What My Parents Did and Did Not Teach Me 

One day while I was at work, a co-worker told me, “Hey Mari, yesterday we came to the conclusion that you are the biggest paisa of the bunch.”

After hearing this, I stood there with a blank look on my face and felt the blood rushing to my head. My pale skin started turning red and I was at a loss of words. I was offended, extremely offended, and didn’t know how to react.

Calling me “paisa” is just as bad as calling me a beaner or a spic, two of the most offensive words you can call a Mexican person.

Mind you, I work with people who have El Salvadorian, Mexican, Chinese and Nicaraguan backgrounds, and over half of them were born in their respective countries. I was born in the United States. I am an American citizen.

I sat down and started thinking of how they came to this conclusion. A storm of thoughts ran through my mind. Although the term has a myriad of definitions, I was branded this title because I did not assimilate into American culture like everyone else in my generation had.

Being Mexican is one of the things I like best about myself. My parents were born in Jalisco, Mexico, but came to the United States legally for a chance at having a better life. They brought with them the culture, traditions, music, religion, and food of their homeland. They instilled every last drop of that in me.

Being the youngest of five children, I followed my parents more closely than any of my older siblings. I made sure to learn as much as I could from them because I refused to let the culture die. If my mother had a favorite mariachi song, it soon became mine. I would play the song over and over again until I had it memorized. And when I did, I would sing it to my mother proudly, to let her know that her daughter cared about the culture just as much as she did. I was more Mexican at heart than I was American.

But the older I got, the more I began to think that many of these traditions were outdated, even detrimental to the lives of the younger generation. Being Catholic, I was always told that I had to wait until marriage to have sex, and if I didn’t, I was a sinner. That was the only form of sex education I ever received. My parents didn’t talk to me about the birds and the bees, and still don’t. While my friends were out dating guys and messing around, I stayed at home with my parents or in Oakland visiting my grandparents.

I felt like my friends didn’t have any morals, and I had too many. Why were my parents so strict with me, while my friends had all the freedom in the world? None of this ever made sense to me, but now it does.

The more my parents kept me away from my friends, the more I remained how they wanted me to be. That was their sex education to me. We never spoke about it, but my parents knew what they were doing.

On my fifteenth birthday, which is the celebration from childhood to adulthood in the Mexican culture, my parents gave me a gold necklace with a medallion of the Virgin Mary on it. I wore it proudly because it represented me, my family, and where I came from. But one night after a high school soccer game, it was stolen out of my purse, and I was devastated. I cried myself to sleep that night and woke up crying the next morning.

But soon I realized that the necklace did not define me, and with or without it, I carried the same set of standards. After all, turning fifteen for a girl means attaining a new level of maturity. I was tired of doing everything my parents wanted me to do. I was ready to call the shots.

However, it wasn’t that easy.

All those years of going to church on Sundays, listening to how badly family members shunned girls who became pregnant because they were “stupid, careless, and promiscuous” brainwashed me. Out of nowhere, I was this big prude who wasn’t going to have sex until marriage because after all, that was the way I was raised.

I did not want to be a sinner. I did not want to disappoint my parents. And I definitely did not want them to be ashamed of me.

But during the latter years of high school, I realized that I was the only one of my friends who actually stuck to her convictions. One of my best friends lost her virginity at the age of fifteen. She felt no remorse. Other friends talked about birth control like it was no big deal, and I helped a friend go through with an abortion. I was disappointed with my friends and the actions they chose to take. I was being judgmental of those who were not like me, something I was not proud of. That was a major turning point in my life.

But what do you expect of a girl who had her first kiss at the age of eighteen? As much as my friends would talk about sex, all I could do was listen to them. I couldn’t offer any advice because I wasn’t experienced enough. But listening to them was the most informal sex education I have ever received. They taught me what no textbook ever could, and what my parents couldn’t have either. I am glad they confided in me to share their most personal moments.

It is because of them that I am not the close-minded individual I once was. Although I am Catholic and go to church (though not every Sunday), I think it’s wrong to classify a person who has sex before marriage a sinner. I think it’s wrong for people to judge us based on personal choices we make that don’t harm others. I also think it’s wrong that many Latino/a parents refuse to talk to their kids about sex. Parents have the opportunity to be great resources and support systems for their children. Instead of trying to control their lives, they need to realize that their kids are going to do whatever they want, whenever they want to, so they need to teach them to be safe and smart about sex.

Now at the age of twenty-three, I jokingly ask my mother what she would think of me if I were to get pregnant.

“Nada, mija,” she answers assuredly. “You are old enough to do what you want in your life… I can’t control you.”

Maribel Rosas is a senior at San Francisco State University majoring in journalism. She interns for American Sexuality magazine.