Do sex talks come too soon?

Believe it or not, there was a time in this country when modestly dressed mothers and fathers would wait to teach their well-mannered children about “the birds and the bees” until they were in high school, or about to be married, or maybe never. These days, however, parents are apparently supposed to launch right into a super-graphic Sex Ed session as soon as Junior gets potty training down.

Or at least that’s what you might think after watching cut.com’s “Parents Talk to Their Kids About The Birds and the Bees for the First Time.”

If you haven’t put yourself through this 4 minute and 45 second parenting nightmare yet, you can check it out right here:

This video is frequently funny, often adorable, and almost entirely uncomfortable. Seriously. Ricky Gervais, Larry David and Louis C.K. all wish their shows could be this excruciating.

But awkwardness has never stopped us here at the Doctor and the Dad. So we thought we’d roll up our sleeves, snap on some latex gloves and really dig in deep to evaluate just how well these parents tackled their kids’ Big Question (based on five much less stressful Little Ones).

1. WHO?

So we gotta hand it to these parents for making sure they were the ones to teach their kids about this all-important topic. By bringing the subject of sex up with their offspring before friends, movies or the internet did, they made sure they got to control the content, tone and level of detail of the message.

Except of course for that one kid whose older brother, Nick, apparently beat his parents to the punch. Uh-oh. They probably have a lot more sex conversations in their future now, just to dispel whatever misinformation that led to.

2. WHAT?

We’re big proponents of explaining stuff to your kids. Whether it’s little things like descriptions of the colors, shapes and objects all around you when your kid’s a baby (which can help him learn language faster), or bigger things like how pizzas, buildings or – in this case – babies are made, talking to your children like they are real, valuable people worthy of having a conversation with is an awesome way to build their knowledge, confidence and trust in you.

These parents do just that, big time.

3. WHY?

Even though it’s super uncomfortable, research shows that parents who talk to their kids about sex tend to have kids who are more likely to share their parents’ values about sex, less likely to be sexually active, and more likely to use birth control if they do engage in sexual activity.

And the frequency of these sex talks matter too. Kids who hear repeated messages from parents about sex are even more likely to glean these positive effects.

What we have a problem with here though are the last two questions:

4. WHEN?

So here’s where the parental performances get a little disappointing for us. Based on what we see in the video, none of these kids seem to be instigating this conversation. In fact, several of them are clearly not interested in hearing all the sordid details of exactly where they came from. Like this kid:

And this kid:

And this one too:

So why are these parents forcing this on them now? Couldn’t these conversations be – ahem – coming prematurely?

When your child is still as young as the kids in this video, it makes more sense to start sex talks as early as the topic comes up (like by answering your child’s inquiries about “where babies come from” truthfully). This can help make sex talks a more natural and comfortable part of your family’s communication – so you can avoid the need for one of these big, dramatic “birds and the bees” sit-downs later on.

5. WHERE?

Call us old fashioned, but we think the best sex talks still happen in the comfort of our own homes, not in front of a camera in some random dude’s studio.

But that might just be us.