The Lost Art of Sexual Mentoring: Harnessing the Light of the Mother in You

About 15 years ago, I travelled to the main city of Cameroon; Yaounde, to visit my Aunt Grace and her family. A few weeks into my holidays I felt some cramps around my lower stomach and later discovered a dash of blood on my panties. I told my cousins about it. I remember having this subtle fear that I am had done wrong or rather, that I had just completely stepped out of my childhood.

My cousins told me to tell their mum, Aunt Grace about it. She called me into the bedroom, and while she prepared a make-shift sanitary pad that I was supposed to insert into my vagina, she gave me the only advice I had ever had about sex from a mother.

"If you have sex with a boy, you will get pregnant"

Well, I didn't have to worry just yet because I had no boyfriend, no intention of having one and better still the blood did not show up for the next 4 months. At 17 though, when I started living on my own in the university campus and then I got a boyfriend. And life went on ... with my whole sexual vocabulary from a competent female authority in my life was compacted in that one sentence.

Till date, I have never had the privilegeof having someone who cares give me a heartfelt genuine talk about sex. Are our mothers so busy that they can't shed light on this important aspect of the lives of their daughters (and sons)? Should we just allow kids grow and be blown about like chaff; with every puff of the wind?

I appreciate my mum for a 1000 things she did wonderfully, but I wish this had been that extra one thing she had taken the time to educate me on, because I KNOW a mother of five girl children and one boy child has had enough education about sex, even if it is just from the school of hard knocks and lessons learnt.

What is the fear that parents have openingup and telling their kids about sex?

• How about telling me that I could get STDs or become pregnant from unprotected sex?


• Or that being in an isolated place with a member of the opposite sex makes me vulnerable to the temptation to indulge in sex?


• Or better still telling me how my menstrual cycle works?


• How about explaining to me that those kids I used to envy because they had "it all figured out" and were having boyfriends at an early age were not the ones to look up to or copy cos they seemed cool?


• Why not tell me that if I chose to have sex it should be with someone who respects me? Or just wait to have sex with my husband?


• Why not explain to me what respect looks like when a man shows it to a woman?


• Why not tell me that I am beautiful and validate me, so I don't go looking for my self-worth from ignorant boys who may themselves be misinformed and under the control of raging hormones?


• Or just simply, for the sake of preservation, teach me about methods of contraception, including abstinence. Inform me all about their advantages, disadvantages and shortcomings, please!

No, I didn't get all that! I got this information in fragmented pieces over the years and also from the hard knocks of certain consequences of my actions.

I believe that if my mother (or any maternal figure I looked up to) could have shown me the right path, instead of letting me stumble in the dark, I would have made a lot of decisions differently.

At the age of 15, I was impressionable and what I was told could sink into my conscious and subconscious thereby guiding me in the future. Also, the initiation of such a dialogue would have been a doorway for me to always come boldly to my mum for ANY concerns about sex. This could have made our relationship a thousand times richer at that time.

I am not saying I could have been a better woman than I am now, no. But I could have had a more virtuous past. I could have been prouder of myself and my parents too would have enjoyed the benefits of me making sexually empowered choices.

I don't blame my actions totally on the lack of sexual orientation, but I know my rebel past has caused my mother more than a few sleepless nights and the kind of anguish only a mother can feel if her daughter repetitivelyswerves towards the dark path.

One time I left home when I was about 21, a graduate without a job and angry with the world. I left with just my phone and some cash to live in my "boyfriend/saviour's" place ( I turned off the phone, to avoid the calls from home). The "saviour" aspect of the boyfriend is because he promised to .... well, make my life better in exactly all the ways I wanted. This saving yielded zero results and a lot of tears when I came back home. My mum had been having her church members carry on chain prayers for me while I was away.

The choices I made! I am not proud of many of them, but I know better now so I do better. I am not yet a mother, but I plan to be a light to my children in the sense that what I have learned, they not have to experience it for themselves to gain the knowledge of what is right in life. I am also on a mission to empower pre-teens/teens with sexual information that will help them make better decisions. A needlepoint shift direction today is worth a grand arc of change in the future.

"When you know better, you do better." Oprah Winfrey

How to Get Involved

I want to inform and empower preteens and teens with knowledge about sex so they can make better choices.

You can support by aiding me to improve my website and also along my journey of writing a book which will encourage parents to talk genuinely to their kids about sex.