About the birds and the bees.   You’re supposed to match the answer to the children’s level of interest.

So, my two girls are 2 years 9 months apart.  The older daughter was in a Montessori school, and probably 3 1/2 years old.  This was just before Thanksgiving.  She asked me, finally, how her younger sister, Sarah, had gotten out of my stomach?  (The baby was in my stomach, growing, and when it was ready to come out, I’d go to the hospital, and we’d all be happy, was what I told her at 2)

I said that a place in my bottom opened up, and she came out.  It was not, I said, discretely, where the poo comes out….

Hey, trying to match age and curiousity here!

The next day is Thanksgiving Day.  We’ve headed off to a very cute local park where they do a feeding of the tiny zoo.  After the feeding Erin announced that she had to go potty.   The park had just closed, so we are in the bigger park and head towards the public bathrooms, which have very bright acoustics.

"Mommy,"  Erin announces, in the bathroom, "Sarah came out of your vagina!  Boys have penises and girls have vaginas!"

"Why, yes dear," say I, trying not to howl with laughter while looking at another mother, equally struggling. "You are absolutely right.  Boys have penises, and girls have vaginas!"

You have to give them what they need, as they need it.  Sometimes they need technical terms at an early age.

My girls are now 14 and 17.  They are not sexually active, but they do know about birth-control and protection.  Happily, they have decided that education is important, and that boys at this age, aren’t going to be the loves of their lives.   And why risk health and life and future?

They also understand that being a mother is the most important job of their lives, so they need to be prepared to support themselves, and their future children, should they *want* children.

Since their father has been less than a tower of strength in the past 5 years, they understand even better, alas, that you really don’t know what is going to happen in the future. 

Cheers,

Constance

who spent 20 foolish years with a starter husband!

Cute story:

When my daughter was 4 she asked where babies come from. I explained that when married (setting the right scenario early), the husband gives his wife a magic seed, which lead to her question, "How?", so I replied he uses his magic wand, leading to babies grow in the wife’s magic bag in her tummy, completing with they come out of her magic hole. My daughter mulled this over a little and said, "When my husband wants to give me a magic seed, I’m going to say no thank you."

She is now 26, happily married, and hoping for the magic to begin.

I laughed as I read Candice’s post - I, too, have had the ‘talk’ in the car! My son was in the front seat and we were on the highway so eye contact had no part in the process at all. My friends all found this hilarious, but now I can cite others who have used a similar method.

My main point to my children has been (and remains to this day when they are 20 and 17) that although their bodies are physically mature and ready for sex, their brains still have a lot of growing up to do and it should be the brain that makes the decision regarding sexual activity and the the responsibility that goes along with it.

Oh, another related note: my daughter (age 17) and I were having a sexuality-related conversation the other day and at one point she laughed and asked, ‘Don’t you wish we were in the car right now so you wouldn’t have to look at me?’ I had to laugh and inside I was grateful that we are able to just sit down and have these conversations whenever necessary.

When I tried to have The Talk with my daughter (complete with gifts - moon pads, a moon bowl for soaking cloth pads, information about other products, etc.), she brushed me off, telling me she already knew. Hmmmm Ok. So when I noticed she’d "started", I threw a Moon Party for her! We invited women - her grandmother, our local midwife who was a friend of the family, the midwife’s daughter who was near Angie’s age, another family friend who was my mother’s age) - had light refreshments, sang women songs to her, talked to her as a woman, not as a child. Angie tried to act like she was embarrassed, but secretly she loved it because it was so different from anything her friends had experienced. (By the way, she was allowed to invite any friends she wanted, but she didn’t think her friends would understand a Moon Party.)

 Fast forward a year or two and another young friend of the family was visiting, and I mentioned to her that "I heard you’d become a woman!". She turned beet red and exclaimed, "I’m going to kill my mother for telling everyone!" I told her that her mother hadn’t told me, her father did! LOL She wanted to crawl through the floor. Angie laughed and told her, "Be glad you don’t have my mother! I got a Moon Party thrown in my honor!" Again, she was proud of it and thought it was funny (yet odd) that Heather was so embarrassed about something all women experience, something that sets us apart from men, and something that gives us power as women.

I tought I always was an open book and told my girls as their curiosity grew on how this is all happening. I truly thought I did a good job.

Not so according to my oldest. She tells the world that I got a book at the doctors office and showed them how it was done and it was all about two frogs. One big frog on the back of another one was not what she liked at all.

 I want a replay, one of us is wrong with this story.

Of course she is now 50 she may be starting to forget things.

Our children would always ask their questions at dinner time so it was known as the "white knuckle" gulp.  It would start innocently enough with one of them saying "Mom, I know you never lie to us…." because, yes, their father would lie to them :) and would continue on.  It was at this time that I would be gripping the edges of my chair tightly.  I knew a question about my own sex life was coming, not my sex life now, but my sex life before marriage.  Once they said we know what you were doing in there ("there" being our bedroom where I had two locks on the door), we heard you laughing — I had finally had enough and said that’s because I was having fun.

Our daughter as well said that her kids are now picking dinner time as the time to ask their questions.  Their father gulps his food down and finds something else to do….big guy, coward.  She tried what I did:  just answer the question that is asked, don’t volunteer any more.  That worked for a little while — until the other night.  So she told them.  Their response?  Ewwwwwwwww — did you do that?  She said at least twice.

She and I agree, what’s so great about these family dinners? 

My Mother encouraged and nourished my curiosity in everything but sex. I grew up desperate for answers. I actually remember looking underneath the mannequins  in shops to find out was was under those skirts. Life magazine featured a whole section on pregnancy and had pictures of a woman in all stages of the pregnancy. I was thrilled and pored over this, on the floor, on my knees until my father came into the room, took away the magazine and hid it which I found later. Sex, and obviously what can result from having it, was verboten. So, given that kind of restriction, when I had children I went completely in the opposite direction giving everything proper names right from the start. Penis, vagina, uterus (no "stomach" which is laughable), sperm, etc. Picture me with my first two boys, ages three and four, describing the birthing process using a rubber band to simulate the cervix. They were, I thought, utterly captivated, until I finished and asked whether they had any questions. "Can we play with the rubber band?" Many years later when I had my third son I had learned to wait and answer HIS questions which of course I did with glee. He used to come to me while I was making dinner, draw up a stool, and we’d have those kinds of intimate talks that one looks back on and cherishes because they don’t last too long when you have boys. After a certain age if they want information they usually go to their fathers or their peers. Nowadays with the kind of access kids have and the kinds of things they see and hear,  it must be doubly hard for parents who would like to postpone explanations. 

P.S. When I was in fourth grade I announced to a friend while we were bicycling, that I knew how babies were conceived, although I’m sure I didn’t use that word. I told my friend that the man and woman would go to the doctor who would put them both to sleep, insert the man’s "thingy" into the woman’s private place and that would result in conception. The thought  that people actually performed this act on their own was inconceivable. This scene is so clear in my mind, I even remember the color of my friend’s bike. 

I have on many occasions and to many children in my lifetime. I too think it is really important that children have accurate information about their bodies and sex to counter the misinformation they will surely get from their friends.

i never had a specific birds and bees talk with my kids. we talked more about how bodies work. had some discussion about periiods and pregnancies and that type of thing. we talked a lot about being respected and respecting yourself and others. these were all done at various stages of their development depending on whatever they asked at the time. I never instigated the conversations out of nowhere. but more from something we were doing or watching or reading.

I was a probation officer all of their young formative years. i carried a specialized caseload of sex offenders for part of that time. so my kids had more opportunities to ask questions than some just based on what they assumed i did for a living partly. and all my friends in those days were probation, police, social work, school teachers, therapists, attorney’s…. people i’d met on the job. so my kids were wise about the world a bit more before their peers.