Gwyneth Paltrow says she never gave her kids 'the talk' about sex because they learned it all at elementary school
- On "Red Table Talk," Gwyneth Paltrow said her kids learned "everything" about sex in 6th grade.
- Now she lets her kids, 15 and 17, know she's there to talk. "Otherwise, I just leave it."
- Paltrow talked about how she counteracts messaging girls need to be f--able.
Gwyneth Paltrow is grateful she never had to give her kids "the talk" because their elementary school did it for her.
"Thank God, at their elementary school - elementary school, by the way, in 6th grade - had the craziest sex ed talk. It was incredible," Paltrow said on the latest episode of Red Table Talk, released Wednesday on Facebook Watch.
Paltrow, whose Netflix series "Sex, Love, and Goop," came out last week, joined RTT cohosts Jada Pinkett-Smith and Pinkett Smith's mom, Adrienne Banfield Norris ("Gammy"), to talk about women's sexual health and raising confident girls in a social-media age.
Paltrow said her kids learned 'everything' about sex in school
Pinkett-Smith said it's "delicate" to talk to your own kids about sex. Paltrow cut in to say she mostly hasn't had to.
When her kids were in sixth grade, they learned "everything-everything," she said. "I will never forget Apple's face when she came home. [The teacher] told them everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything."
Paltrow said Apple, now 17, hadn't asked her anything about sex before then. "I don't think kids want to talk to their parents about sex that much," she said, adding that she's always let Apple know she's there if they want to talk. "Otherwise, I just leave it."
She does the same for Moses, now 15. "He's at a phase where we're extremely close and ... he doesn't want me to show a bra strap, let alone ask him a question about a girl."
Paltrow said she tries to counteract messaging that young girls need to be 'f---able'
When the subject turned to porn, Paltrow said she's disturbed by how its imagery and messages infiltrate the culture.
"I feel like girls, young girls, are getting the message that they have to be f---able. That's the No. 1 priority," she said. "It's so awful and it's doing such a disservice."
Paltrow said she sees that message reflected in young girls' poses on Instagram. "What is that? And it's because that's what they think is the metric of success" - that someone wants to have sex with them.
She said she tries to instill other values as a parent by focusing on the question: "Who are the human beings I'm raising?"
"What can I do in the house to counteract as much of this as possible? How do you raise a girl that feels good about who she is? What's the messaging? What's the quality of listening with them at the dinner table? What is the quality of the interaction or the time together? What are those things that you can bring to your parenting that make them feel like, 'Oh, I'm funny!' or 'I did have a good idea'?"
Paltrow said she's moved by a quote from the anonymous artist Banksy: "A lot of parents will do anything for their kids except let them be themselves."
"I just try to be really conscious of letting them emerge as who they are, and being loving and supportive," she said.