how do you explain your period? - Page 2

[UnschoolnMa]

My kids can't remember *not* knowing about sex or babies etc. It just flowed openly as they grew up. We tailored the details to what they were asking, but never danced around it. Babies are made when a woman and man have sex. The penis goes into the vagina etc..." It's that penis into the vagina part that trips people up I think lol. Total and complete honesty about the process, and the names of parts is the route we took and still take

[girlndocs]

One point someone made the last time this topic came up here (sorry, don't remember who it was) is that it might be a good idea to get out of the habit of describing women pasively when it comes to sex. "Daddy puts his penis in Mommy's vagina" is really, really woman-passive. "Mommy and Daddy put daddy's penis in Mommy's vagina" is not.

Unfortunately, I didn't think of this before ds asked "How does the sperm get IN the egg?" The first time, anyway :LOL the great thing is they tend to ask the same questions over and over till they absorb the concept, so the other times he asked I was careful to make it sounds like a truly cooperative venture

[bec]

That's a good point, Kristin. It makes it clear there is some cooperation necessary, without getting into a lot of the emotional information that might be above their heads at first.

As far as sex goes, we haven't gotten there yet. But I plan on being as frank and matter-of-fact as I have been about the menstruation explanation. We have already had a few conversations about masturbation and why we don't around other people.


Bec

[BusyBee]

When I was around five, I vividly remember asking my mother why there was blood when she wiped. She told me that inside her body is a special place for babies to grow, and that every month a very tiny egg, so small you can't even see it goes in there. Her body gets ready for this egg by making a lining of blood so that if the egg becomes a baby, it would feed the baby, just like the blood in our veins carry food for our bodies. But if the egg doesn't become a baby, the blood washes away the egg which gets rotten, to clean her body out. It made sense to me, I remember feeling good about my new knowledge. I also remember trying to "inform" my older male cousin who thought babies came out of butt-holes, about the real way women's bodies work. I gave him a visual lesson I think. My aunt wasn't too happy finding me naked with my legs spred apart showing him what a vagina was.

[Meiri]

I've been using the nest idea since DS was old enough to notice the blood some 10 or so years ago. I learned it from a friend who had sons when I was still living in Morgantown 20 years ago.

It's a good way to explain what's going on.

DD just took a sex ed class, age appropriate, and we decided that the details of intercourse would be left for the parents to answer if/when the children asked. In class we covered families, anatomy, baby growth, birth, how families come to be.

[eilonwy]

I explained it to my niece pretty much clinically; an egg and a sperm get together when a mommy and daddy make it happen. The sperm comes out of the penis (she kept asking for more details) and goes into the vagina and the uterus where it meets the egg and starts growing into a baby. She wanted to know other things like "when does it start to make you feel queasy?" and "how long after the sperm and egg meet is the baby so big that you can't bend over?" :LOL I'm pretty sure that at this point, she thinks that sex is exclusively for procreation. At 7, I don't feel any need to dissuade her of that notion. :LOL

For a while, she was "saying goodbye to the cousins in my uterus" (she knows we want two more kids) when I left, and I had to explain to her that while I do have eggs, but they're not cousins yet, just half, potential cousins, and the other half would be inside Mike. The last time she did it, I said in a somewhat horrified voice "there is no cousin in there right now!!" She called back down the stairs "There's halves!" :LOL

At least she hasn't started saying goodbye to Mike's crotch when she sees him! :

[lab]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

At least she hasn't started saying goodbye to Mike's crotch when she sees him! :

That is hysterical! I laughed out loud at that!

What a cool kid!

[PikkuMyy]

Thanks for the nest idea! HOw wonderful - especially since we are birdwatchers, our children will know all about nests and eggs by the time they become curious about periods and sex.

I'll never forget the time this boy I used to babysit for asked me where babies come from. I think he was 6 or 7. I had taken care of him since he was 4 so we knew each other really well. I told him that his parents would want to tell him themselves, so he should ask them and that if they said it was OK for me to explain it to him, I would. He got very indignant, assuring me that they would say it was OK and trying to convince me to tell him over and over again. I wouldn't. Later, when his dad came home from work and the boy was busy, I told him what had happened. It turned out that they had told him all about it the night before and apparently he didn't believe them, and wanted to see if my story would corraborate theirs! :LOL :LOL :LOL

[sunnmama]

Originally Posted by PikkuMyy

It turned out that they had told him all about it the night before and apparently he didn't believe them, and wanted to see if my story would corraborate theirs! :LOL :LOL :LOL

One reason I am so open about all of this is a reaction to how uncomfortable my mother was about all of this. I learned the "facts" from an older neighbor girl (I must have been 8 or 9), and did the same thing: didn't believe it and went to my mother to see if she would corroborate the story. I still remember the conversation (mom was washing dishes):

me: Mom, how are babies made?
mom: Oh, you know!!! Don't you know?!

A couple days later she gave me a book :