Dear Queenie,

My sons are growing up and it is time someone told them the facts of life, but their father is no use. He told them they shouldn’t “do it” until they were married because they would burn in hell if they did, and left it at that.

Queenie, I know this isn’t enough, but what should I do?—Worried mother

Dear Worried mother,

Tell your husband that what he has told them is far from being enough, and that if he doesn’t give them all the information a teenager needs in this day and age, you will. Then, if he still doesn’t have that talk with them, you should do it.

It is possible that your husband is too uninformed or too embarrassed to do the job properly, so sit down with him and talk over exactly what he should be telling the boys.

They need to know how a girl does and doesn’t get pregnant, what safe sex is and why it is so important, what their responsibilities are in such matters, how to use a condom correctly (it is amazing how many grown men and women don’t know this), and the truth about such myths as “you can’t get pregnant the first time, or if you do it standing up, or right before or after the girl’s period, or if the girl takes a pill the next day, etc., etc.”

If you are not sure you have the correct information, or if you also are too embarrassed, arrange for your family doctor or some other trusted adult to have this talk with each of them before he becomes sexually active, which means (to be safe) before he reaches puberty.

Dear Queenie,

When I was 10 years old my parents used to leave me at home alone when they went out for the afternoon or evening. I wasn’t afraid to be alone. By the time I was 12 they would leave me to take care of my younger sister and about that time I started babysitting for some of their friends.

My 12-year-old daughter knows all this and thinks I am treating her like a baby for still refusing to leave her alone in the house. She also wants to start babysitting outside the home.

I say times have changed and it is more dangerous for a child nowadays.

Queenie, what do you think?—Cautious mother

Dear Cautious mother,

I think you are right. These days it is not safe to leave a child alone until he or she is big enough and self-confident enough to fight off or escape from an adult intruder, which is to say, well into his or her teens.

Meanwhile, however, you could enrol your daughter in some classes in self-defence and child care, so she will be prepared when you are ready to leave her alone or in charge of younger children, or, God forbid, in case anyone ever attacks her.

You could also let her work occasionally as a “mother’s helper”; that is, look after younger children while their mother is resting or doing other housework. That way she will gain valuable experience for when she is big enough and old enough to babysit alone.

Dear Queenie,

My wife has a set of encyclopedias that someone gave her when she was in school. That was so many – many! – years ago that they are now very much out of date, but she still refers to them and won’t give them up.

She intends to pass them on to our grandchildren when she dies and she just doesn’t understand that they won’t use them because nowadays they just look things up online and they probably won’t even have any space for them.

Queenie, what do you suggest?—Her husband

Dear Husband,

Even if they don’t use the encyclopedias, your grandchildren probably will treasure them in memory of their grandmother, and they may actually even refer to them now and then, if only to see how things “used to be”.

Box them up and store them away until the time comes to pass them on, and try not to be offended if the recipients do not react the way their grandmother would have expected.

Dear Queenie,

The other day I looked out the window and saw the man who cleans my yard urinating against one of my trees. He didn’t even have the decency to turn his back to the house, but of course, if he had he would have been facing the street, although there is a fence and the tree would have been between him and anyone on the street.

I don’t speak his language and he doesn’t seem to understand mine (I explain what I want him to do with signs and gestures), so there was no way for me to reprimand him about this, but it reminded me about something someone told me when I first came to the island.

They said it was not illegal for a man to urinate in public on the French side as long as he did not shake his penis afterwards to get rid of the last drop of urine.

Queenie, is that true?—Curious

Dear Curious,

I have heard the same story. I don’t know if it is true. You would have to ask a Gendarme or a lawyer on the French side. Maybe one of them will be kind enough to write to me and set the record straight.

However, legal or not, it seems to me that such behaviour is certainly uncouth, not to mention unsanitary!