But won't kids learn about AIDS, safe sex and all the rest of it in school?
Unfortunately, the quality and completeness of sex education in public schools varies dramatically from place to place. "In general, we think it's horribly inadequate-less than 10 percent of American kids get what we feel is adequate sex education in school," says Deborah Haffner, executive director of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States.

But more than that, kids would really rather hear it from you. When teenagers :;rre polled about where they'd like to learn about sex-from friends, school counselors or their parents-nine out often say they would prefer to hear about it from Mom and Dad. It's your job. And it could be your finest hour. Why not rise to the occasion? Here's some good general advice about how to go about giving your child helpful, accurate and potentially lifesaving information about sex.

The big talk doesn't work. Many parents still picture themselves (someday) sitting down with their teenage son or daughter, awkwardly clearing their throats and launching into a 2-hour keynote address about the joys, sorrows and physio¬logical complexities of sex. No wonder they never get around to doing it! Just thinking about it is embarrassing. (Also, not many of us know enough about sex to last that long.)

But the plain fact is "the big talk doesn't work," says Howard Ruppel, executive director of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex. That's simply not the way kids (or anybody else, for that matter) really learn things. We absorb information in little snippets, over time, rather than having a dump truck-load of it poured on our heads all at once. The "big talk" quickly turns into information overload, and the child hardly remembers anything. After all, when you were in school learning mathematics, you didn't learn it just once-you spent years at the task.

The earlier, the better. A much better approach is to think of your child's entire childhood as a time of learning - about trees and animals, about the exports of Venezuela and about sex. And the earlier you begin, the easier it is for everybody, say a host of experts.

What's too early? "When is it too early to teach a kid about red wagons, or how chicks hatch out of eggs?" Ruppel responds. "What families need to do from the cradle onward is treat reproduction as just another part of life and establish an easy, natural communication about it. "

Parents who wony that they may be giving their kids too much, too early, should relax - kids tend to process only what they're ready for. "If they're too young to understand it, it just goes in one ear and out the other. They don't even remember it," says Jean Brown, developer of an innovative sex education program called the Parent-ehild Sexuality Education Program. But if they're ready, it sticks.

Don't be embarrassed. Parents often have trouble talking to kids about sex, at least partly because they're embarrassed about it themselves. But the kids aren't-at least not while they're still young. Research has shown that kids don't usually feel uncomfortable talking about pregnancy and childbirth until some¬time between the ages of eight and ten, which is one more reason why starting early makes the whole thing easier for everybody.

Become a masterful question-answerer. Take the opportunity, whenever it presents itself (say, a pregnancy or birth in the neighborhood, or a trip to the zoo or the farm), to tell them a little about "the birds and the bees." If you're unsure about your child's level of comprehension, start out by asking them what their ideas of childbirth are. That way, you can get a better feel for where they stand and tailor your responses accordingly.

If they ask questions, respond calmly, honestly and simply. Don't make things up and don't evade. Becoming a masterful question-answerer-whether the subject be sex or the seaworthiness of the Santa Maria-is one of the great marks of successful parenting, say the experts.

Buy time. Kids have a way of picking totally inappropriate moments to ask profound or embarrassing questions. In the supermarket checkout line, scanning the latest headlines in the tabloids, they'll turn and ask, "Mommy, what is rape?" At moments like these, you feel you really must give the child a fair and honest answer- but not now! The solution, says Brown, is just to buy time. Don't ignore the question or give an evasive answer, but promise the child you'll talk about it later-in the car on the way to soccer practice, for instance. "Parents don't need to feel that they must always have a ready answer for questions about sex," says Brown. "Give yourself a little time to think about it first. "

Call a spade a spade. When kids ask you questions about sex, give them answers that are both honest and accurate. Don't make up dumb, cutesy names for body parts. Human reproduction is as lovely and perfect a thing as the ocean by moonlight or the aurora borealis, and there's no reason to be ashamed of it. Call a penis a penis, not a wee-wee, a pee-pee or a "thing."
"If you were telling a kid not to cross the street until he looked for cars, you wouldn't call a car a bippy, would you?" asks Ruppel. "We don't use made-up names for anything else, so why do we use them when we're talking about sex?"

Made-up names simply force kids to relearn the right names later-and some how it communicates the message that we think talking about the body is nasty or wrong. Decide what your sexual values are. Sex education is very value-laden, and it should be. Kids need to know not only the physiological facts of sex but how you feel about them.

"The fundamental question is, What sexual values do I want to teach my kids?" says Haffner. Wh3.t values you decide to teach them is a matter of personal conscience. But very often, even people with fiercely held religious or moral convictions have not clearly thought out what sexual values they'd like to communicate to their kids. It's important to think about this and to precisely and consciously decide what they are to be.

"With our whole society in such a state offlux, most people are completely at a loss about what sort of sexual values to pass down to their kids," says Ruppel. "Usually they just recycle their parents' values, or they fall back on the old myths-stuff about storks and cabbage patches and getting hair on your hands. Neither solution is really adequate. You have to think it through for yourself."

If you say nothing, you're saying something. You communicate powerful messages about love, physical affection and sex to your kids all the time, whether you know it or not. When you come home from work and give your spouse a hug and a kiss-or don't-you're communicating a message to kids about whether physical affection is permissible. When you allow their childhoods to slip by without ever uttering a word about sex - that, too, is a powerful message, and kids get it loud and clear.

"I teach a sex education course at the University oflowa, and every year I have my students write an autobiography," says Ruppel. "Every year, nearly all of them write, 'I received no sex education in my home.' And every year, I have to say to them 'No, you received a lot of sex education at home-what you learned was: Don't ask any questions.' "

Adds Haffner: "When you say to a small child 'Here's your nose, here's your belly, here's your knees, and here's your toes,' you've just taught the kid that there's a part of the body that has no name-a part that is not spoken of."

Try to become conscious of the nonverbal ways you transmit negative messages about love and sex, through all the things you don't say and all the things you don't do. Try to turn those errors of omission into a continual demonstration of what it means to be a loving, mature and sexually responsible adult. It's the best way to teach kids about the birds and the bees.

"I have come to believe," says Haffner, "that the best sex education would simply be to have two parents who love each other."