I probably should rate my blog PG for those parents who don't want their kids knowing anything about this subject. I'm mainly posting this for those parents who worry about the day that their kids ask them "that" question.
Normally, I don't go into details over this question because usually the people that ask me or my husband "You know how that happens, right?" are only teasing and we give some equally humorous comeback and leave it at that.
Also when I was a kid this was an embarrassing subject that no one felt comfortable asking questions about.
Well, I was faced with the difficult task of explaining to my children how babies are made. We were sitting at the table and Jonathan (4) says that when he grows up he'll have a baby in his tummy. I then explained that he will be a daddy when he grows up and that only mommies can have babies in their tummies. I told him that one day when he gets married his wife will carry his baby.
He is my 4th child and I've actually had this question asked plenty of times before. My eldest, Joshua who is 13 was fairly simple for me to handle because I turned that task over to his dad to give him that father/ son talk when he was about 9 or so. Well, when our lunch time discussion took place, I saw this was no longer a task that I could just leave to my husband to handle because now it was our daughters that were also asking questions.
I believe in only giving a child as much information as they want to know on a subject like this. We don't watch t.v. except an occasional movie. We don't let them run free on the internet. To them kissing on the lips is something you don't do until you're married. So whenever someone on a movie kisses they ask if they're married.
My first explanation is that the mommy has part of the baby and the daddy gives her his part of the baby and God puts the two parts together and the baby grows in the mommy's tummy. That used to be enough of an explanation to satisfy their curiosity. Not anymore!
Joshua had given the technical name of the daddy's contribution. Then the girls commenced to speculating how the daddy gives his part of the baby to the mommy. They thought that when the parents kiss the daddy spits his part into the mommy's mouth. Hannah was hollering, "Ewwww... that's gross!" I saw that I wouldn't have to worry about them kissing boys. But I also realized that this needed to be our biology lesson for the day. The above picture is the kids all set for my explanation.
Okay, sensitive folks may want to stop reading here. But for those parents who want to know how I handled this "every parent's nightmare" situation here is my explanation. But don't be offended because I'm warning you now. :-)
First, I told the kids that they know the differences between boys and girls because they've seen me change lots of diapers. They all agreed. Hannah even mentioned having seen her baby cousin's diaper changed which is a girl.
This is the pictures I drew on the board. I explained that my pictures were not exact and not to scale. This was just for illustration purpose. I first drew the picture on the left of the female reproductive system.
I explained how that God created girls with a whole lot of eggs inside of their ovaries. I then explained that when they begin to turn into women they will release an egg once every month. I then explained the menstrual cycle. I had to explain for Jonathan's sake that boys don't have to worry about that part. They just need to know for when they have wives.
Now mind you that the kids are all making comments and asking questions throughout the whole explanation. I'll give a few of those at the end of my commentary.
After getting through the explanation of the menstrual cycle, I then drew the internal reproductive organs of boys. I reminded them of boy diaper changes, so that they would know what area I was talking about. Yes, I gave them all the technical names for all the parts.
I then explained how when boys become men they will produce sperm. I then explained how the sperm exits the same area urine exits but the sperm is produced in the testes not the bladder.
Then when a man marries a woman they come together and as the Bible says they become one flesh. They join together.
I would have stopped there but the girls then asked, "How do they join together?"
I then drew the picture on top of the board of the funnel. I explained that whenever you want to pour something from one area into another area that is smaller you would use a funnel. I drew a picture of a bottle with a funnel and a bucket of water and told them how the water goes into the funnel and into the bottle. I then erased the bucket and put a bunch of dots to represent sperm and erased the bottom part of the bottle and explained that the boy part (a.k.a penis) was the funnel that inserted the sperm into the womb.
They still wanted to know more and I explained how parents share a bed and made sure that they understood that the sperm doesn't just jump across the bed but that it was only when they join together that they can make a baby.
The light came on at that point. They told me what they thought I was saying and I told them they were exactly right. They then said that even though they didn't understand it all they could wait until they were married to figure the rest out. I told them that they now know more than I knew when I first married and that it's fine to not understand it all. It's okay to figure the rest out then.
Now for the comments and questions they had during my explanation.
They all imagined chicken eggs when I talked about how women have eggs inside of them. Jonathan thought I was going to crack and be cooked because I have eggs in me.
Jonathan was real caught up on the sperm part as well and even offered me his which I explained that when he grew up he would give those to his wife. Remember he's 4 and he has the totally wrong idea of how this works. I informed him that in a few years daddy will reexplain it all to him.
Thankfully Jonathan forgot the word "sperm" by the time Scott got home and when he asked me what it was that was inside of him I sent him to go ask Daddy his questions. Scott told him about his heart and his lungs. How digestion works, etc. He even told him about his kidneys and blood. This was all fastenating information to Jonathan. And Scott wisely avoided any further explanation of reproduction to Jonathan. Like me, Scott didn't want Jonathan explaining it to every stranger that greeted us in the store. I could just see that the next time someone asks us, "You know how that happens, right?"
I hope this post helps some of you with children know how to broach that inevitable question. Only give children as much information as they want to know. You'll know when it's enough to satisfy their curiosity without having to go further. They'll usually say okay and switch subjects or run off to play or they'll keep asking questions.
All children are different but hopefully you can get some ideas from my experience. :-)
Matthew 15:4-6 "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
Normally, I don't go into details over this question because usually the people that ask me or my husband "You know how that happens, right?" are only teasing and we give some equally humorous comeback and leave it at that.
Also when I was a kid this was an embarrassing subject that no one felt comfortable asking questions about.
Well, I was faced with the difficult task of explaining to my children how babies are made. We were sitting at the table and Jonathan (4) says that when he grows up he'll have a baby in his tummy. I then explained that he will be a daddy when he grows up and that only mommies can have babies in their tummies. I told him that one day when he gets married his wife will carry his baby.
He is my 4th child and I've actually had this question asked plenty of times before. My eldest, Joshua who is 13 was fairly simple for me to handle because I turned that task over to his dad to give him that father/ son talk when he was about 9 or so. Well, when our lunch time discussion took place, I saw this was no longer a task that I could just leave to my husband to handle because now it was our daughters that were also asking questions.
I believe in only giving a child as much information as they want to know on a subject like this. We don't watch t.v. except an occasional movie. We don't let them run free on the internet. To them kissing on the lips is something you don't do until you're married. So whenever someone on a movie kisses they ask if they're married.
My first explanation is that the mommy has part of the baby and the daddy gives her his part of the baby and God puts the two parts together and the baby grows in the mommy's tummy. That used to be enough of an explanation to satisfy their curiosity. Not anymore!
Joshua had given the technical name of the daddy's contribution. Then the girls commenced to speculating how the daddy gives his part of the baby to the mommy. They thought that when the parents kiss the daddy spits his part into the mommy's mouth. Hannah was hollering, "Ewwww... that's gross!" I saw that I wouldn't have to worry about them kissing boys. But I also realized that this needed to be our biology lesson for the day. The above picture is the kids all set for my explanation.
Okay, sensitive folks may want to stop reading here. But for those parents who want to know how I handled this "every parent's nightmare" situation here is my explanation. But don't be offended because I'm warning you now. :-)
First, I told the kids that they know the differences between boys and girls because they've seen me change lots of diapers. They all agreed. Hannah even mentioned having seen her baby cousin's diaper changed which is a girl.
This is the pictures I drew on the board. I explained that my pictures were not exact and not to scale. This was just for illustration purpose. I first drew the picture on the left of the female reproductive system.
I explained how that God created girls with a whole lot of eggs inside of their ovaries. I then explained that when they begin to turn into women they will release an egg once every month. I then explained the menstrual cycle. I had to explain for Jonathan's sake that boys don't have to worry about that part. They just need to know for when they have wives.
Now mind you that the kids are all making comments and asking questions throughout the whole explanation. I'll give a few of those at the end of my commentary.
After getting through the explanation of the menstrual cycle, I then drew the internal reproductive organs of boys. I reminded them of boy diaper changes, so that they would know what area I was talking about. Yes, I gave them all the technical names for all the parts.
I then explained how when boys become men they will produce sperm. I then explained how the sperm exits the same area urine exits but the sperm is produced in the testes not the bladder.
Then when a man marries a woman they come together and as the Bible says they become one flesh. They join together.
I would have stopped there but the girls then asked, "How do they join together?"
I then drew the picture on top of the board of the funnel. I explained that whenever you want to pour something from one area into another area that is smaller you would use a funnel. I drew a picture of a bottle with a funnel and a bucket of water and told them how the water goes into the funnel and into the bottle. I then erased the bucket and put a bunch of dots to represent sperm and erased the bottom part of the bottle and explained that the boy part (a.k.a penis) was the funnel that inserted the sperm into the womb.
They still wanted to know more and I explained how parents share a bed and made sure that they understood that the sperm doesn't just jump across the bed but that it was only when they join together that they can make a baby.
The light came on at that point. They told me what they thought I was saying and I told them they were exactly right. They then said that even though they didn't understand it all they could wait until they were married to figure the rest out. I told them that they now know more than I knew when I first married and that it's fine to not understand it all. It's okay to figure the rest out then.
Now for the comments and questions they had during my explanation.
They all imagined chicken eggs when I talked about how women have eggs inside of them. Jonathan thought I was going to crack and be cooked because I have eggs in me.
Jonathan was real caught up on the sperm part as well and even offered me his which I explained that when he grew up he would give those to his wife. Remember he's 4 and he has the totally wrong idea of how this works. I informed him that in a few years daddy will reexplain it all to him.
Thankfully Jonathan forgot the word "sperm" by the time Scott got home and when he asked me what it was that was inside of him I sent him to go ask Daddy his questions. Scott told him about his heart and his lungs. How digestion works, etc. He even told him about his kidneys and blood. This was all fastenating information to Jonathan. And Scott wisely avoided any further explanation of reproduction to Jonathan. Like me, Scott didn't want Jonathan explaining it to every stranger that greeted us in the store. I could just see that the next time someone asks us, "You know how that happens, right?"
I hope this post helps some of you with children know how to broach that inevitable question. Only give children as much information as they want to know. You'll know when it's enough to satisfy their curiosity without having to go further. They'll usually say okay and switch subjects or run off to play or they'll keep asking questions.
All children are different but hopefully you can get some ideas from my experience. :-)
Matthew 15:4-6 "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
So that's how that happens . . .:)
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