This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Licky Lindsay: anxiety and awkwardness about The Talk, on the part of both parent and child, is Truth in Television.
Ununnilium: I dunno, is it really? I've never observed such.
Tanto: Me neither. Thinking on it a little more, it may be that this is assumed to be true because that's the way it's always portrayed on television. Do we have that?
Lale: It's never awkward in the same way it is on tv. The Talk on tv is mostly awkward not only because they can't be explicit due to Media Watchdogs, but because they can't even appear to be too comfortable with the subject for the same reason. In real life, it all depends on the people, and location; i.e. The Talk in the car is much less awkward than in the kitchen.
Fast Eddie: Tanto, nope. Something like Only True On TV would collect a number of examples, methinks. Or Trope Truth. Anyway, it darn near a good index title.
Medinoc: I recall examples of children using The Talk to distract their parents or blackmail them into listening.
- In one of the Beethoven films, to distract the father while the brother sneaks the dog(s?) into the house.
- Often seen in comedy for forcing the parent into anwsering a quesiton:
Child: "Dad, what is this?"Dad: ...Child: "Dad, what is this?"Dad: ...Child: "Dad, how are babies made?"Dad: "Well, this is..."
From the main page:
- Frequently subverted when it turns out the child already knows as much if not more about the topic than the parent (who thus feels some combination of relief at not having to give the talk and horror at the corruption of their "innocent" one), to the point that this has become a trope in itself (which makes this a Dead Horse Trope).
If that particular subversion of "the talk" is a trope in itself, shouldn't there be a link to that subversion-trope?
