A few months back, my son and I had the whole “where do babies come from?” conversation. It was quite explicit and detailed, as he was no longer satisfied with the stock egg meets sperm answer. But it was fine, and aside from wishing to be a fly on the wall in the kindergarten playground the next day, the whole thing never really came up again.
This morning, out of the blue, my daughter asked from the back seat of the car, “So. Where do babies come from anyway?”
You see, she’d heard the question those few months back, but never the answer. Obviously, she was feeling a little ripped off.
“This is not a conversation I’m going to have in the 2 minutes it takes to drive you to daycare. We’ll discuss it tonight.”
I dropped her off thinking, Whew! Dodged a bullet there!
You see, I had no problem having the talk with her brother, who’s 6, but I was a little hesitant to get into it with her, at 4.
But as soon as I picked her up, the first words out of her mouth were, “Remember this morning, when we were driving to school…”
“Yes, yes. I remember.”
“So?”
“So, what happens is this. The mommy has a seed, and the daddy has a seed, and when the 2 seeds get together in a woman’s tummy, it makes a baby.”
“Uh…” my son piped up, “that’s not exactly how it happens, Mom. There aren’t 2 seeds. There’s an egg, and there’s sperm. REMEMBER?”
“Yes. I remember, sweetheart. But your sister is not quite at an age where she gets all that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s called giving age appropriate information. I only tell you guys what you can absorb, and what’s appropriate for you to know at your age.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s easy,” his sister said. “Mommy’s saying that because you’re a few years older than me, you can understand more than I can. Right, Mommy?”
“Uh, yeah…”
Except suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.
Ha! That is one bright little girl. Brace yrself, mama.
LOL! Our kids will show us up every time.