The talk

Sep 18

I am the child of hippies. And as such, I grew up with a working knowledge of all kinds of things that straighter parents didn't pass on to their kids. Oh I'm sure that Dude's parents explained the physical differences between boys and girls to him at a very young age, but was he privy to a book that explained the differences and showed nude photographic examples of boys and men/girls and women at varying ages? I'm guessing no. Of course, I also thought smoking pot was no different than smoking cigarettes - just something that some adults do. And I'd seen those special cigarettes rolled and felt confident that I could successfully roll one should the opportunity arise. No biggie. It was all cool. Groovy even. But let's get back to the naked thing. I've always thought that I'd be a pro at explaining these sorts of things to my girls. Yesterday, I got my first crack at it.


I've mentioned casually to Belly and the Bug on several occasions that boys and girls are anatomically different. They didn't seem to express any interest in the subject, so it was left at that. But lately? Buggy is veeeerrrrrrrrrry interested in the fact that her daddy has a little something extra going on that's different from what she's got. And since the three of them take a shower together every night, I decided it was time to sit down and have a formal conversation about it.

I set up the bowl of tortilla chips and the juice and invited the girls to sit with me. I asked if anyone wanted to have a talk. Belly's eyes lit up and she said, "YES, Mama!" Buggy said, "Sure! Do you want to talk about Sesame Street?" I suggested that we talk about how boys and girls have different body parts. Buggy gave me a total "whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis" look and Belly crammed about forty chips in her mouth. And so began their first "talk" about this sort of thing. They listened intently (amidst the chip crunching) and interjected thoughts here and there. I felt like it went as well as can be expected when having this discussion with two nearly-three-year-olds.

When all was said and done, I asked, "Any questions?"
Belly: "What letter does penis start with?"
Me: "Penis? It starts with a pa-pa-pa sound. What letter makes that sound?"
Belly: "P."
Me: "That's right."
Buggy: "Okaaaaay. But then, what does hippopotamus start with?"

Yes. Those questions instilled the confidence that I explained things perfectly. They clearly understood and processed their new knowledge immediately. I anticipate that this immediate changing of the subject will be par for the course when we have conversations such as these over the years. Ugh. And there will be so many. I'm dreading the teen years so fiercely already. Assuming we all make it through three....

Saturday, September 18, 2010 | Labels: , , |

 

1 comments:

Bridget McCarthy said...

I grew up with the complete opposite of hippie parents. I didn't know there WAS a difference between boys and girls. Imagine my surprise with my first boyfriend: What the hell IS THAT THING?!

September 21, 2010 at 8:45 AM  

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