In Part 3 of Storied Parenting, Chris and Beth Bruno talk about the ways our own sexuality stories show up in parenting and ways to be prepared and intentional.
Chris and Beth Bruno host conversations at the intersection of psychology and theology. This podcast is powered by ReStory Counseling.
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Want to know what it takes to Restore Your Life? We are Chris and Beth Bruno and we lead a team of brilliant storywork counselors around the country all committed to helping you come alive. We call it the ReStory Approach. So if you're a story explorer, kingdom seeker, or just a day-to-dayer, you've come to the right place. Welcome to the ReStory Podcast.
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So before we jump into this podcast today, I just want you to know that we're gonna be using some terms with regard to sex and sexuality, that you might not want to have little listeners around you when we do. So just trigger warning and also an awareness of who also might be listening to this podcast. Just be aware. One of the first podcasts we were invited to be guests on is a parenting podcast. And...
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I remember!
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We were talking about our kind of our story and overcoming that as we talk about, we were talking about sex and kids. I mean, we were actually talking about what we want to talk about today, but this was years ago. And without thinking, I encouraged the listeners to, if they were uncomfortable with using correct terminology, to stand in front of the mirror and to practice.
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and to say penis penis penis. And I sitting next to you in that first podcast all those years ago was mortified at what you were asking people to do. And also it was a wonderful thing to ask people to do. Oh, my gosh. I mean, it's not.
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uncharacteristic that I would say things without thinking. Yes. And not be able to retract them because of the situation. It was on someone else's podcast. Yes. So there you go. We are talking today about storied parenting and where that intersects with our story of sexuality. Yes. How do we how do we bring that into the conversations we want to have?
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with our kids no matter the age. You know, and as we step into this realm of talking to our children about sex and sexuality, it is, it's a talk that we all know that we need to have with our children. And when we say our story with it, it was how were those things talked to us about? Like, how did our parents engage those conversations? Did they engage those conversations? What other voices informed those things for us? What other books?
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or movies or culture or church, how was sex and sexuality kind of ingested in us as children and then how do we actually wanna impart that to our children? And so you distinguish between all of that and there's more to our story of sexuality and that is not what we're getting into today. And if there's a spectrum, we're definitely on the lower half in this conversation.
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And yet it's shaping, nonetheless, very shaping. It's very important for us to acknowledge that and recognize that we're staying on the lower half because there's a whole story in each one of us as individuals that how did I come to understand my own sexuality, myself as a man, my growth from boy to man, you as a girl to woman, like all of that, and those are things that are private.
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Those are things that are important for you to address and for you to acknowledge how did that happen in your life? But that's not the content for a podcast. Right. Right. So the story of standing in front of a mirror and practicing comes from me out of a vacuum and needing to overcompensate for all that I did not know and have.
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when it came to parenting my own kids. And so that is part of my shaping narrative and bless my kids' hearts. They received an overcompensating mother. Yeah. So just to recognize that. And as we talk about sex and sexuality, it's important for us to have that lens of who is, as we talked about last week, who is this?
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child, this story, this masterpiece, this discovery in our child that we are then gifted with the opportunity to explore and discover. Right. I think what my heart is in this conversation is that as parents, we would be thinking, forward thinking about the story we want our kids to have.
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And yes, our own story is present and a big part of that, but to be planning and preparing and being intentional about what we will do, what we will say, how we will handle the conversations. You know, when we were teens, when we were our kids' age, what was really popular in the Christian world.
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was what we are now calling the purity culture. And now decades later, we're seeing some of the the fallout of that, the consequences of that. That was a culture that shaped us. And so, you know, I have a vacuum in my home. I have a culture then when I'm a teen that is shaping my thinking. And so that's just some of what we're talking about, like to consider.
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what shaped us and then what how do we want to shape our own kids. So speaking of purity culture and where we came from, I think that informs actually another mini course that you have. Yes. What's the title of your mini-course? Well it's actually the title of what like what I wanted the title of my book to be and decided early on that that probably wasn't the best title but
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to the agent with beyond periods and purity. Wasn't it? No, no, no, no, no. It was, it was round one. But anyways, it is this title of one of my chapters and it is the title of a mini course that I have prepared because I, I so want to disrupt and overhaul the way in which we as Christians, the church at large has handled those two.
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topics, particularly for girls. And I want us to think differently about them, beyond, right, beyond periods and purity. Because when I started looking through all the things, right, I'm a reader, we've established that. I wanna get it right, we've established that. So I have a girl, you know, I'm looking down the road at when she's going to become a tween, a teen, and I'm looking out at the material for me.
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and what kinds of conversations I should be having, they all focused around those two topics. We needed to do this around purity, and we needed to do this around periods, and once we did, then that was it. The bow was nicely tied and things were taken care of. Now we have a girl who's transitioned to a woman and she will be all the things. And it just felt so insufficient. And it felt like the just a wrongly placed focus.
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And so yeah, that's what's in the course is helping moms to, to consider where they, they are themselves around those two topics, what, what they grew up hearing around those two topics and then how they want to handle it with their kids, with their daughters, especially. Yes. And so those are the messages that I think we had when we were looking at the material for moms and daughters and the material for dads is
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just as bereft of help, actual help. You know, I think when I was looking at things for our son and for myself, as I was gonna talk with our son, it's like, here are all the things with regard to sex that are nos. Don't, stay away, stop. All the things that were, you know, that sign that just says, do not enter. And when it comes to boys, it's all that.
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that there isn't a movement like, the physical movement like for a girl when she gets her first period. But there's this, when something in him awakens, the language is shut it down. Don't and stay away. And so I knew that I didn't want that for him. And that was what happened for me. My sex talk with my dad was in the car. I was already 16.
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He was riding shotgun because he was still teaching me how to drive. And he basically said, you know, when I finally got my license, he said, just don't do it in the car. That was the sex talk from my dad. And then, you know, my poor mom, she had a little bit more awareness of that. I needed a little bit more information and I had gone to the health class and whatever in school, but she sat me down on the couch with her college biology.
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textbook that had, you know, some pictures and stuff and just said, read this. That was the extent of it. And then all of what we talked about with purity culture of all the don'ts, like it was completely insufficient. And there's very little else out there that gives us guidance on how to do that. And so my friend and I, Andrew Bauman, we put together also a mini course for dads who are wanting to have the sex talk.
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We actually call it Sex 101. And what we talk about is it's not just a sex talk. It is a thousand talks over the course of time from the moment they're born all the way through their adolescent years and even then after the adolescent years. So we're just trying to help equip people to have a story-informed conversation that lasts decades with our kids about these things. Right, right. And not just a one-and-done.
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kind of conversation. Yeah. So your Sex 101 that you and Andrew did is specifically geared towards dads and what it's like to father through these conversations. And mine is very specific to mothers and really very attentive to mom's own story. And really thinking through that and where that is going to, again, be present in the conversation we end up having with our girls.
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walk moms through a plan so that you don't have a 12-year-old coming to you needing her first package of pads or tampons or whatever and you're just unprepared and stumbling. We just really are hopeful to prepare and equip parents to really do things differently than what we do.
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perhaps we received. And to normalize the sex conversation, that it's something beautiful and something that God designed and something that God wants us as adults and our children to live into in such a way that is both beautiful and honoring to who they are as a sexual being from the moment they are born. They don't suddenly become sexual when they're adolescents. And so just to honor that and honor the conversations.
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And to go all the way back to the beginning of our conversation today is to use true and right and honoring words around it, both in actual words like penis, but then honoring words with regard to that in the journey. What do you mean by that? You're referring to some specific examples, right? Well, I mean, there's so many of the words that are around actual body parts.
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are either derogatory or they don't actually name what it is. And as a counselor, so this is where, I mean, why I'm saying so much about the actual language is because when we can equip our children with actual words, then they can use those words to describe to us or to anyone else what is happening for them. It becomes actually a safety net structure for them when
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there might be some inappropriate touch that happens. And if that inappropriate touch doesn't have actual language connected to where and how, then it becomes very vague and it gets lost. And we don't wanna lose that. So that's where I, as a counselor, I'm just very attuned to, we want to use both honoring and appropriate language for body parts and all the things. And when we normalize that, then...
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We have very different dinner conversations in the Bruno household. Right. With our boy and our girls. Right, right. And it's been actually redemptive for me, having had such a vacuum, needing to practice and to overcome my own fear and trepidation and starting that process when they were young and little. And now to have such open and honest conversations feels really healthy.
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and really freeing and it came again out of being able to face like name and process and work through my story as it relates to sexuality. Yes. So that's our hope for you as you listen to this is just to be aware of what is your story of sexuality. How is that informing either overtly or covertly how you're parenting your children with regard to their sexuality? And what
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might be some things that you would want to address for yourself as they grow in age and need increasingly kind of open conversations around these things. That's going to be huge as you help them discover themselves. Right. So join us next week for the last in our series of story-based parenting as we talk about what happens if your kids are already adults or when they become adults.
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and they start this whole process of restoring their own childhood narratives. How do you engage with that? What happens when your adult children come home? Thanks for joining us today on the Restory Podcast. If you've been following along our series this month, you know what I'm about to say. There's a mini-course for that. Head over to fierceandlovely.org to find Beyond Periods and Purity. If you need some guidance in thinking of your own story,
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and how you'll invite a daughter into that. Or head over to rest forward slash sex101 for fathers. And listen in next week as we talk about our adult children. What happens when they start doing this work and come to us. We'll see you then.