Discussing “Safe Sex” With Your Parents

September 23, 2009 awellwomansjourney
Tags: parents, Sandwich Generation, STD's

I get a variety of newsletters and health information via e-mail but this one really got me thinking. HealthDay reported “Older widowers who recently lost their wives are more likely to have a sexually transmitted disease than their counterparts who are still married.”

I have to confess, I initially chuckled over this lead paragraph. Dirty old men, I thought. But as I read the entire news brief, I actually felt a wave of anxiety.

The study looked at more than 400,000 U.S. couples aged 67 to 99 years in 1993. Within six months to a year after their wives died, men were 16 percent more likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease. And for recently widowed men, the risk of having a sexually transmitted disease rose by 83 percent after 1998. That’s the year that Viagra went on the market as a treatment for erectile dysfunction. Again I just shook my head-until I really gave that statistic some thought.

My parents are roughly 70 years old and as far as I know, they are in reasonably good health. Now, should my father pass away my mother would again enter the dating pool-an arena she’s not been a part of since the late 1950′s. When my mom was a young woman, the most common STD’s were mono (not technically a STD but a virus spread by kissing) and gonorrhea. In my mother’s day, there was virtually (or literally ) no Chlamydia, genital warts or Herpes. Now at the tender age of 70, she would not only be exposed to, but according to this study she would be at increased risk of contracting a STD.

Now this is what broke me out into a cold sweat. Would I need to discuss safe sex with my mom? Many of you are like me, a member of the “sandwich” generation; raising your own family while also caring for (or at least monitoring the health and well being of) your parents. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t imagine discussing safe sex practices with my mom (or my dad should the situation be reversed!) How does one even broach such a topic? And at what point does such a discussion become infringement of privacy?

My head went into a dizzy whirl as I pondered this situation. However the more I thought about it, the more I am convinced that we children HAVE to have such conversations with our parents. They are from a generation when such topics weren’t openly discussed and quite frankly, many of our parents may have absolutely no idea how serious the STD situation has become. Gone are the days when a simple course of antibiotics solved the immediate shame. Today our parents can contract diseases that they could carry for the rest of their lives or that could actually kill them.

I can’t think of a more awkward topic to discuss with either of my parents at this stage in our lives. But the facts are what they are. Just as I love my children and want them to make wise health care choices, I want the same for my parents. One can only make wise, informed choices when they have the necessary tools and information. Just as I will swallow hard and have “the talk” with my children, I shall will also bite from the other side of this ‘sandwich’ I’m in and have a similar talk with my parent(s).

The study appears in the Sept. 17, 2009 online edition and the November print issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Entry Filed under: The Health of Our Parents

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