Touchy Topic Tuesday
"Mommy, where do babies come from?"
Okay, it's no secret that there's something growing inside me. Call it a baby if you will, though, at this point in my pregnancy, I'm becoming bitter about the pain and discomfort, and he's a bit more like a parasite.
As a matter of fact, I have only around 7-9 weeks left of this pregnancy.
A confession: I have a really hard time keeping my mouth shut about anything and everything. So, my children have known about my little bundle of naked joy flipping around in there since he was nothing but a quickly dividing clump of cells.
Of course, as children do, it wasn't long before my two oldest were cornering me with questions about how the baby come OUT of my belly.
Well, for US, the answer was pretty simple. We started from the very beginning by calling our children's "private parts" by their correct names. Frankly, it drives me absolutely crazy when I hear a child refer to their vagina as a "cookie" or a "sweet spot" or a "pee pee" (or even grosser, in my opinion, for boys: "Peep"). I mean, as a married adult, I have all kinds of hilarious and derogatory names for my girly bits, but those are used amongst my friends or during those times that we call "behind closed doors", not when we're referring to our children.
I guess when it comes down to it, I was simply not raised to be bashful about the things that are simply facts of life. I mean, I tried very hard to resist that. I gagged every time my mom and dad kissed, I refused to mention it to my mother when I needed new sanitary products, and I would rather insist that I wear the same bra day in and day out rather than go with my mom to buy any extras. (Still, she kept my underwear drawer well stocked and full of clean new items, which is what I'll strive to do with my own children: Thanks mom, for that example!)
But I guess some of my mother rubbed off on me, because now, the casual mention of my son and his penis, or my girls and their vaginas make me wince a whole lot less than the adult woman who openly admits that she teaches her daughter to refer to her vagina as a "treasure box."
The answer, for our children, was simple. It takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby, which grows in mommy's tummy until it's big enough to live outside, and then, with the doctor's help, the baby is born by coming out the mommy's vagina. Does it hurt? Yes, but if it hurt TOO much, then mommy would only have had one baby, and that would be it. They're still too little to be taught the specifics of sex, but when I feel they are old enough to know, when I feel it's necessary, or when they ask with more of a mature intention, my discussion will be just as honest, forward, and most assuredly will come from me and my husband as opposed to other children at school or online sources.
As an expectant mother, I belong to a few birth boards, and all my loyal readers know I have a very complicated love/hate relationship with the whole idea of birth boards, but I find it passes the time, answers odd questions i have about whatever pain or sensation I may be dealing with, and somewhat fulfills my need for social interaction.
Of course, this subject has been addressed, probably too many times to count, where a mother is wondering exactly how to break the news to their older children without causing psychological damage.
Admittedly, I am infinitely appalled by the many women who simply tell their children that they go to the hospital and buy a baby. How dumb do they actually think their children are? What's even more ridiculous is that they are convinced that this type of answer appeases their child, and the kid stops asking questions because they have been given a satisfactory answer. As a matter of fact, though, those are the kids who say to themselves "Okay, mom's crazy...I'm going to ask Michael, at school, who seems to know everything about everything." These also happen to be the kinds of parents who never discuss the birds and bees with their children and then are horrified and extremely angry when their 15 year old comes home pregnant.
Many parents just tell their children that the doctor cuts open their belly and pulls the baby out and then sews her back up.
Well, that's fine and dandy...IF that's how your baby will be born. But it's honestly a bit disgusting to me that parents can be so terrified of saying the word "vagina" that they'd rather fill their child's head with images of doctors with knives. And yes, it happens a lot. I'm telling you, that would be far more traumatizing to MY children than learning that the baby comes out of a part of my body that is MADE for delivering babies.
All in all, I guess that's my policy: Honesty. Kids aren't stupid. And discussing labor and even conception with even very small children does not have to end up being sexually explicit. But you're insulting your child's intelligence when you lie to them.
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Give us your opinion!!! Let us know how YOU feel about 'the talk' and while you're at it, tell us what kind of names YOU have heard those delicate parts referred to as- be they YOUR names, funny names, or whatever!!!
