"The Talk"

My baby boy has had the talk. My sweet little guy who just yielded up his red cowboy hat a couple days ago (give or take 5 years) has had the manly-man talk.

Two down, two to go.

Joel is my ever-curious child, so I should have been more prepared for last night's question. Quite the opposite of Ethan, Joel has been very curious about sex since he found out that Ethan knew something he didn't know. Joel didn't even have any idea that sex was in any way related to baby-making. He just knew it was a word that was foreign to him but known to his brother.....so he had to know.

Joel is a young little ten year old and I wasn't so sure he was ready. I bought him a book, recommended by Focus on the Family, that gives the facts without giving all the facts. It is in the same series as the book we gave Ethan, but is geared toward 7 - 9 year old boys. I like the honest, scientific answers it gives. I think this is great because the child can then decide if they want to pursue more or not. I was sure it would be enough to satisfy Joel at the time. I was wrong.

So when he asked me how the sperm got to the egg, I said, "Oh! Um. Oh!" and then I laughed and I laughed. I once came home with the exact same question to my mom when I was six years old and got to see an "educational" film at school. My poor mom.

I quickly explained to Joel that I was not laughing at him, but at myself. I asked him what he thought of the book. He had gobbled it up within an hour, quite surprising me. He said it was kinda gross. I assured him that the rest of the story was much more "gross"....was he sure he didn't want to wait a bit longer?

Quite sure.

So he moved on to the next book.

An hour later, he found me and hugged me and hugged me.

And hugged me and hugged me.

His little snuggles and squeezes were his innocent attempts to go back to ignorant childhood. They were a flailing effort at bleaching his brain, I think. We did very little talking. Snuggles were what he needed to assure him that all was still right with the world.

Joel told me he thinks the whole thing is weird and gross, but okay. He shrugged and shook his head. He went to breakfast with Daddy this morning. Chris had him narrate back the way the deed is done. He fielded questions and they enjoyed each other's company.

Here is the book we gave Joel that gently introduces the topic, while still being very informative:

Here is the book he moved up to when he needed the nitty-gritty:

They also have the exact same series, but made for girls. I have been so impressed with these books. They certainly have made this easy on us. For books on purity and attitudes towards sex, I've also been impressed with books from Generations of Virtue.

We have tried one book that I was not impressed with and it was called Wonderful Way That Babies Are Made. Don't be mad at me if you loved this book; hear me out. I bought it because I thought it was beautiful. It seemed to introduce things very gently, with two-page spreads offering two different levels of the story to read aloud, depending on how ready the child is. I loved the way it introduced healthy attitudes toward sex and God's beautiful perspective on the whole thing. But it only appealed to me. The kids did not get any actual knowledge from the book. Healthy attitudes about sex went right over their heads because it was too vague in its explanation of what sex really is. Somehow, after Ethan read this book, he walked away thinking the "sperm gets to the ovum" when the guy spits in his wife's mouth.

The book never implied this, but it was vague enough for him to draw his own conclusions based on a picture of a man kissing a woman.

Can we all just say Ewwwww?

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