured you'd ask me if you wanted to know anything else."

Going back a few years to when I was 11.

My dad was on the 1974 ministerial review of health education, aka sex education. For some reason they made him the book reviewer. He was not a great reader. I, however, was.

He came home with around 50 sex ed books from all around the world, dumped them on my bed, asked me to read them, and said, "When you're finished, we'll discuss them." I read them over the next couple of weeks or so.

I went back to Dad and told him I'd finished. We discussed the books - their literary merit, the quality of the information in them, which ones I learned most from, whether I thought the Swedish ones were a bit gratuitous, etc., etc.

We did not once discuss what I'd read. I know better now, but at the time, after this enormous and comprehensive sex education, I was still puzzled as to why anyone actually WANTED to...

Societies that keep sex under the bed, also tend to be the ones with the highest teenage pregnancy and STI rates. Openness is good.

The s-e-x talk is the tough one!! I got reading info (pamphlets) off my nurse at Family Planning - there is info on their website too, for parents: http://www.familyplanning.org.nz/InfoResearch/ForParentsCaregivers/WhyTalktoMyChildAboutTheseThings.aspx

ScrabbleChick you were lucky to get the info right at home!!

That picture is so familiar! My parents still have that book so I will be pilfering it shortly. I don't ever remember having "the talk" or in fact any talk.. just always knew as much as I needed to know. I think that's the best way, to add in age-appropriate snippets as you go along and treat it all as normal and natural.

My parents kept me up late one night (sent all the other kids to bed, including my older step brother, my step sister who was the same age as me and my little brother) and gave me the sex talk. I was SEVEN. Rudy on the Cosby Show had got her period and for some reason that sparked them to sit me down and have the talk. Not sure why they singled me out? I sat there really uncomfortable the entire time...

I don't remember ever having 'the talk' with my parents. There were always books around for me to look at, and I probably asked the usual questions when my friends got little brothers or sisters, but it wasn't one event, it was more a set of knowledge that evolved as I could cope with more details & specifics