Nancy Blakey recounts what she faced as her daughter matured.

For island author Nancy Blakey, no topic was taboo or eyebrow-raising when it came to talking to her four children.

Until the day the island mom asked her 16-year-old daughter if she was having sex.

Jenna smiled, looked down at her hands and replied, “Why do you ask?”

Blindsided by this implicit “yes,” Blakely said she “spewed” and was stunned by her own reaction. What happened next became the fodder for her essay “Sex Education,” which is included in the book “I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers” (edited by Faith Conlon and Gail Hudson, Seal Press, 2005, $15.95).

Blakey, a parent educator, will discuss why she chose to share this mother-daughter episode on Sept. 22 at Eagle Harbor Book Company (see box).

Last spring, Blakey – creator of the Mudpies Activity Book series – was asked to contribute an essay about dealing with teenagers from one of the book’s editors with whom she had previously worked.

“I thought it was a regional book with regional authors,” said Blakey, who was surprised to find she was sharing space with well-known authors she admires.

More than 230 essays were submitted for the book.

Making the cut were Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists Anna Quindlen and Dave Barry, as well as Marion Winik of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Topics run the gamut, from tattoos to drugs to leaving the nest.

Some are funny; some are sad; and some are bittersweet.

Blakey’s first ideas were politely rejected. The editors told her they wanted real-life edgy encounters between parents and teens.

That’s when she thought about Jenna.

“I really wanted to write this. It was a cathartic thing,” Blakey said. “I didn’t try to write about this before.”

Blakey sought her daughter’s approval and then unearthed the feelings that are still strong nine years later.

“I would write and I would show her what I had written,” Blakey said. “(Jenna) was a definite part of the process. She loved the essay, though she was embarrassed. I used her real name because I wanted to humanize it. I did change (the boyfriend’s) name.”

A book signing in New York was no problem, she said, but Seattle is a bit touchier.

“Jenna – she’s 25 now – this is her tribe. Her community,” said Blakey, herself a graduate of Bainbridge High School.

Blakey started her children’s sex education at an early age. Her husband, Greg, has a fish processing business, and every summer when school let out, all the Blakeys spent six weeks working in Alaska, even through high school.

During sockeye salmon season, when they were young, Blakey told her daughter and three younger sons how baby salmon are made.

When Jenna’s body matured, Blakey gave her some advice.

As she wrote: “I told her she would know when she was ready for sex. That it would be a long, long time. That she needed to be in a loving, committed relationship with someone who would support any decision she made. And it had to be her choice, no one else’s.”

With a bemused smile, Blakey said, “It was everything I asked, only I pictured it three years later. Eighteen would have been different.”

Blakey doesn’t remember the boyfriend coming around after the fateful conversation, but she held nothing against him.

“The focus of my anger was pure Jenna,” she said.

Jenna thought her mother’s reaction was “schizo.” Her father was nonchalant about the news.

“Greg always had the big picture about it,” Blakey said. “He understood the dynamic of the whole thing. He said we were the same age. I said, ‘No, we were not!’”

Blakey immediately regretted how she railed at Jenna.

“Knowing it was wrong – in such a tribal, unconscious way – I was very disappointed in myself,” Blakey said.

“I knew that I could have done that one better. Parents have no ability to push rewind. It was a humbling experience.”

Blakey said when she’s really upset, she’s “a slasher and a burner” and owes that response to fear.

“Once you’re sexually active, you don’t close the door,” she said. “(The next question is) What do you do with the information?”

Shortly after their conversation, Jenna went to school in England for a couple of months.

“We both leaned on our relationship,” Blakey said.

“The bulk of our relationship was so close. We had repaired a lot before sending her off.

“I told Jenna several times I’m sorry. She finally said to me, ‘I’ve forgiven you, Mom. Now you have to forgive yourself.’”

At that time, Blakey added, her three younger boys “certainly seemed loving and perfect.”

As for Jenna and her boyfriend:

He went off to college, and by the next year she was dating someone else.

Jenna graduated from Evergreen College. This fall she’s going to Oxford, to work on a master’s degree in science.

Blakey’s sons now are 19, 21, and 23. Blakey has written about the boys for years, since her Mudpies columns first appeared in Seattle’s Child magazine in 1987. While they are proud of their mother, they didn’t want to know too much about her essay on their sister.

Having seen four children through their teen years, Blakey offers this pearl of wisdom to parents steadying themselves for that journey:

“Never, never, never, never give up on your children. No matter how much they hurt you. A good relationship is cultivated early….and can carry just about anything. And you can lean on it really, really hard.”

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Let’s talk

Nancy Blakey will discuss her essay “Sex Education,” from the book “I Wanna Be Sedated: 30 Writers on Parenting Teenagers,” at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at Eagle Harbor Book Company.

Because of the frank subject matter, Blakey requests that no little children attend her reading. See www.nancyblakey.com for Mudpies art, science and craft activities.

Sharing the bill are Seattle parents and corporate veterans Carolyn Harvey and Beth Herrild and island contributor Jennifer Easley, authors of “Comfortable Chaos: Forget “Balance and Make Career and Family Choices That Work for You.” This book offers a “refreshing and unique approach to work-life balance, using the metaphor of a ride on a whitewater raft.”

Information: 842-5332.