A friend in college could never say the word ‘sex’. She used the euphemism ‘kissing and cuddling’ instead. I laughed at her 20 years ago. Now, I am tempted to resort to it when I speak to my son about that three-letter word. As parents today, we have an additional responsibility: to talk about safety, about consent, and also about sexual diversity — the choices we have about whom to love, the choice to identify or not identify with the gender we were born with.

There was something about choices that scared our parents (and some of us too). My son’s generation has it easier. They didn’t wait for us to give them choices; they took them. They decided, very young, who they’d like to be, what they’d like to do, who to ‘kiss and cuddle’ with and who to say no to. Or that they were figuring it out.

Where does that leave our ‘sandwiched generation’? We’d really like to have these discussions — about sex, sexuality, gender — but don’t know how, or even where to begin. We’re still holding that brown paper bag of sanitary napkins and condoms.

Having ‘The Talk’ is no longer recommended by mental-health pros. It’s not Band-Aid, where you go through the ripping-off ordeal once, never to have to revisit it. The more evolved parent will perhaps go back to the subject once a year or so. But there is awkwardness.

Like the kind at a friend’s wedding. She was marrying an Englishman, and as discussions of how the ceremony would proceed unfolded, he brought in the bit about kissing her. She said her parents would be horrified to see something like that. He said his would if they didn’t. They met midway, settling on a hug and a kiss. They were in their 40s and hosting their own wedding. They gave ‘kissing and cuddling’ a new meaning.

How do we tell our children that sex is a celebration — of being, of joy, of love — not necessarily for someone else but of ourselves? Can we just come out and say it like that? Will they understand? Will they listen? Or will our awkwardness filter down ?

“Conversations are not a part of our culture,” a psychiatrist told me recently. It’s really about talking without judgement, and listening. It’s also about NOT lecturing/ordering/shouting — an impossibility when you’re doing it through the day (“Throw your clothes for a wash”; “Make your bed”; “Do your homework”; “Wear a condom”.)

Which is why peer parenting has found its way into our lives. “Don’t you have anything better to do than gossip about us?” my son asked me, of one of our mum meet-ups, where we drink wine (or rum or beer) and catch up on who’s seeing whom in school, and who’s saying what on Instagram . That was the opening to a conversation. I took it. Sometimes, wine (for the adult) is all it takes. Yes, I’m the adult.