Kids + the facts of life

robindch

Doesn't have much to do with A+A... but this weird one appeared in yesterday's Irish Times:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2011/0809/1224302079048.html

...in which a nine-year old girl apparently asked her mum about where babies come from. No idea whether John Sharry made up the question or not, but it seems odd that a kid could have made it to the age of nine without having either asked or found out about it years before (don't they have a telly and nature programs?) The mum squirmed out of answering the question.

My own kid started asking questions last September when she was a bit less than four years old, so I told her the facts in an fun, easy-to-remember, accurate-as-far-as-it-went way. The subsequent BBC series Inside The Human Body, or at least the bits of it that my glitchy UPC box recorded, was pretty good at showing what happens inside the mum-to-be. And over the last few months, she's asked about more and more, in greater detail, so at this point, the only thing left to reveal is the endlessly fun stuff about willies, front bottoms and how all of that works.

Anyhow, it seems peculiar that parents in this day and age could have difficulties talking at least about the basic facts (but that said, some parents I know have kids of five and above who are still at the babies-delivered-by-stork/collected-from-hospital stage... )

Thoughts -- either serious, or Noah Levenstein kind of way

Turtwig

My mother never used the stork or cabbage sprouts explanations to me. Instead her's was that I was a gift from God. It made me feel really special and such was my belief in God that bizarrely it wasn't until I was twelve or thirteen that I copped that my mother had spoken in metaphor. Honestly, I knew a good deal about the basics of sex and how it worked since I was eight or nine. (Having older siblings normally does that.;)) How I never connected the two is perhaps my ultimate experience of becoming aware of my own cognitive dissonance.So, perhaps, if you guys want to share with your own kiddes a nice little lesson in cognitive dissonance suggesting they are a gift from a fairy or something might well be worth it.

As for telling the kiddos I think anything over age four or five. We tend to give 'em much less credit than they deserve and then paradoxically we give them too much credit in areas where they clearly don't deserve it.

Corkfeen

I never asked the question, American tv informed me of how babies are made. Although when I was about 9, my parents gave me a book that summed up all the info, I was one of the youngest children to adopt tons of sex jokes.

magicbastarder

when i was about 7, my dad asked me did i want to know where babies came from. my reply was 's'alright, i'll look it up in the encyclopaedia'.

Mark Hamill

robindch wrote: »

the only thing left to reveal is the endlessly fun stuff about willies, front bottoms and how all of that works.

kylith

I don't ever remember asking how babies are made. I get the feeling that I picked it up from nature programmes. Certainly through various encyclopedias I knew about gametes, chromosomes, and the basics of genes by the time I was 12

The sweetest thing I ever heard was Dara O'Briain quoting a book he'd had "When a man and a woman are married, and want a baby, they hug in a special way".

Galvasean

I think David Attenborough explained to me.
Is running to the hills when asked "Where do babies come from?" an Irish thing or is it a much wider phenomenon? It seems very OTT the great lenghts people go to avoid the question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixoK-94Aqr0

MagicMarker

I still don't know.

ShooterSF

MagicMarker wrote: »

I still don't know.

All explained here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bstmPIIAmlY

Ickle Magoo

We had friends that had a farm that we visited in the holidays and so where babies come from and how they get in there was just picked up and assumed from watching the animals - tho I do still have nightmares about the time I asked my dad what masturbation was...and to give him his dues he did try his best to give an explanation, including the accidental explanatory hand-gesture. :eek: :pac:

As for my kids; we opened the front door one day when they were 4 or 5 to see two frogs merrily croaking and humping away and when asked what they were doing I said they were making baby frogs. It was gas to watch them watch the frogs and see the dawn of realisation cross their faces. We had a few follow-up questions about how humans differ from frogs and that's been about it so far. :cool:

wonderfulname

I'm very surprised that nobody has mentioned this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIjZgg1lLg8

They just don't make cartoons like they used to! At any rate that's where my earliest knowledge came from, and I was very young at the time, the proper facts of life came at age 10 in the form of a book, I never did get "the talk".

Sarky

That cartoon confused the hell out of me. The scale was completely off, there were genes as big as the cells they were supposed to live inside, bacteria and viruses were the same size, there were even photons as big as bumblebees FFS!

nozzferrahhtoo

robindch wrote: »

Anyhow, it seems peculiar that parents in this day and age could have difficulties talking at least about the basic facts (but that said, some parents I know have kids of five and above who are still at the babies-delivered-by-stork/collected-from-hospital stage... )

It has baffled me for some long time too. I have asked parents who have not told their kids about sex, and even parents who actively work to avoid letting their kids learn about sex (right down to opposing sexual education programms in school or keeping their kids home from school on those days) why they do it.

The only answer I EVER get... literally ever... is that they are protecting their childrens "innocence" and they want the children to stay "innocent" as long as possible.

When "innocence" became synonymous with being ignorant about human biology however I am not sure, nor do I understand the relation. I likely never will.

wonderfulname

Sarky wrote: »

That cartoon confused the hell out of me. The scale was completely off, there were genes as big as the cells they were supposed to live inside, bacteria and viruses were the same size, there were even photons as big as bumblebees FFS!

Are you sure? when the genes are on screen that big expanse around them is meant to be the cell, I always understood the implication as a child, is this a bit of a doogle thing where you're confusing small and far away?

And as for the bacteria and viruses thing, many adults think they're the same thing never mind the same size, it's such a minor issue considering the age that it's targeted at and the knowledge it imparts.

Otacon

Sarky wrote: »

...there were even photons as big as bumblebees FFS!

I can't access the video at work but photons? What kind of video is this?

wonderfulname

Otacon wrote: »

I can't access the video at work but photons? What kind of video is this?

Il était une fois... la vie (English: Once Upon a Time...Life) is a French animated television series which tells the story of the human body for children.The program was originally produced in France in 1987 by Procidis and directed by Albert Barillé...

The depiction of human body is made with the help of animation of the different agents in it such as the Red blood cell, Bacteria, Viruses, the Nervous system etc. Every episode of the series featured a different organ or system within the human body (like the Brain, the Heart, the Circulatory system, Childbirth, etc.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time..._Life

It really is an awesome show.

iguana

robindch wrote: »

so at this point, the only thing left to reveal is the endlessly fun stuff about willies, front bottoms and how all of that works.

Is she a very inquisitive type who likes to independently confirm things you have told her? I ask because when I was a toddler I saw my dad get out of the bath and was puzzled as to why he was so different to me and my mum. My parents explained that it was a penis and that boys and men have them.

I obviously wasn't 100% convinced as that night at my grandmother's house I followed my uncle (who would have been pubescent at the time) to the bathroom and burst in on him when he was going to the toilet. He was annoyed/embarrassed and told me to get out and I told him that I needed to check if he had a peanut like my daddy, and he did but my daddy's was a lot bigger. Then I went downstairs and repeated my findings to my parents, grandparents and 3 older uncles.

iguana

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

tho I do still have nightmares about the time I asked my dad what masturbation was...and to give him his dues he did try his best to give an explanation, including the accidental explanatory hand-gesture. :eek: :pac:

That's a bit like when my parents explained conception to me while making a salad and my dad ended up using the veg as a visual guide with the tomato seeds as sperm.

kylith

iguana wrote: »

That's a bit like when my parents explained conception to me while making a salad and my dad ended up using the veg as a visual guide with the tomato seeds as sperm.

I think that needs to go in the 'Awkward Moments With Your Parents' thread in AH. I'd never be able to look at a cucumber again if that'd happened me.

strobe

Just tell them the truth.

kylith

My old biology teacher told her leaving cert class that it took 3 people to make a baby; a man, a woman, and god.

Ghost Buster

kylith wrote: »

My old biology teacher told her leaving cert class that it took 3 people to make a baby; a man, a woman, and god.

What does he shout at climax?
Oh me!!!!!!
?

Mark Hamill

kylith wrote: »

My old biology teacher told her leaving cert class that it took 3 people to make a baby; a man, a woman, and god.

God owes a lot of people a lot of child support so.

mohawk

kylith wrote: »

My old biology teacher told her leaving cert class that it took 3 people to make a baby; a man, a woman, and god.

Who would of thought god was into threesomes!!!

Sarky

All the signs were there from Day One, really...

smokingman

mohawk wrote: »

Who would of thought god was into threesomes!!!

Nah, he's more into rape....poor poor Mary.

the culture of deference

My daughter asked what a stiffy was when she was 8, we had told her all the facts at 5 or 6 years old.

also was watching boston legal last night, episode about girl who got aids from her 1st sexual exp, but who went to a school which taught abstinance only, no sex ed at all, to get US federal funding.