Confessions of a School Nurse. Michael Alexander
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The talk
With children at boarding school, we end up dealing with a lot of the issues that parents usually have to deal with, and this includes relationships, hormones and sex education. We cannot ignore these issues, or hope that when the kids get home their parents give them ‘the talk’. Even the most informed parents, even those still living with their children, probably have little or even no idea about the sex lives of their kids.
How on earth can parents be expected to know what’s going on in their children’s lives when they’re thousands of miles away? I lived at home, but I still didn’t have a sex talk with my dad. One day he said, ‘You got hairy balls yet?’ and when I turned beetroot red he handed me a book. I guess it worked for me, but I feel the kids at my school probably needed a bit more than that.
So that leaves me, your average, friendly, approachable nurse, to do the job. Am I qualified? Probably not, but I have lived. Yes, those words could certainly be taken the wrong way, but it’s true. I’ve travelled, dated women from around the world, been a ski instructor and had women throw themselves at me (it’s the uniform, not me) and even been pursued by ex-psychiatric patients. Then I got married, procreated and settled down. I also spent a few months working in a London walk-in STD clinic, so I can easily use scare tactics to terrify everyone into safe sex, even abstinence. Does this make me the best person to give our kids ‘the talk’? The teachers and other faculty expect the nurses to do this, so at least they must think so, but I’ll let you be the judge …
‘What feels better, sir?’ asked William.
There’s one in every class: someone who either knows too much, or thinks they’re being clever. William was actually neither, he was simply eager.
Next to him, poor Chen had no idea what was going on. His English was good enough to learn in class, but William’s question had baffled him.
I’d never meant for the friendly chat to head in this direction. I had been asked by the dorm parents in charge of the junior school to have a relaxed, almost informal discussion with the boys one evening and talk about growing up and to maybe, very gently, bring up sex. But I’d never talked to children as young as William or Chen before. They were both twelve years old and, along with the other twenty or so boys in the room, comprised all the boys who would be starting high school next year.
‘It would be good to prepare them a little,’ Mr Jones, the head of the junior school, had explained at the start of the year, ‘so they’re not completely unprepared.’
I shouldn’t answer William’s question. It is on my list of topics to avoid at all costs. Some of the other topics on my no-go list for talks to this age group include homosexuality, masturbation, graphic descriptions of STDs and getting in-depth and intimate about sex.
Why were these very important subjects off topic? Parents. Not all parents believe it is the school’s responsibility to educate or even discuss in the most superficial manner anything regarding sex. They’re concerned for the following reasons:
1. They think their child is too young to learn about sex
2. They do not think it’s the job of the school to teach their children about sex
3. They worry that the teacher may unduly influence their child. A concern that is brought up nearly every time is homosexuality
4. They are worried that by talking about ‘safe sex’ we are encouraging their child to have sex
5. They come from places where sex is banned before marriage, and can result in imprisonment
6. Their religion does not allow it
The problem is, these kids live thousands of miles away from their parents for up to eight months a year. Some see their parents even less, as they’re sent to summer school and, over Christmas, to winter camps to ski. In all the madness of such a busy life, they never get round to having ‘the talk’. Even if they do, in an ideal world, it shouldn’t be a ‘one-off’ chat, instead an ongoing dialogue – although I haven’t found any teenager yet that wants such a painfully awkward thing to last longer than necessary.
These kids are curious; they sometimes have no idea what is going on with their bodies, or can’t explain why they feel the way they do.
Today’s talk had begun with nice safe topics – ‘relationships’, ‘trust’, ways of showing someone you liked them – but it hadn’t been enough.
‘What’s the grossest thing you’ve seen?’ asked Warren, our only Australian student. I gently reminded him it was not the time or place for that discussion.
‘Can you get AIDS your first time?’ asked João the Brazilian, his question creating quite a stir.
‘Not if you use protection,’ answered William.
‘You get it from hookers,’ said Tim, clearly a surprisingly worldly twelve-year-old.
The questions were coming thick and fast, we were way off topic, and straying into dangerous territory. But this was what they wanted to know. I had to take back control. I glanced over at their dorm parent, hoping for help, but he seemed to be enjoying the show. ‘Keep going, you’re doing fine,’ he mouthed, although he thankfully did tell the boys to quiet down.
I decided to give them a choice. ‘What do you want from me then?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to know about STDs, sex, or something else?’
The majority wanted to hear about STDs, although I did notice that Chen had put his hand up for all three. I asked him how much he understood, and he just wanted to know what a ‘hooker’ was. The lads happily volunteered this information before I had a chance to intervene.
I asked the boys to list the diseases they knew about, or had heard of. They shouted out the following:
• Warts. (William had seen one online as big as a tennis ball, and was only too happy to share the experience as well as the link to the website with us.)
• HIV. (Everyone had heard of this, but William reassured everyone that a condom would stop it.)
• Lice. (Enough of the kids had experienced head lice, and understood you could get a similar type ‘down there’.)
They couldn’t list any more, although they knew, for example, that there were diseases that made it painful to pee. I could have provided them with a list of diseases, but I wanted to pick up on something William had said.
‘Do condoms stop disease every time?’ I asked for a vote. William and a handful of others confidently put up their hand, while the rest simply didn’t know.
But before I had a chance to correct them, William had asked his awkward question.
‘What feels better, sir? With or without a condom?’ There was silence. They leaned forward to hear my answer. Even Chen, who didn’t fully understand what was being asked, sensed the question was a ‘big deal’ and kept quiet. Mr Jones gave me a slight nod, but this question felt too personal, so I chose to distract them.
‘I was going to tell you about the kissing disease,’ I began, ‘but if you’d rather hear about …’ I didn’t finish the sentence, everyone’s face had a look of horror.
‘There’s no kissing disease!’ insisted a suddenly uncertain William.
There were some very worried faces around the room, as well as some very confused ones.
I began to talk about herpes, otherwise known as a cold sore. Nearly everyone knew about cold sores and weren’t worried. But when I said that boys or girls with a cold sore could spread it ‘down there’ they were horrified.
I didn’t help matters when I told them that condoms are not perfect. ‘They reduce the chance of infection … but nothing is 100 per cent.’ The poor kids were