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Father-Son
Talk by
Peary Perry | |
Our
youngest son is getting married in a few weeks. He and his bride to be have picked
out an apartment and she will move into it this coming weekend. She is a lovely
young woman and it will be great to have another sweet daughter in law in our
family. We will now have three, only one more to go .
The bride to be
was moving here on Monday and will be living with us for a week or so before she
gets into their new apartment. As you might recall, I have been going stir crazy
having to stay at home these past couple of weeks after having undergone a total
knee replacement, so I was in bed reading Sunday night when my son came into the
room to check on me. He has been living with us for the past couple of months
while waiting for the wedding.
As he stood in the doorway I had this flashback
to the hospital where he was born thirty three years ago. It seemed like only
yesterday and now here he is a grown man about to become a husband. I called him
into the room and he sat on the bed and we just talked for about an hour. I told
him this was the last night he would truly be my boy. He seemed surprised at my
comment, and assured me that he wasn’t going any place and that he and his wife
were going to live fairly close and we would still see each other.
I knew
all of this but it still isn’t the same, after Monday he really belongs to the
woman he is engaged to, and not to his mother and me. I’m not certain that he
understood all of what I was saying, but the bottom line was that he was getting
ready to step from one phase of his life into another. Life goes on and that’s
as it should be. He’ll be in a better position to understand once he has children
and they are preparing to leave home and get married.
You want your kids
to grow up and mature on the one hand and then on the other you want them to stay
kids and for your family to all be together. Time passes by so quickly. Too quickly
if you ask me. I for one am not anxious to see them leave and face the realities
of adult life and its stress and strains. I probably would have made a great farmer
in the 1800’s if I could have had my whole family living and working together
in the same place. As it is now, two sons live close and the other two live within
a couple of hours from us, so it isn’t as if they are living on the other side
of the world. But I know and you know that once they get married, different priorities
come into play. Where to have Christmas? Whose house for Thanksgiving? Where do
we go for Mothers day and Fathers Day? Decisions that need to be made that weren’t
required in the years before.
While we’re sitting there, he looks over
and me and says that he thinks this might be the best time for ‘the talk’. As
bad as my knee hurt, I wanted to run out of the room and find some place to hide
to avoid having to discuss sex with him. First off I’ve never had ‘the talk’ with
any of my sons…..I don’t know where to start and what to say. Also I figure that
when they reach twenty or thirty they should know about this stuff and I should
not have to explain it to them.
He could see my obvious discomfort by
the expression on my face and started laughing and smiling….which I didn’t find
amusing at all. Not seriously.
Anyway, I went to the computer later on
that evening and googled up ‘Father-Son Sex Talk’ and was surprised that there
seemed to be a lack of information which a father could pass along to his sons
if needed. I would think something like “Sex for Dummies” of “The Idiots Guide
to Sex” would be a big hit. I have one more son to get married off; I might get
to work on writing one in the next few months. Then again, I might not.
©
Peary Perry
Comments go to pperry@austin.rr.com
Letters
From North America - July 16, 2009 column
Syndicated weekly
in 80 newspapers
Related Topics:
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