If you have a 15+ year-old son, it is time to talk about topics related to sexual maturity.

An important topic is conception and the most basic information he needs to know is how a sperm meets an egg. For him to make sense of this important moment, it would help to have knowledge about girl anatomy because that is where it’s all happening.

Illustration from I’m a Boy, Sexual Maturity

In this illustration from my book, I’m a Boy, Sexual Maturity, you can see semen containing sperm within the vagina. There are about 100 million sperm in an ejaculation ready to find their way to the fallopian tube in search of an egg.

Out of that large number of sperm that start the journey, only about 50-100 make it to the fallopian tube.  Normally, the egg only welcomes a single sperm and reproduction begins. The egg waits one day, the day of ovulation, for a sperm and then it moves on to the uterus. That is the end of the story for that egg.

The take away message is that timing is everything and, sadly, that cannot be certain. To understand the timing issue, your son should learn about the menstrual cycle and when ovulation happens. This sounds like a great topic for another blog and another brief chat with your son.