Times have changed, but the birds and bees have not
I remember the first time Kate asked me how babies get in mommies’ tummies. I also remember how quickly I uttered, “I’ll tell you about it when you get a little older.”
It was a first, panicked “No way, we’re so not having that conversation right now” response.
Since then, she has continued to ask more random questions about how things happen, but thankfully it has been more centered on how babies get out, not how they get in.
With her questions, then Sela’s questions about whether babies really live in mommies’ tummies where the food goes, I gradually realized I needed to have some good answers for these questions and soon, because if I didn’t, someone at school or on the playground surely would.
On one of the first days of kindergarten last year, Kate came home and said, “Is Santa Claus real? Because so-and-so said he’s not, and it’s really just our parents.”
That showed me that with “big school” comes lots of new ideas and questions, and it’s my job to be on top of it — to show that I’m the one with the right answers.
What did I tell Kate about Santa Claus, you ask? It was along the lines of, “He’s real if you believe in him.”
I know, way to give a vague answer. But I decided that while being vague about Santa is one thing, being vague about where babies come from is a whole other beast.
This is something kids will and do talk about, and if I don’t get in front of it early, I fear 7-year-old Kate or 4-year-old Sela will hear things — true or untrue — and be so shocked or scared that they won’t want to talk to me about it. And I always want them to feel comfortable coming to me and talking to me about anything. So to open the door for that to happen, I have to tell them the truth as much as I can.
A friend told me about a website called Birds and Bees (their tagline is “Birds and bees, oh help me please!”) run by two lovely women, Mary Flo Ridley and Megan Michelson, who want to help prepare, encourage and equip parents to talk to their children about, well, the birds and the bees.
The world and our culture has changed a lot since we were kids and had “the talk” right around puberty. We probably all sweated through that single session while our parent (mom for girl, dad for boy) armed us with all we needed to get through the hormonal roller coasters of adolescence and “our changing bodies.”
But now, with social media saturation, easy access to explicit photos on Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube and everything else, we parents have to arm our kids much earlier.
As Mary Flo and Megan say, “Instead of growing up with a blank page, or worse, a page filled with confusion based on media images or porn, what if children grew up knowing the value and purposes of sex? What if they understood the design of birth, conception and reproduction? And better yet, what if they learned this from conversations with the people who love them the most?”
Yes, yes and yes.
Matt came home from work one day after I’d discovered this website and I laid it on him: “The next time one of the girls asks about where babies come from, I’m going to tell them the truth and use the real words.”
It was probably a little much to throw at him after a long day at work, but he watched the videos on the website and agreed it was a good idea — as long as I was the one to do it!
But that’s fine by me.
The six short videos aim to arm parents with age-appropriate answers and definitions, and I’ve watched four of them so far. Kate has yet to ask another hard question, but the next time she does, I’m prepared (I hope!) to give her the whole answer and “dazzle her,” as they say on the website, with the truth so that she sees me as the expert — and not the know-it-all on the swingset!
If you’re interested, the website is birds-bees.com.
I’d love to connect! You can email me at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website, LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks, on Twitter @LaurenKDenton or on Facebook. My first novel, “The Hideaway,” releases April 11 and is available for pre-order from Amazon.