My three-year-old explains the moment of conception this way- “If a sperm gets to the egg, there’s a baby. If the sperm doesn’t get to the egg, no baby!” That pretty much sums up all that she knows about the conception process and it’s all I hope to need to tell her for some time. This brief conversation comes up with regularity at our house these days because I am six months pregnant and because she is happy to share her knowledge.
Last year I had the slightly uncomfortable pleasure of sharing about this topic in more detail with two of my older children. I certainly hadn’t planned to bring it up but there it was and so I got to have my first “the birds and the bees” conversation, from the telling end of it.
It came up during, of all times, our Bible study at the beginning of our home-school day. There I was, innocently reading through Genesis with them when we came to the verse that includes the words, “go forth and multiply”.
“What does that mean?” I was asked.
“Well, it means to go have children,” I answered.
“I know that. But how?”
There was no escaping it at that point. I plunged in and told the basic facts, from A to Z.
They weren’t impressed. “Ew.” They had no more questions.
It’s not that I’m a prude. I like to think that I’m fairly open with my kids- Sam and I answer questions as they arise and we don’t hide our affection for each other from them. Well, occasionally I give his hand a slap. But generally speaking.
I think it somehow just feels like an intrusion on my own privacy to fill them in on this whole act of procreation thing. Once they know how it happens, then they’ll know what we've been up to. But maybe not. I’m a grown woman and I find myself perfectly content to believe that my own parents did only what was necessary to conceive the seven children that they had.
Huh. Ok, so maybe I’m a prude after all.
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