I'm a big fan of embarrassing people. My family has  a longstanding tradition of shaming one another, just for fun, so I grew up in an environment where I couldn't go to the bathroom without someone asking me if I was "going to take a poop." At age 20.

Really, there's been nothing more exciting to me than having kids of my own. Kids who made my skin sag, my nipples leak, and who don't allow me to use the bathroom without an audience.

Well, it's time (rubs hands craftily) to pay them back.

I don’t hide much from Tween Girl. I maintain a pretty open policy in our house to make her feel comfortable to come and talk to me about everything that might be weighing on her pretty little pre-teen mind. Boys, school, boys, family, boys, fashion… you know — all the important stuff.

I also don’t pull any punches when it comes to explaining the experience of being a single mom. Sometimes I think parents, God bless ‘em for their protectiveness, try to shield their kids from the hardscrabble honesty of raising children solo because they don’t want them to feel guilty or obligated to shoulder their stress along with them.

That’s the way I operated for a long time too, especially when she was younger. You just don’t need to saddle a third grader with the vicissitudes of grown-up-ness. (Heck, if I had my druthers I wouldn’t be bothered with it myself.) Then I realized that being secretive wasn’t helping her. 

In the throes of a vicious migraine, I was blearily sitting in my kitchen, mumbling to my husband, The Daver, and waiting for the Vicodin to kick in. My eyeballs felt like they were going to pop out of my skull and onto my sandwich.

My eldest son chose that very inopportune moment to march into the kitchen with a horrified look on his face.

He'd been reading, I knew, from a book that The Daver and I had bought him when we'd found out that we were pregnant with his brother Alex. Why the renewed interest in baby-making, I didn't know, but he loves the book, which is good enough for me.

"LISTEN TO THIS," he said to us, a look of awe and disgust on his face.

I couldn't see what page he was on, but already I knew I wasn't prepared. Even with my eyeballs about to pop out of my skull, I knew what particular bit of the book he'd discovered.

It's a scary thought for parents. One day your child comes home with a book from the school library that's all about how to masturbate. And now they want to know: hey Mom, do YOU masturbate? It says in here it feels gooooood.

No wonder one mom in Washington State is clutching her pearls and having a hissy that her 10-year-old daughter, Kaleigh, brought What's the Big Secret? Talking About Sex With Boys and Girls home from school. Now Jennifer Swedeoson has to answer questions ... and she's telling the school it's all their fault that she's in this precarious position! Now, I've got a question for you. Is 10 really too young for the masturbation talk?

Quick: name three things you wouldn't mind your elementary school-aged daughter growing up to be. Doctor? Lawyer? Happy? How about the Future Mrs. Justin Bieber?

I mean the Biebs no disrespect, but I'd rather the teen star steer clear of the bookbag and pigtails set for a little while longer. Problem is I'm seeing "Future Mrs. Bieber" shirts popping up lately, and they're not on the chests of boy crazy teens. They're made for girls in elementary school or younger.

For sale: know-it-all tween who, despite having all the answers, can’t seem to keep track of homework or know when to keep mouth shut. Omnipotent Preteen Princess comes with amazing acting ability and can command tears in the face of impending punishment. Make best offer.

I kid, of course. If sarcasm could be converted into patience, I’d have what I need to deal with Miss Thing’s antics. Yesterday, I got an irritated call from a teacher — in the middle of the day, which you know is hardly ever good news — who told me that Skylar had been talking excessively in school. During the obligatory heart-to-heart after this sort of thing goes down, she told me she doesn’t always confide in me because (wait for it) I try to teach her too much.

She ain’t seen the half it. There are oodles of things I — and other moms — need to get across to our daughters before they gallop across the threshold of womanhood. 

Date nights for you and your boo have been few and far between for a laundry list of reasons (although the laundry itself thankfully isn’t actually one of them). So when y’all quiet the household, tuck in the children, and steal away to your boudoir for a long overdue night together, it's full of unbridled romance and passion — until your 8-year-old opens the door and sees you, his mother, tangled up in an act of naughtiness.

Get the therapist on line one. Pronto.

You’ve managed to shield him from those types of scenes by forbidding him from after-hours shows on HBO and Cinemax, but here Junior gets a bird’s eye view in his own home of his own parents doing the deed that brought him into creation. He sat through The Talk about the birds and the bees, but never did you ever think you’d have to include Mommy and Daddy as visual aides.

Now, what do you say to a kid who’s been an eyewitness to his parents having sex?

Some time last year, my daughter sprouted an interest in boys. It happened, like so many things concerning kids, almost overnight. One day I was asking her if she thought so-and-so was cute and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Then, maybe a few months later during dinner one night, she casually worked the word “boyfriend” into the conversation. 

“Boyfriend,” I coughed. “Whose boyfriend?” 

“Mine,” she answered nonchalantly, rolling her spaghetti around on her fork with the same la la la easiness as if she had just told me she needed me to sign a permission slip or drop her off to school a half hour early. “His name is Daniel.”