September 25, 2026

It’s just an average day in my neurosparkly household.

Over the past month, my pre-teen has been complaining of various vague physical symptoms. It started a week before return to school, so I assumed it was misdirected anxiety.

Then his younger brother (7) ended up in the emergency department to rule our testicular torsion. Don’t know what testicular torsion is? Brace yourself–the testicle wraps around such that blood supply is cut off, and if not caught timely..could result in ::SNIP SNIP::.

My baby’s testicles were ok. Just epididymitis, which is a million-dollar word for infection involving part of the scrotum. A week of antibiotics and those balls were looking just fine.

Cue to the pre-teen…who suddenly has complaints about his dick n’ balls every day.

“My weiner hurt when I pulled my underwear down.”

“Where on your weiner did it hurt?”

“On my weiner.”

Vague symptom after vague symptom. Complete inability to articulate what was going on. What is worse is that I’m a nurse mom, so it is all completely clinical to me, and I just say, “Ok, show me.”

So now, weeks later, I am tired of seeing my almost 13 year-old son’s dick. I actually don’t think I want to see a dick for the rest of my life.

For starters, puberty is happening. It’s…bigger than the last time I saw it, probably years ago. There’s…pubes. That sweet baby boy I gave birth to almost 13 years ago has man business going on inside his boxer briefs…that he is stealing from my husband because they can wear the same size.

Puberty is upon us. And instead of being grossed out about how puberty is hitting, my husband and I are desperate for our son to discover his dick. That’s right, we WANT him to figure out masturbation. Why, you ask?

After weeks of vague weiner complaints and far too many visual inspections, we finally figured it out. There’s junk under the trunk. He’s circumcised, but didn’t know to pull the little bit of skin back when it is flaccid and clean it.

Cut to my husband, son, and I in our master bathroom…explaining to him how to clean his dick. My son isn’t understanding it. He is AuDHD and has some processing delays, so this is typical. Things that seem easy to explain to me are definitely not as easy as I think they are.

I urge my husband, “SHOW HIM…you have a dick.” Instead of pulling his pants down, my husband proceeds to try to demonstrate how to clean his weiner with his hoodie sleeve. My son and I are both standing there, completely confused.

Again, “SHOW HIM.” Still, no motion to pull his adult dick out. We were eating luxurious taco bell for dinner (yes, we are THAT classy). I grab my leftover bean burrito and attempt to provide a visual.

There I am, in the bathroom, holding a bean burrito to my groin, pretending it is a dick and demonstrating how to clean it.

Still…not sinking in for my son. Finally, I look at my husband and pull his adidas shorts down to his ankles.

“SHOW HIM. You have a dick. This is YOUR department. I carried these babies for 9 months each and have done everything for them since they were born. I LITERALLY do not have the equipment to demonstrate this. It’s not hard. Show him, or I’ll demonstrate ON you and give him nightmares for decades.”

Finally, my husband demonstrates how to pull things back and clean properly. Rather timidly if you ask me. But enough to get a point across.

My son gets in the shower. It has become clear he is afraid to touch his privates. We finally settle on my son holding his dick and pulling the skin back while my husband and I take shifts trying to clean the thing.

Except that my son has never felt these feelings. “It feels weird. What is HAPPENING?” he says. Grown men know this is a GOOD feeling. My neurodivergent son that has not felt these things before registers them as “weird.”

It takes 45 minutes, but we get the job done. All gunk gone from the trunk. One tiny friggin’ swipe with a washcloth at a time because my son cannot bear the feeling more than one second, and still will not take over the task himself.

His dick is clean. For some unknown reason, my husband teaches him to blow his groin dry with my hairdryer, and now two weeks later I get the same visual every night…my preteen walking into my bathroom completely nude and defiling my hairdryer to blow his junk dry.

He’s still coming to me telling me it feels weird sometimes. Everything looks fine. He’s bathing every night. It’s a totally normal dick except that I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEEING IT AT ALMOST 13.

This is when it occurs to me that he is not as matured and developed as other boys his age. My husband even asserted that our son is “wasting his youth away” by not taking advantage of unlimited high-speed internet and progressive parents and masturbating every chance he has.

My son hasn’t figured out what his dick is for. Or that he shouldn’t want me to see him naked. I’m a progressive nurse mom. Literally, a body is a body. But y’all, I’m tired of seeing my naked almost 13 yr-old.

Please, let me him discover his dick so that he will keep his naked ass locked away inside his room and get comfortable enough to hold it and clean it in the shower.

None of this was on my parenting bingo card. Hopefully, by the next time I write an update about him, it will be me complaining about where all the socks are going and why he keeps stealing my lotions.