I gave my first birds and the bees talk tonight. I was worried about it. Well, actually, I wasn’t really worried about what I would say, or how I would say it, or even the fact I would have to say anything. I was worried that our 7.5-year-old daughter was never going to ask a question that would lead into the talk, and we’d have to sit her down one day and just tell her out of the blue. I really wanted it to be a result of a question she had. And that’s how it turned out.
We have been wanting to tell her for quite awhile, but wanted to wait until she asked more specific questions than “where do babies come from”. While we were having father’s interview tonight (we do them on Fast Sundays), I asked her to get me our How Are Babies Made book. I wanted to give her another chance to ask a question.
I decided I would go through the book?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùit was written for young children, and has a lot of pictures and language designed for children?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùand after each page would ask her if she had any questions.
The first page was pretty uneventful. It pretty much discussed how babies come in different sizes and colours. Her question was, “How big are babies when they are born”. “All different sizes, but usually between six and ten pounds.
The second page talked about the egg and the sperm and how some sperm create girls and some sperm create boys. One of the things it discusses is that the sperm is in the man’s body and the egg in the woman’s body. Her question was, “How does the sperm get from the man’s body to the woman’s body”. This was my chance! “The man puts his penis inside the woman’s vagina and the sperm travels from the penis, through the vagina and into the uterus where it meets the egg”.
Before we finished the rest of the book, we took advantage of the opportunity to also discuss chastity, including fidelity. We also discussed the importance of being born into a family with parents who are married.
Anyhow, I am glad that is over. I was beginning to think we were either going to have a ten-year-old girl who would never ask more specific questions or that we’d have to sit her down and bring it up out of the blue.
Glad that’s not the case.
I should add, we both gave the talk to her together. Whew. That’s done for a couple of years now.
any particular reason for the rush for “the talk”? Was it just so you could get it over with or was there a specific reason?
Because Sinéad is the same age now that Mary and I were when we heard about it.
And we want to make sure she hears it first from us :) Well, it is less likely she would hear it from peers as she is homeschooled, but it still could happen.