Dawn's Reading Nook: Life's Lessons with Fiona McGier

So this fall I will be sending my two youngest kids away to college. My third son finished one year at the local junior college so will be transferring to my alma mater, and my daughter just graduated from high school, so she is excited about living away from home and being even more independent than she is already! This has made me remember what I was like when I moved out at the tender age of 18, to live in a college town. It was like a smorgasbord of men! So many of them! All young and hot! No one to tell me when I had to be home, or even if I had to come home. It was heady freedom!

But talking to friends I have gotten the reaction from them that they expect their sons to sow some wild oats, but not their daughters. WTF? In this day and age, we are still trying to hold our daughters to some archaic idea of morality, when they have been exposed to sexual imagery since they were toddlers who wanted to wear tiny shorts with words on the butt, just like their teen-aged babysitters?

I jokingly told my husband's family years ago that when our three boys and one girl were grown-up, I'd have a huge bowl of condoms by the front door, so they'd never leave the house unprepared. Not only to avoid unwanted pregnancy, but the many and varied diseases that can or can't be cured. I want to keep my kids safe. My MIL got upset with me, saying, "Surely you don't mean you will give them to your daughter too?" I gave her the look, and said, "I will make the boys take one, but I will make her take two in case the first one breaks, because she has more at stake!"

I expect all of my kids to be in charge of their own sexuality, to enjoy themselves, though in a responsible manner. I will always be here at home, willing to listen to tales of heartache, or to hug them, reiterate how wonderful they are and how that scum didn't deserve them, then send them back out to face the dating world again. Because I'd really like them all to find a soul-mate, as their father and I did in each other. But I don't want any of my kids to be virgins when they get married. I've told them that people, both men and women, have varying degrees of sexual wants and needs. For some, once a month is just fine. For others, twice a day is not enough. When two people fall in love, one of the things they need to face together is what kind of sex life, frequency and intensity, is sought by them both. If their desires don't match up, then they should not marry.

I'm alright with the fact that my kids are all adults now, and though I don't pry because I don't really want any details about their sex lives, I'm okay with the fact that all of them are old enough to have them. I don't tell them about mine, and the ick-factor makes them unable to even read my contemporary erotic romance novels, since they say they don't want to know anything about my sexual fantasies, real or fictional. "TMI, Mom!" they tell me. Okay, I accept that. But I also accept that we are all sexual beings. Life is an adventure. Some of us coast along on a raft, letting the winds of fate blow us along. Some of us insist on paddling our own way, in charge of every aspect of our own life. Whichever choice my kids make, I'm okay with that. For all of them.

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My latest book, Two For Tuesday, has two characters who fell in love while they were still in college, but life interfered and they split up. Many years later, Marcus is now a rich and famous cardiologist who has more wealth than he ever dreamed of, growing up in the ghetto in Chicago. But though his wife is divorcing him, he's not upset about that because he was never really in love with her the way he was with the woman he lost after college. When he finds her name on the internet and contacts her, he decides to make one last attempt to convince Melanie that they were meant to be together for a lifetime.

More information can be found HERE for Two for Tuesday